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She Was Found Wrapped in Trash Bags Inside a Freezer · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine for a second that you're just walking down the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: stairs into your own basement. It's just a completely normal
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: mundane Tuesday evening, right? You are trying to figure out
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: what to make for dinner.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: You check the fridge upstairs and you realize, well, you're
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: out of hamburger meat.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Which happens to all of us.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But you remember, oh, there's a chest freezer down
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: in the basement. It's like a brand new freezer. Right.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Because an acquaintance recently brought it over, you know, and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: paid you a few bucks to store some things in it.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: So you think, hey, maybe there's some frozen ground beef
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: inside that he wouldn't mind me borrowing.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Makes total sense. Right.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: So you get to the bottom of the stairs, you
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: walk over to it, but you notice a heavy metal
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: padlock secured right to the front.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Which, I mean, immediately shifts the context of that freezer.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: It goes from a shared storage unit to like... a vault.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Because you don't padlock frozen peas, you know?
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: You really don't. But, I mean, you're hungry, and you
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: figure he's just being, I don't know, overly protective of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: a bulk meat purchase or something.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Right, you rationalize it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So you grab a Phillips head screwdriver off the workbench,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: you unscrew the metal hinges on the back to just
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: bypass the lock entirely, and you lift this heavy white lid.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: You expect to see frozen groceries, but instead you find
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a five-gallon Home Depot bucket with, like, A bright orange lid.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's not meat.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: No. And next to it, a red backpack. You unzip
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the backpack and inside, heavily tied within multiple layers of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: thick industrial black trash bags.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: You find human remains.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: That is just, it forces a complete psychological rupture. Yeah.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Because we rely so heavily on the sanctity of our
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: own homes. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: We assume a baseline level of safety and predictability when
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: we lock our front doors. So to find something so
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: profoundly violent hidden among your own, like, laundry machines and
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: holiday decorations.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: It shatters everything.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: It completely shatters your reality.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying because the evil is cloaked in the absolute
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: most mundane packaging possible. Literally a chest freezer in a
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: suburban basement.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the contrast is just jarring.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: So today we are unpacking the mountain of source material
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: surrounding the disappearance and murder of 27-year-old Shannon Graves. This
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: is in Youngstown, Ohio.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And our focus today isn't just, you know, a grim
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: recounting of the timeline. We really want to look at
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the psychology of the people who put her in that freezer.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Because that's where it gets so complex.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: It really does. Our mission for this deep dive is
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to understand the tangled web of deception they wove and, well,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the bizarre series of amateur, chaotic mistakes they made.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Just so many mistakes.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: So many. And how a completely unrelated digital footprint ultimately
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: brought this entire house of cards crashing down.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: And honestly, the contrast between the digital evidence and the
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: physical evidence is what makes this specific case so illuminating.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: We are going to be dissecting the behavioral baselines of
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: the victim, the interrogation strategies used by detectives, which are
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: incredible here, and the actual science behind both the forensics
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: and the perpetrators totally failed attempts to destroy evidence.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this, because we have to start with
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Shannon Graves herself. Understanding who she was is, frankly, the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: only way to understand how her disappearance went completely unnoticed
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: for months.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Right, you have to establish that baseline.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So Shannon was 27, living in Youngstown. Her older half-sister, Debbie,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: was essentially her surrogate mother.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And Debbie was very open with investigators about Shannon's past.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: She had a history of, well, running with a tough crowd.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: She dropped out of high school as a sophomore, spent
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a few years navigating a pretty high-risk lifestyle. She was
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: working as an exotic dancer, struggling with substance abuse, and
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: she historically gravitated toward men with criminal backgrounds.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: And see, that background establishes a really critical baseline for investigators.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Well, in victimology, understanding a person's routine dictates how quickly
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: their absence is classified as an emergency.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Ah, okay, I see.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: So if a highly regimented accountant, you know, doesn't show
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: up for a 9 a.m. meeting, alarms go off instantly.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Right, because that never happens.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah. But Shannon wasn't highly regimented.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: No, she wasn't, although she was actually trying to turn
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: her life around at this point.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Which makes it so tragic.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: It really does. Debbie had introduced her to hairstyling, and
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Shannon was enrolled in cosmetology school. She was making real,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: tangible strides.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: But she retained this one lingering habit from her past.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: She would go completely radio silent.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Just drop off the grid.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Completely. Her family noted she would frequently just vanish for
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: weeks at a time. No texts, no calls. And then
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: she'd just resurface later as if nothing had happened.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And that creates a phenomenon known as a protective buffer
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: for the perpetrator.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: A protective buffer. Yeah.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: When a victim has a documented history of voluntary estrangement,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: the people closest to them are essentially conditioned not to panic.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Wow. That makes so much sense.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Right. They apply a framework of normalcy to abnormal silence.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: The family just assumes, oh, this is just Shannon being Shannon.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So they don't call the cops.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a tragic irony. But a victim's own past
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: behavior often becomes the perfect camouflage for their murder.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Because it buys the killer time. Yes.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: It delays the deployment of search parties, police resources and
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: forensic teams during those incredibly crucial first 48 hours.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And that camouflage stretched out for an agonizingly long time
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: in this case. I mean, Shannon is last seen around
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: mid-February of 2017, just after Valentine's Day. Then Debbie's birthday passes.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Shannon doesn't show up.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Which is unusual for her. Very.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Debbie noted this was highly unusual because despite her habit
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of disappearing... Shannon always maintained certain anchors, like family birthdays
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and Sunday dinners at her dad's house were sacred.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, so that's a red flag.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: A huge one. Then Easter passes. Then Father's Day. Meanwhile,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: her bank accounts and cell phone activity had completely flatlined
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: by the end of February.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Wow, so no digital footprint at all.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: None. But her family didn't have access to her financial records,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: so they didn't know that. They were just operating in
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the dark.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: And operating in the dark like that eventually breeds a
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: very specific kind of desperation. You reach a tipping point
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: where that normalcy bias breaks down, and you just have
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: to force an interaction to verify proof of life.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the text message that changes absolutely everything.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: The digital slip-up.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's June, four full months since anyone has laid
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: eyes on Shannon. Her half-brother, AJ, decides he just can't
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: wait anymore. So he texts Shannon's phone, just wanting to
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: see if the number is still active. Right. And shockingly,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: he gets a reply. The text reads, Okay. So AJ replies,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: your brother. And the response he receives back is the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: catalyst that completely shatters the illusion. The text reads, I
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: don't have a brother.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Which is just a catastrophic failure in digital impersonation.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I'm so stuck on this detail. If you are a
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: perpetrator holding a victim's phone, your only goal is to
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: maintain the illusion that the victim is.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Alive, right? The only reason to keep the phone on. Right.
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  Speaker 1: You want to buy yourself time. So why on earth
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: would you engage with an unknown number and claim the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: victim doesn't have a brother? It's the equivalent of a
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: kidnapper calling the family to ask who they are.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Why risk sending anything at all?
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Well, it comes down to the cognitive load required to
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: successfully steal an identity.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: When someone takes over a device, they often suffer from
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: an illusion of absolute control. They hold the physical phone,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: so they believe they hold the person.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: But a life is made up of deeply nuanced biographical data, right?
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Inside jokes, established relationship dynamics. The person holding Shannon's phone
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: didn't have that data.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: So they panicked.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When the text from an unknown number came in,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: they likely experienced a massive spike of paranoia. Instead of
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: just ignoring it, they reacted defensively. They tried to shut
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: down the conversation by asserting a false fact. Wow. They
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: thought they were shutting a door, but they actually tripped
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: a massive alarm.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: They fundamentally misunderstood the person they were trying to be.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Precisely. And it highlights a huge vulnerability for modern criminals.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: You can physically eliminate a person, sure, but assuming their
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: digital persona requires a level of intimacy and biographical mastery
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  Speaker 2: that almost no killer possesses.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: That's a really chilling way to put it.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: That single defensive text message immediately verified to the family
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: that a stranger was operating Shannon's life.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: The family sees that message and the panic is instantaneous.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Debbie officially files a missing persons report on June 22nd,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: four months after Shannon vanished.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Four months.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: But what's so chilling is that while her digital trail
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: was frozen in February, the physical artifacts of her life
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: were being actively dismantled by the people closest to her.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And this is where the investigation has to pivot, right?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: From analyzing the victim's timeline to analyzing the behaviors of
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: the people residing in her immediate orbit.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the two men in Shannon's life because
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: the dichotomy between them is just fascinating. First, you have
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Arturo Novoa, who sometimes uses the alias Anthony Gonzalez. This
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: is Shannon's current boyfriend at the time she disappears. When
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: investigators start asking questions, Arturo has a very smooth, prepackaged
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  Speaker 1: narrative ready to go.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Of course he does.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Right. He claims that he and Shannon got into a
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: massive relationship-ending fight and she simply packed up and ran
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: off to Cleveland with some other man.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Notice how perfectly that alibi is engineered to exploit the
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: victim's established behavioral baseline.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, because of her history of running off?
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Yes. Arturo is weaponizing Shannon's history against her own family
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: and the police. He is essentially saying, hey, she ran
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: off with a bad boy again, just like she always does.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Wow, that is manipulative.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: It provides a narrative that requires the least amount of
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: cognitive friction for the authorities to... accept.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: And honestly, it's a great theory until you look at
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the physical evidence she supposedly abandoned. Arturo claims she started
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: a brand new life in Cleveland, but she left her
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: car behind, which Arturo is now conveniently driving.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: But more importantly, she left her dog, Molly.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Which is huge.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Massive. Debbie made it explicitly clear to investigators that Molly
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: was Shannon's baby. They were inseparable. Shannon treated that dog
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: better than a human toddler.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: You have to ask yourself, would a woman completely uproot
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: her life, run off with a new lover, and leave
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: her most cherished companion in the custody of the bitter
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: ex-boyfriend she just had a massive fight with?
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: It completely defies fundamental human attachment theory.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Material possessions like a car. I mean, those can be rationalized, right?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe she didn't want the financial ties. Maybe the new
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: guy had a car. Sure. But a pet represents a
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: primary emotional bond. Leaving the dog behind introduces a massive
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: logical inconsistency into Arturo's runaway narrative. It's a glaring red
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: flag that investigators immediately recognize.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And then you contrast Arturo's incredibly passive, dismissive behavior with
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Shannon's ex-boyfriend, John Scara.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Right, the ex.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: John is a recently paroled drug dealer. On paper, he
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: is the exact archetype of the bad boy from Shannon's past.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: The police naturally have their guard up around him.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: But John's actions are entirely incongruent with a guilty conscience.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: He's the one organizing community search parties. He's actively surveilling
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Shannon's old apartment, taking notes on who is coming and going.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: He is visibly distraught.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: The investigators are presented with an inverted reality here.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Inverted how?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Well, the seemingly clean-cut current boyfriend is displaying highly deceptive,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: self-serving behavior, right? While the known felon ex-boyfriend... is acting
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: with the proactive desperation of a grieving loved one.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It forces the police to look past their inherent
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: biases regarding criminal records and focus purely on behavioral evidence.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And John's surveillance actually pays off. He starts shaking the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: trees in their social circle, and he uncovers a rumor.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Someone in town is talking about a fire.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: A fire.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Specifically, a fire where Shannon's belongings were being burned. And
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: this rumor brings a man named Andrew Herman directly into
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: the police station.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: This is a really critical juncture. The introduction of an
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: accomplice who is just buckling under psychological pressure.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Andrew is an acquaintance of Arturo's. They collaborated on
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: some local music projects. Andrew walks into the station completely
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: on his own accord.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Just walks right in. Yeah.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: He sits down and tells detectives that he has been
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: watching a lot of true crime television shows lately.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Ah.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: And the rumors flying around town about Shannon are making
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: him intensely paranoid. He wants to clear his conscience. He
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: admits that back in late February or early March, which
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: perfectly aligns with the end of Shannon's digital footprint, Arturo
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: asked him for a favor.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Let me guess. He needed help with a fire. Exactly.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Arturo fed Andrew the same story. Shannon ran off to
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Cleveland with a new guy, and Arturo wanted help burning
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the last of her crap out of spite.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: It is the normalization of deviance.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: What does that mean in this context?
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Arturo knows he has to destroy physical evidence, but doing
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: it alone carries a high psychological burden and a lot
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: of logistical risk.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: So he brings someone else in.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Right. By involving Andrew, Arturo attempts to reframe a felony
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: destruction of evidence into a mundane, albeit petty, social bonding experience.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Like, hey, help a buddy burn his cheating ex's clothes.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He is recruiting Andrew's physical labor... while simultaneously trying
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: to recruit Andrew's belief in the alibi.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: But here is where Arturo's amateur status really shows. He
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't just burn these bags in his own backyard. He
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: packs two heavy black trash bags full of clothes and
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: personal papers into a car, and he and Andrew drive
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: to a third person's house.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Wait, a third person? Yes.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: They go to a buddy of Andrew's to use his
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: fire pit. I mean, why in the world would a
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: criminal involve a third, completely unrelated party in the destruction
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: of evidence? You are multiplying your risk of exposure exponentially.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Well, it points to a total lack of secure infrastructure.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: What do you mean? Arturo doesn't have a place where
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: he can conduct a sustained fire without drawing the attention
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: of neighbors or like a landlord.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, right.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: He's forced to outsource the location, which means he has
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: to expand the circle of people Who can place him
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: with the bags? This is a desperate calculation.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So he's just panicking.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He is prioritizing the immediate need to destroy the
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: evidence over the long-term need for operational security.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: And he completely sabotages his own alibi during the fire.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: While they are standing around the fire pit, Arturo casually
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: mentions that he pulled a bracelet out of the ashes.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: He claims it belonged to their landlord.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: But later, as the rumors start swirling, Andrew realizes the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: community is talking about an engraved bracelet that was found
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: in a fire.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, no.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Right. Andrew knew Shannon, and he knew that a woman
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: leaving town to start a fresh new life might leave,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know, a T-shirt behind. But she would never,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: ever abandon a highly personal, custom-engraved piece of jewelry just
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to be thrown in a trash bag.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: That is the exact moment. Andrew's cognitive dissonance shatters.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Because the story doesn't hold up anymore. Right.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: The narrative Arturo fed him no longer aligns with the
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: physical reality of that engraved bracelet. The true crime shows
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: he'd been watching provided him with the framework to recognize that, hey,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: he'd been unwittingly drafted as an accessory to something far
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: more sinister than a bad breakup.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So Andrew goes to the police, but his knowledge is limited, right?
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: He only knows about the clothes and the papers. He
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: has absolutely no idea where Shannon actually is.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: He just knows there was a fire.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: The Youngstown police start meticulously sifting through the literal ashes
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of this fire pit, trying to build a circumstantial case
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: against Arturo based on destroyed property. Right. But while they
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: are looking at ashes, 10 minutes away in the neighboring
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: town of Campbell, Ohio, a completely separate police department receives
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: a frantic 911 call.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: And the entire scope of the investigation shifts from a
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: missing person to horrific homicide. Yeah.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about July 29th. Five months since Shannon went missing,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: we need to look at Ken and Jill Ashenbaugh.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: The homeowners. Right.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Ken is a guy who befriended Arturo a few years prior,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: knowing him only as Anthony. Arturo had literally just knocked
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: on Ken's door one day because he liked the music
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Ken was blasting from his garage.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they bonded over Xbox and music. Ken and Jill
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: were good, trusting people. They even helped Arturo pay his
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: bills when his utilities got shut off.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: They are the archetype of the good neighbor. Entirely unaware
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: that their empathy is about to be weaponized against them.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: So true. On Monday, July 17th, Arturo shows up at
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Ken's house with a massive request. He has a brand
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: new bright white chest freezer in the back of a truck.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: He tells Ken he needs a place to plug it in.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: And he offers Ken $ 100 a week to let him
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: keep it in their basement.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Stop right there. The economics of that offer should trigger
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: immediate alarm bells.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: $ 100 a week.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Yes. That is over $ 400 a month. That is rent
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: money coming from a man who historically cannot keep his
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: own electricity turned on.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: And Ken actually pushes back on that.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: He does.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he looks at Arturo and says, man, your rent
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: is only $ 450 a month. Why are you offering me
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: $ 100 a week for a freezer? Just give me $ 20
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: a month to cover the electric bill. Wow. Ken is
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: just trying to be reasonable, but Arturo insists on the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: high payout. So they wrestle this heavy freezer down into
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the basement. But here is where the universe intervenes in
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the strangest way.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: What happened?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Ken's house had recently been struck by a severe lightning storm,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and the electrical outlet right where they placed the freezer
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: was completely fried. It was dead.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Imagine the sheer visceral panic spiking in Arturo's chest in
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: that exact moment.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: He has successfully maneuvered a chest. containing human remains, into
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: a suburban basement, and he cannot plug it in. The
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: biological clock on decomposition is ticking loudly in his head.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: So he has to leave the house.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: He leaves it there. Yes.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: He leaves the freezer sitting in Ken's basement, drives somewhere
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: else to purchase a heavy-duty extension cord, and then comes
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: back to run the cord across the room just to
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: get power to the unit.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: That is incredibly brazen. It is.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: And the very next day, Joel Aschenbach goes down to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the basement to do a load of laundry... And she
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: notices that Arturo has installed a heavy metal padlock on
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the front of the freezer.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Like we talked about at the beginning.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Right. She goes upstairs, tells her husband, and Ken literally
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: laughs it off. He jokes, well, he don't trust us.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: We're going to eat his meat.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: This is a textbook example of how the human brain
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: processes anomalies.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Tell me more about that.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: When we encounter something slightly outside the norm, like a
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: padlocked freezer in our own home, we don't instantly jump
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: to the most macabre conclusion.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: We don't assume murder. Right.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Our brains strive for equilibrium. We apply a socially acceptable rationalization.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Ken uses humor to bridge the gap between the bizarre
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: presence of the padlock and his baseline belief that his
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: friend Anthony is just a normal guy with some frozen groceries.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And that equilibrium holds for a couple of weeks until
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: July 29th. Jill goes downstairs because she actually does need
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: hamburger meat for dinner. She decides she's going to borrow
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: some from Arturo. She bypasses the padlock by unscrewing the hinges,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: opens the lid, and sees the five-gallon Home Depot bucket
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and the heavy black trash bags.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: And this is where the rationalizations start breaking down.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Her intuition flares up immediately. She doesn't open the bag.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: She screws the hinges back in and waits for Ken
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: to get home from work. When Ken sees how rattled
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: his wife is, he goes downstairs to investigate for himself.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: And this is where they are forcefully stripped away. the rationalizations.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Ken unscrews the hinge, he lifts the bucket out,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: finds a red backpack, and pulls out a green garbage
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: bag that is heavily knotted. He grabs a pair of
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: scissors and cuts through the thick plastic. Inside, he finds
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: a second bag. He cuts through that one. And he
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: said the smell of rot that hit him was like
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: a physical punch to the face.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: He'd worked in restaurant kitchens. He knew what spoiled meat
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: smelled like. But he told police this was something profoundly different.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: As he pulled the plastic back, the first thing he
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: recognized was a human foot.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: He just turned around, looked at Jill on the stairs,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and said, call the police.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: The arrival of law enforcement initiates a highly complex forensic
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: process here. Oh, absolutely. The Campbell police arrive first, secure
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: the basement, and quickly deduce that this involves the missing
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: persons case being handled by the Youngstown detectives.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: So they hand it over.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Right. Jurisdiction is handed over, and the crime scene technicians
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: take over the freezer.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: When the investigators catalog the contents, it is a scene
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of methodical butchery. The body hasn't just been stored, it
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: has been systematically dismembered. Right. And they quickly realize that
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: while multiple bags contain various limbs and torso parts, the
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: victim's head is completely missing.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Identifying remains in this specific state presents a massive hurdle
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: for the medical examiner.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Because it's frozen.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The body has been subjected to deep freezing. The
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: cellular structure of human tissue changes dramatically when frozen for
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: an extended period.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Actually, the source material details the specific process the coroner
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: had to use, and I really need you to break
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: this down for us. Because they couldn't just roll her
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: fingers on an ink pad, right?
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: No, they couldn't.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: The coroner had to inject a saline solution directly into
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the fingers of the victim. What exactly is happening there
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: on a biological level?
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It's a fascinating and necessary forensic technique. Okay. When human
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: tissue is frozen, the water inside the cells crystallizes and expands.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: But over time, in a freezer environment, the tissue actually dehydrates. Oh,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: I see. Right. So the skin loses its elasticity. It shrinks.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: And the dermal ridges, the raised lines that make up
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: our unique fingerprints, collapse and flatten out.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: So if you try to take a print.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: If you try to ink a dehydrated finger, you just
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: get a dark smudge. There is no topographical map to read.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: So they are basically reinflating the fingers.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The coroner takes a hypodermic needle filled with sterile
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: saline solution and injects it subcutaneously right beneath the epidermis
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: of the fingertips. Wow. Through osmosis and mechanical pressure. The
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: saline rehydrates the dermal tissue. It plumps the skin back
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: up from the inside, forcing those collapsed ridges to stand
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: tall again.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: That is wild.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Once the skin is taut, they can apply the ink
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and roll a legible, high-contrast fingerprint.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: That is incredible, the science of pulling a name from
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: a frozen, dehydrated piece of tissue. And it worked! They
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: lift a viable print, run it through the database, and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: they also locate a highly specific, documented tattoo on one
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: of the severed legs.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: So they had a match.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Between the fingerprint and the tattoo, there is zero ambiguity.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: The body in the basement belongs to Shannon Graves.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: The confirmation of identity acts as an immediate accelerant for
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: the investigation.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: They now have a body. And that body is directly
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: physically tied to a major appliance purchased and transported by
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Arturo Nevoa.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting, though, because I have
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: to push back on Arturo's thought process here.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: OK.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: We talked about his lack of a secure location when
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: he burned the clothes. But this is a whole different level. Right.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: He has a dismembered human body. Why on earth would
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: he buy a shiny new appliance, drive it to an
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: acquaintance's house, and leave it there?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: It seems crazy.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Right. Why not bury the remains in the woods? Why
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: not throw them in a river? The sheer recklessness of
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: plugging a body into a friend's electrical grid is mind-boggling.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Well, you are looking at it through the lens of
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: a rational actor planning a strategic crime. True, I am.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Arturo is operating under extreme psychological duress and cognitive tunneling.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Cognitive tunneling.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, where he can only focus on the most immediate problem.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Burying a body requires significant physical labor, transportation to a
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: remote area, and the risk of being seen digging.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Disposing of it in water risks the remains floating to
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: the surface. Arturo opted for what he perceived as containment.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Just keeping it hidden.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: He likely thought a freezer stops decomposition. and prevents the smell,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: which he viewed as his most immediate threat. He didn't
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: have a secure location of his own because he was
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: currently living in Shannon's apartment.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Right, so he used Ken's basement as a stopgap measure.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: He's relying on the social contract to buy him time
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: while he figured out a permanent solution. It wasn't a
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: master plan. It was a panicked improvisation.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Well, the improvisation failed spectacularly. The moment the body is identified,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the police obtain a search warrant for Shannon's apartment. This
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: is where Arturo is currently living with his on-again, off-again girlfriend,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Katrina Layton, who goes by Trina.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: The execution of that search warrant transforms the case from
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: a circumstantial mystery into a concrete horror story.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: The detectives breach the apartment, and it is a nightmare.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: They immediately find a large, heavy meat cleaver violently embedded
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: into the wood of the front door frame.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Just left there. Yeah.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: They discover blood spatter staining the walls. And providing the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: absolute smoking gun that ties the apartment to the basement
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: 10 minutes away, they find the owner's manual for the
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: exact make and model of the chest freezer sitting right
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: on a counter.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Wow. They didn't even try to hide it.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Nope. They arrest Arturo and Katrina on the spot. Which
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: brings us to the interrogation rooms. And I really want
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: to spend some time here because Arturo's reaction to being
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: arrested for murder is genuinely one of the most baffling
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: psychological displays I have ever read.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: It is a master class. in watching a suspect construct
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: a psychological fortress out of entirely irrelevant materials.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: The detectives sit Arturo down. They do not mince words.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: They look him in the eye and say, we found
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: a freezer at Ken's house and there is a dead
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: woman inside it.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Right to the point.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Now, put yourself in that chair. You would expect panic. Right.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Or screaming denials or calling for a lawyer.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Arturo doesn't do any of that. Do you know what
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: his primary concern is?
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: What?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: He is furious that the police pulled him out of
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: his shift at the Outback Steakhouse.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: He becomes entirely fixated on his hourly wage job as
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: a dishwasher.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Yes. He looks at a detective who has just accused
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: him of dismembering his girlfriend, and Arturo says, this is
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: going to take so long, I'm going to lose my job.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: It is absurd.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: The detective actually has to pause and say, this ain't
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: about your outback dishwasher job anymore, man. There's a body
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: in a freezer. Right. Why is he clinging to this
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: restaurant shift?
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: What you're witnessing is an extreme form of a defense
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: mechanism known as minimization and deflection.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Minimization.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Right. Combined with an attempt to anchor himself to a
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: mundane reality.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Okay. Unpack that for me.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: When faced with an accusation of catastrophic magnitude, the psyche
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: sometimes cannot process the weight of it. Arturo retreats to
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: a highly relatable blue-collar concern, keeping his job.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: So he's pretending everything is normal.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: He is subconsciously trying to project a specific persona to
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: the detectives. He wants them to look at him and
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: see a hardworking, put-upon citizen... who just wants to wash
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: dishes and go home. He repeats the phrase, I just
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: work and sleep, like a mantra. He is trying to
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: force the detectives to engage with his reality rather than
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: the reality of the freezer.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: He clings to that mantra for dear life. But the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: detectives keep methodically laying out the physical evidence. They tell
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: him four people saw him burning her clothes. Two people
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: saw him carry the freezer into the basement.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: And he just denies it.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: He just stonewalls. But then the detective uses a brilliant tactic.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: He pivots away from the murder entirely and brings up
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: a seemingly minor white-collar detail. He asks Arturo about using
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Shannon's food stamp card, her Ohio direction card, in the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: months after she disappeared.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: And that is the lever that finally cracks the fortress.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: It is wild. Arturo sits there with a resting heart
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: rate when they accuse him of swinging a meat cleaver.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: But the absolute second they accuse him of using her
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: food stamps, he erupts.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: He gets highly defensive. He sits forward. And he starts
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: lecturing the homicide detective on the legality of government assistance.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: He says, you know, that is illegal to share, trade
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: or sell food stamps in the first place.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: That is fascinating.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: He is viscerally offended by the implication of minor fraud
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: while completely brushing off the accusation of murder.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: This perfectly illustrates how criminals evaluate risk based on evidence,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: not morality.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Arturo feels confident denying the murder because the police didn't
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: catch him in the physical act of killing her. In
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: his mind, it's his word against theirs, and he believes
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: he can withstand the pressure.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, but the food stamps.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: The food stamp card represents an indisputable digital trail. He
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: knows that every time he swiped that card, a computer
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: logged the time, the date, and likely captured his face
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: on a grocery store security camera. He knows he is
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: caught in a verifiable lie.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: So the anger is just panic.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: His sudden anger isn't about the food stamps at all.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: It is a manifestation of the panic he feels at
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: losing control of the narrative.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: And the detective expertly uses this crack to humiliate him,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: pointing out that arguing over a direction card when there
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: is a body in a freezer is baby stuff. It
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: strips Arturo of his perceived control.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: While Arturo is arguing about groceries, the detectives in the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: next room are working on Katrina. And her interrogation strategy
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: is completely different. She doesn't stonewall. She tries to talk
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: her way out.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: But her alibi starts crumbling almost immediately, right?
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, completely. She admits she gave Arturo the cash to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: purchase the freezer, but claims she thought it was just
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: for storing food in their apartment. She parents Arturo's initial story,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: claiming he told her Shannon just drove off with another
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: man and abandoned the apartment.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: The detective in Katrina's room takes a much more aggressive
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: psychological approach, though.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he does.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: He doesn't just present evidence. He attacks her vulnerabilities. He
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: paints a narrative of profound jealousy.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: He really zeroes in on her motives. He tells her,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: look at this from the outside. You and Shannon fought
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: constantly over Arturo. Now Shannon is gone. You immediately moved
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: into her apartment. You are wearing her clothes. You are
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: sleeping in her bed with her boyfriend.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: It's a strong narrative.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And now she is chopped up in a freezer that
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: you paid for. He forces her to look at the
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: totality of her circumstances, and then he deploys a brutal
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: shock tactic to see how she reacts.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: What does he say?
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: He leans in and tells Katrina she isn't all one
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: nice big piece anymore.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: This is a calculated linguistic choice by the detective.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: To shock her?
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Yes. He is intentionally using blunt, jarring language to bypass
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: her defensive filters. He is watching her microexpressions. Will she
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: show genuine, nauseating shock? or will she accidentally reveal specialized
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: knowledge of the crime scene?
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, she absolutely reveals the knowledge.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, she.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Katrina panics and tries to distance herself from the physical
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: act of moving the body, but listen to the exact
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: words she uses to defend herself. She tells the detective,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: I couldn't have put her in there. I can't lift
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: over 10 pounds because of my back and shoulder.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: And right there, she closes the trap on herself.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I had to read that sentence three times in the
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: source material. By explicitly using the weight limit of 10
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: pounds as her defense... Isn't she tacitly admitting that she
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: knows exactly how heavy the individual dismembered pieces were inside
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: those trash bags?
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A truly innocent person confronted with a body in
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: a freezer would focus on the impossibility of the act itself.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: They would say, I didn't move a body. I don't
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: know anything about a body. Right. Katrina's brain, however, is
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: accessing real memories of the event. She knows the body
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: was cut into smaller, manageable pieces. So her defense mechanism
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: relies on a physical limitation regarding those specific pieces. Wow.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: She is essentially arguing, yes, the pieces were small enough
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: for someone to carry, but my medical condition prevented me
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: from carrying them. It is a highly specific, incriminating rationalization.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: She just outed herself.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: The detective gives her the rope, and she meticulously ties
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: the knot.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: The detective even calls her out on it. He says,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: everything you say makes it sound like it's you. He
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: could pick her right up and pop her in there.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: You couldn't, unless you made her into small pieces.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Incredible police work.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: But despite these massive slip-ups, both Katrina and Arturo refuse
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: to sign a full confession. They are locked in a standoff.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: However, investigators rarely rely solely on confessions, you know.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: They rely on the suspect's inability to control the physical
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: world around them. And the most damning piece of physical
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: evidence was about to be hand-delivered to the police by
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: a completely independent witness.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: This is where the digital footprint absolutely destroys them. A
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: local Walmart employee is sitting at home watching the local
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: evening news and sees the mug shots of Arturo and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Katrina flash across the screen in connection to the freezer discovery.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: The employee immediately recognizes them and calls the police tip line.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: We're about to see how the mundane reality of retail
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: commerce completely derails a murder cover up.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: The employee tells detectives about a truly bizarre transaction that
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: occurred back on March 11th, just a few weeks after
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Shannon vanished. An Internet order was placed for pickup at
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the store. The order consisted of multiple bottles of sulfuric acid.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Okay, sulfuric acid.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: And the email address used to register the Walmart account
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: was simply Chicken Man.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: That is a desperate, childish attempt at anonymity.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: It is almost a dark comedy of errors. Arturo walks
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: up to the customer service counter to pick up his acid.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: The employee asks for photo ID.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Standard procedure.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Arturo hands over his driver's license, which clearly says Arturo Novoa.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: The employee looks at the screen. looks at the ID,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: and says, Store policy dictates the names have to match.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I cannot give this to you. Your name is not
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Chicken Man.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: The panic of the roadblock.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Seriously.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: They are standing in a heavily surveilled, brightly lit retail store,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: attempting to acquire the materials to destroy a human body,
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: and they are stopped by a standard point-of-sale policy. They
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: have to adapt instantly.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And their adaptation is to commit absolute self-sabotage.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: What do they do?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Right there at the counter, under the security cameras, Katrina
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: pulls out her smartphone. She logs into the Walmart app,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: navigates to the Chicken Man profile, and manually adds her
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: own real legal name as an authorized pickup person for
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: the order.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: You're kidding.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not. She then hands her actual driver's license to
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: the employee, permanently tying her real name, her face, and
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: her digital footprint to the purchase of a massive quantity
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: of sulfuric acid.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: I really want to pause and emphasize the psychology of
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: this moment.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Please do, because it's wild.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: It perfectly shatters the myth of the criminal mastermind. We
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: consume so much media where perpetrators execute flawless, untraceable plans.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Like Ocean's Eleven or something.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Right. The reality is that committing a major crime induces
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: massive cognitive impairment. Under the stress of a rotting body
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: in their apartment, Arturo and Katrina developed extreme tunnel vision.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Because they just needed the acid.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Their singular goal was acquiring the acid. The potential future
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: consequence of linking their real identities to the purchase was
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: entirely eclipsed by the immediate need to secure the chemical.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: It is the definition of a panic response resulting in
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: an apocalyptic paper trail.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: It is the final undeniable nail in the coffin. The
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: prosecutors now have a mountain of evidence. They have Arturo
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: buying the freezer, moving the freezer, living in an apartment
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: with blood and a meat cleaver. and both of them
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: legally identifying themselves to purchase acid.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: It's over for them.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: The walls completely close in, and Katrina is the first
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: to break. As the trial date looms, she agrees to
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: a plea deal, promising to testify fully against Arturo to
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: save herself. But then she makes one final, staggering mistake.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: She violates the cardinal rule of any cooperation agreement.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: She contacts him.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Despite the strict, explicit terms of her plea deal forbidding
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: any communication with her co-defendants, Katrina picks up a phone
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: and calls Arturo while he is sitting in the county jail.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: The prosecutors routinely monitor all jailhouse calls, you know.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: They hear her voice on the recording and they instantly
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: revoke her plea deal. Her get-out-of-jail-free card evaporates in seconds.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: And in the criminal justice system, nature abhors a vacuum.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: With Katrina's deal voided, a window of opportunity opens for
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: someone else.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Andrew Herman. The guy who helped burn the clothes and
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: went to the police because he was paranoid.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: When Andrew's lawyer hears that Katrina is no longer cooperating,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Andrew dives through that window. He strikes his own deal
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: with prosecutors. And in exchange for leniency, Andrew finally provides
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the narrative glue that connects all of the circumstantial evidence.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: He reveals the entire gruesome truth.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: He provides the chronological map of the atrocities committed in
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: that apartment.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Andrew tells the prosecutors that shortly after Shannon disappeared, Arturo
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: called him and told him to meet at Katrina's house.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: When Andrew walks in, Arturo leads him to a room
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: and shows him Shannon's body.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Just shows him.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Arturo confesses that he killed Shannon in her own apartment.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: He states that he bludgeoned her to death, striking her
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: in the head with a hammer, and then wrapped her
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: up and transported her body to Katrina's house.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Which perfectly explains the forensic evidence found by the police.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: You know, the blood spatter on the walls and the
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: meat cleaver. Stuck in the doorframe of Shannon's apartment.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Then Andrew confesses to his own role. He claims
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Arturo threatened him, implying he would be the next victim
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: if he didn't help. Under Arturo's direction, Andrew assists in
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: dismembering Shannon's body using a machete. They place her severed
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: limbs into a large 55-gallon drum.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: And this leads directly to the chicken man purchase at Walmart.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Andrew tells investigators that the acid was actually Katrina's idea.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: She suggested using chemicals to dissolve the remains. So after
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Katrina uses her own ID to pick up the sulfuric acid,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: they bring it back to the house. They take Shannon's
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: head and torso, place them into a second drum, and
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: pour the acid directly over the remains, expecting them to liquefy.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: But the experiment is a catastrophic failure.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I really need you to explain the science here. Why
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: did it fail? Sulfuric acid is highly corrosive. We've all
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: seen movies where acid completely dissolves everything it touches. Why
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: didn't it work for them?
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Because Arturo and Katrina based their criminal conspiracy on a
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: fictional understanding of chemistry.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Like from TV.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: They likely watched a television show like Breaking Bad where
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: hydrofluoric acid is used to dissolve a body and simply
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: assumed that any liquid labeled acid would yield the exact
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: same result.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: But there is a massive difference between industrial grade chemicals
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: and retail cleaning products.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Sulfuric acid can indeed cause severe tissue damage through a
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: process called acid hydrolysis. where it breaks down proteins and fats. However,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: to dissolve an entire human body, especially the dense calcium
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: phosphate structure of human bone, requires an incredibly high molarity,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: a highly concentrated pure acid, and a sustained controlled environment.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: And they didn't have pure acid, did they? No.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: They went to a retail Walmart. They purchased off-brand commercial
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: drain cleaner.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, man.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: While it contains sulfuric acid, it is heavily diluted with
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: water and other stabilizing agents, to make it safe for
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: public sale.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: So it was just too weak.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: The concentration was far too weak to initiate total structural breakdown.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: It would cause superficial burning and tissue degradation, sure, but
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: it would completely fail to dissolve bone or heavy muscle mass.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, they just poured it into a drum and let
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: it sit. Chemical dissolution often requires agitation and heat to
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: maintain the reaction. It was a macabre, grotesque chemistry experiment
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: born out of profound ignorance. They relied on Hollywood science,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: and the physical reality of human anatomy defeated them.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: So the acid fails, the body doesn't dissolve, it is
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: still sitting there decomposing rapidly, and that failure is what
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: triggers the final panicked sequence of aneens.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Because they have to do something else. Right.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Because the acid didn't work, Katrina drives to a store
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and purchases the chest freezer. Arturo loads it into a truck,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: hauls it over to Ken's basement, offers him the ridiculous
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: sum of $ 100 a week, And leaves a heavy padlock
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: on it, setting the stage for Jill Ashenbaugh to eventually
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: unscrew the hinge looking for Denner.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: It is a staggering cascade of terrible reactionary decisions. Truly.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Every attempt they made to cover their tracks only served
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: to generate more physical evidence and recruit more witnesses.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: It brings us to the fallout of this entire nightmare.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: In September of 2018, Arturo Novoa and Katrina Layton are
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: officially indicted.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Finally.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Facing an overwhelming mountain of physical, digital, and testimonial evidence,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: and staring down the very real possibility of the death penalty,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: the stonewalling ends. They both fold.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: So they plead out.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Arturo Novoa pleads guilty to 47 separate counts, including aggravated murder,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and is sentenced to 43 years in prison.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: Ensuring that he is permanently removed from society for the
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: remainder of his functional life.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Katrina Layton pleads guilty to tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: and abuse of a corpse. She manages to avoid the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: direct murder charge and is sentenced to 18 years behind bars.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: And Andrew Herman, for his role in the dismemberment and
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the fire, pleads guilty to tampering with evidence and abuse
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: of a corpse, receiving a 12-year sentence.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: The judicial system applies its metrics of justice, assigning years
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: to crimes. But, I mean, it is entirely inadequate at
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: repairing the psychological damage inflicted on the victim's family.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: The aftermath for Shannon's family is devastating. They spend months
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: believing she might just be out there finding her way,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: only to learn she had been violently discarded by people
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: she considered friends.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: It's heartbreaking.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Her sister Debbie, who tried so hard to help Shannon
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: build a new life, did take in Molly, Shannon's dog.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, good.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she provided the love and safety for that animal
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: that Shannon no longer could. It's a small solace in
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: a sea of tragedy.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: But what I find most compelling about the source material
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: is that even with these convictions neatly entered into the
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: public record, the narrative might not be fully settled.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: You mean who actually did it?
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: There's a lingering shadow of doubt regarding the actual mechanics
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: of the murder itself.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Let's explore that because this final detail really stops you
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: in your tracks. Arturo is locked away for 43 years.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: He confessed to Andrew that he swung the hammer. But
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: there are investigators close to this case who quietly harbor
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: a different theory.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: And it's that.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: They believe that Arturo didn't strike the fatal blow. They
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: theorize that Katrina is the one who actually killed Shannon.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: When you remove the confessions and look purely at the
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: psychological landscape and the behavioral motives, that theory holds a
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: terrifying amount of weight.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Walk me through that. Why Katrina and not Arturo?
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Look at the balance of power. Arturo was already living
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: with Shannon. He was already benefiting from her apartment. her car,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: her resources.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Right, he had it made.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: He was having his cake and eating it too by
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: maintaining a relationship with Katrina on the side. He didn't
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: have an immediate pressing catalyst to escalate the situation to murder.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, I see.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: But Katrina occupied the role of the other woman. The
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: sources indicate she was exhausted by the constant fighting and
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: the instability. She had a deeply ingrained visceral motive, jealousy,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: and a desire to usurp Shannon's position entirely.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: And her actions after the fact align perfectly with that usurpation.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Think about her behavior post-murder. She doesn't flee.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: She moves in.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: She literally steps into the void left by Shannon's death.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: She moves permanently into Shannon's apartment. She sleeps in Shannon's bed.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: She wears Shannon's clothes. She officially claims Arturo as her own.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: That is so dark.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: And crucially, according to Andrew's testimony, she is the one
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: who took the intellectual lead on the cover-up by suggesting
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: the sulfuric acid. She directed the disposal.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: So she was calling the shots.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: It points to a level of cold, calculating possession that
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: suggests she wasn't just a panic accessory, but the primary
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: architect of the violence.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? It forces you to
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: reckon with a terrifying level of callousness. Katrina sat on
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Shannon's couch, looking at the same walls, living the life
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: she stole, while Shannon was locked in a dark, freezing
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: basement just a few miles away.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: It highlights how quickly a human life can be violently
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: extracted from the world. and how easily the empty space
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: left behind can be absorbed and occupied by the people
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: who caused the extraction.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: And it leaves us with a final thought to mull over.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: One that extends far beyond the physical brutality of this
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: case and into the digital reality we all inhabit today. Right.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: The digital aspect.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Long after Shannon Graves was dead, her phone was sending
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: defensive text messages to her brother. Her feed stamp card
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: was being swiped at local grocery stores.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Her digital footprint continued to march forward.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Creating an artificial pulse, a synthetic proof of life that
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: successfully delayed a homicide investigation for months.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: We all leave behind digital ghosts. Our text patterns, our
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: automated subscriptions. our geolocation data, our social media presence.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: They operate totally independently of our physical bodies.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In our modern hyper-connected age, where so much of
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: our daily existence is automated by algorithms and smart devices,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: it begs a very unsettling question.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: How long would it actually take for the world to
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: notice you were truly gone if someone simply kept your
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: digital footprint alive? If someone holds your phone, do they
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: hold your life? Thank you for joining us on this
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: deep dive into the Shannon Graves case. It is a dark,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: complex journey, but a necessary one to understand the intersections
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: of human psychology, forensic science, and the digital trails we
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: leave behind. Stay curious, keep questioning the narratives presented to you,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and we will see you on the next deep dive.