Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Dad Killed Outside Target Over Parking Spot

Transcript

Dad Killed Outside Target Over Parking Spot · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Picture the most mundane, predictably boring environment you can possibly imagine, right, Like,
0:08
Speaker 1: we all have these transitional spaces in our lives, right
0:11
Speaker 1: where our brains essentially just shift into neutral.
0:14
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely.
0:15
Speaker 1: You're not there for an experience, you know, You're not
0:17
Speaker 1: there to make memories.
0:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're just getting it done exactly.
0:20
Speaker 1: You're walking down the fluorescent lit aisle of a grocery store,
0:24
Speaker 1: or you're standing in a queue at the post office.
0:28
Speaker 1: And this might be the most universal one in modern
0:30
Speaker 1: American life. You are navigating the massive sun baked asphalt
0:35
Speaker 1: of a big box store parking lot on a Sunday afternoon.
0:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's an environment entirely designed for utility.
0:42
Speaker 1: Right.
0:42
Speaker 2: You are simply trying to get from the driver's seat
0:44
Speaker 2: of your car, Yeah, you know, to those automatic sliding
0:47
Speaker 2: glass doors. Yeah, just to grab a laundry detergent or
0:51
Speaker 2: a birthday card or whatever errand is on your list.
0:53
Speaker 1: And because of that routine is so deeply shared by everyone,
0:56
Speaker 1: there is this baseline expectation of safety, like you're dodging
1:00
Speaker 1: runaway shopping carts, right, and are not existential threats. But
1:04
Speaker 1: what happens when that completely mundane space without any warning whatsoever,
1:09
Speaker 1: just fractures. What happens when a totally trivial, everyday annoyance
1:14
Speaker 1: over a parking space suddenly erupts into a lethal nightmare.
1:19
Speaker 2: It's hard to even wrap your head.
1:20
Speaker 1: Around it really is. And that is what we are
1:22
Speaker 1: digging into today. We're doing a deep dive into an
1:25
Speaker 1: incredibly sobering event that took place recently in Savannah, Georgia.
1:30
Speaker 1: And for this we've been reviewing some extensive reporting from
1:33
Speaker 1: the Law and Crime Network's Sidebar show, and specifically they
1:37
Speaker 1: brought in a forensic psychiatrist, doctor Daniel Bober, to basically
1:42
Speaker 1: analyze the behavioral mechanisms behind this kind of violence.
1:45
Speaker 2: Which is I think such a necessary lens for an
1:48
Speaker 2: event like this, because you know, when you just read
1:50
Speaker 2: a breaking news headline about a parking lot shooting, it's
1:53
Speaker 2: so easy to shake your head and dismiss it as senseless.
1:55
Speaker 1: Chaos, just people being crazy.
1:57
Speaker 2: Right exactly. But chaos usually has an architecture.
2:00
Speaker 1: Oh, I like how you put that.
2:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, So looking at the clinical the psychological mechanisms, it
2:05
Speaker 2: helps us understand how the human brain allows a disagreement
2:10
Speaker 2: over twenty feet of painted asphalt to escalate into an
2:14
Speaker 2: irreversible loss of life.
2:15
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because to understand the psychology, we
2:18
Speaker 1: first really need to lay out the hard reality of
2:20
Speaker 1: what actually happened that Sunday afternoon, right to facts, right,
2:23
Speaker 1: and how the narrative of the event began to take
2:26
Speaker 1: shape both inside the police precinct and out in the
2:29
Speaker 1: public eye.
2:30
Speaker 2: So the established timeline is it's as sudden as it
2:33
Speaker 2: is tragic. Yeah. The date is Sunday, January fourth, the
2:37
Speaker 2: time is right around four point pm, and the location
2:40
Speaker 2: is the target on the fourteen thousand block of Abercorn Street.
2:43
Speaker 1: In Savannah, a very busy area, very.
2:45
Speaker 2: Busy, and according to the Savannah Police Department's dispatch and
2:48
Speaker 2: their initial reports, an argument broke out over a parking.
2:51
Speaker 1: Space, just a parking space, just a space.
2:54
Speaker 2: And this involved two men, thirty three year old Matthew
2:57
Speaker 2: Treywick and thirty year old Tyler Edward Lynn, and the
3:01
Speaker 2: verbal altercation escalated rapidly, like incredibly fast, and Treywick was
3:06
Speaker 2: shot and killed by.
3:07
Speaker 1: Land over a parking space. Yeah. I mean, it's the
3:10
Speaker 1: kind of thing that just makes you pause and just
3:12
Speaker 1: stare at the wall for a minute. When you read it,
3:14
Speaker 1: you know it really does now. The official release from
3:16
Speaker 1: the Savannah Police Department, it was incredibly tight lipped, as
3:20
Speaker 1: they usually are at first, right, which is an unusual
3:23
Speaker 1: for day one of a homicide investigation. I mean, they
3:26
Speaker 1: confirmed they responded to the Abercorn target, they found an
3:29
Speaker 1: adult male with a gunshot wound, who you know, sadly
3:32
Speaker 1: later died at the hospital. And they noted that an
3:35
Speaker 1: adult male suspect was taken into custody right there at
3:38
Speaker 1: the scene. And savannahs Mayor Van Johnson, he put out
3:42
Speaker 1: a statement mourning the needless violence in a place where
3:45
Speaker 1: families should feel perfectly safe. But the official record basically
3:50
Speaker 1: stopped right about there.
3:51
Speaker 2: Right, because they locked down the details to preserve the
3:54
Speaker 2: integrity of the investigation. Sure, but human nature, especially in
4:00
Speaker 2: the digital age, it absolutely abhors a vacuum by totally.
4:04
Speaker 2: When law enforcement doesn't provide the narrative, the community immediately
4:08
Speaker 2: attempts to construct one themselves, and the.
4:12
Speaker 1: Digital community in Savannah was I mean, it was deafening.
4:16
Speaker 1: In the hours and days following this, the reporting we
4:19
Speaker 1: reviewed highlighted some very specific, highly disturbing details that bubbled
4:23
Speaker 1: up on Reddit from people who were claiming to be eyewitnesses.
4:26
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
4:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. In a thread specifically titled shooting at Target south Side,
4:30
Speaker 1: users were piecing together what they supposedly saw.
4:33
Speaker 2: Okay.
4:33
Speaker 1: One persistent claim in there was that the shooter fired
4:36
Speaker 1: three times into the victim's chest.
4:39
Speaker 2: God.
4:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. But the detail that really made my blood run cold.
4:43
Speaker 1: I mean, the one that everyone seemed fixated on was
4:46
Speaker 1: the behavioral description of the shooter immediately after the gun went.
4:49
Speaker 2: Off, the physical reaction in the aftermath exactly.
4:52
Speaker 1: So, according to this one very detailed Reddit account, Lynn
4:56
Speaker 1: didn't panic, he didn't run, he didn't scream, allegedly removed
5:00
Speaker 1: the magazine from his handgun, placed that magazine on his vehicle,
5:04
Speaker 1: and then just calmly stood off to the side waiting
5:07
Speaker 1: for the police sirens to arrive.
5:08
Speaker 2: Wow.
5:08
Speaker 1: And the truly horrific part of this unconfirmed account is
5:13
Speaker 1: that he supposedly did this while the victim's wife, Mikaela,
5:18
Speaker 1: was right there on the pavement frantically pleading with her
5:21
Speaker 1: husband to keep breathing.
5:23
Speaker 2: That is just a profoundly chilling image.
5:25
Speaker 1: It's awful.
5:26
Speaker 2: It's this juxtaposition of extreme, desperate, emotional trauma on one side,
5:32
Speaker 2: and in this almost robotic procedural stillness on the other.
5:35
Speaker 1: But I really need to stop right here and admit
5:38
Speaker 1: some heavy skepticism. You're enough, because I really struggle with
5:42
Speaker 1: how much rate we should be giving to an anonymous
5:44
Speaker 1: Reddit threat. I mean, we all know how the internet works, right,
5:46
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, A rumor starts, it gets repeated five times,
5:50
Speaker 1: and suddenly it is treated as absolute gospel. Right, So
5:53
Speaker 1: are we putting too much stock into a random Reddit comment?
5:56
Speaker 1: And how does the court of public opinion affect cases
5:59
Speaker 1: like this before the facts are even confirmed? I mean,
6:01
Speaker 1: are we just falling for true crime fan fiction here?
6:03
Speaker 2: Your skepticism is completely justified. Yeah, And it's a crucial
6:07
Speaker 2: filter we have to apply to any of these cases
6:10
Speaker 2: because eyewitness memory is notoriously fragile, even in the best
6:15
Speaker 2: of circumstances. Like if you ask ten people to describe
6:18
Speaker 2: a bank robber who didn't even fire a weapon, you'll
6:22
Speaker 2: get ten completely different descriptions of his height and his
6:25
Speaker 2: jacket color.
6:25
Speaker 1: Oh exactly.
6:27
Speaker 2: So in the immediate aftermath of extreme explosive trauma like
6:31
Speaker 2: a shooting asteris the brainar's ability to encode accurate details
6:35
Speaker 2: is severely compromised. So yes, we have to view online
6:39
Speaker 2: accounts with the massive asterisk. However, there is a reason
6:43
Speaker 2: we are looking at this specific rumor today because.
6:45
Speaker 1: There's a kernel of truth in the official record.
6:48
Speaker 2: Precisely the official reporting from news outlists like WSAV. They
6:53
Speaker 2: eventually confirmed the absolute core of that terrifying Internet rumor, wow,
6:57
Speaker 2: which is that Tyler lind stayed at the scene and
6:59
Speaker 2: allowed himself to be arrested without incident.
7:01
Speaker 1: He didn't flee at all.
7:02
Speaker 2: He didn't flee, and that is what makes this a
7:04
Speaker 2: psychological puzzle. How so, well, fleeing is the most overwhelming
7:08
Speaker 2: biological imperative when a human being commits a sudden violent
7:11
Speaker 2: act in a crowded public space.
7:13
Speaker 1: Oh sure, like flight or fight exactly.
7:15
Speaker 2: The fight or flight response leans heavily toward flight once
7:19
Speaker 2: the immediate conflict is.
7:20
Speaker 1: Over, get out of there.
7:21
Speaker 2: Right. So, choosing to stay at the scene, especially if
7:25
Speaker 2: it involved the calculated disarming procedure that the Internet described, well,
7:30
Speaker 2: that is a highly unusual reaction.
7:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is.
7:33
Speaker 2: It shifts our entire understanding of the event. We are
7:36
Speaker 2: no longer just looking at a burst of uncontrolled chaos, right, Okay,
7:40
Speaker 2: we're looking at complex, perhaps deeply ingrained behavioral mechanisms at play.
7:46
Speaker 1: Here, which means we really need to look closer at
7:48
Speaker 1: the human beings carrying those mechanisms. Yes, we have two
7:51
Speaker 1: lives intersecting on a random Sunday afternoon, and to understand
7:55
Speaker 1: the collision we have to understand the trajectories they were
7:57
Speaker 1: on beforehand. Absolutely, So let's start with the victim, Matthew Trewick.
8:02
Speaker 1: The picture painted by the community reporting is just it's
8:06
Speaker 1: gut wrenching, it really is.
8:07
Speaker 2: He was a thirty three year old husband and a
8:09
Speaker 2: father to three young children. Three kids, and when we
8:12
Speaker 2: say young, we are talking about a timeline of extreme dependency.
8:16
Speaker 2: A two month old infant, a two year old, and
8:18
Speaker 2: a four year old.
8:19
Speaker 1: Oh man, And I found myself dwelling on this specific
8:22
Speaker 1: video that was circulated in the reporting.
8:25
Speaker 2: Well, the Father's Day one.
8:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a Father's Day promotional video released by
8:29
Speaker 1: Vaden Automotive where he worked at one of their nies
8:31
Speaker 1: on dealerships, right, And in it, he is sitting there
8:35
Speaker 1: and someone asks him what his favorite part about being
8:38
Speaker 1: a dad is, and he just smiles and says, his
8:42
Speaker 1: favorite thing is when his kids are waiting outside for
8:44
Speaker 1: him to get home from work, and the second he
8:46
Speaker 1: gets out of the car, they just start yelling Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.
8:50
Speaker 2: An incredibly warm, intimate detail to have out there.
8:52
Speaker 1: It broke my heart.
8:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it highlights the agonizing ripple effect of this
8:57
Speaker 2: kind of violence. Yeah, because a parking lots doesn't just
9:01
Speaker 2: end a single life, right right, it shatters an entire
9:04
Speaker 2: domestic ecosystem.
9:05
Speaker 1: It completely obliterates it. And professionally, Treywick was clearly a
9:09
Speaker 1: force too.
9:10
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
9:10
Speaker 1: The dealership posted about his impact, noting that back in
9:13
Speaker 1: June of twenty twenty one, he sold sixty two vehicles
9:16
Speaker 1: in a single month. Wow, which, if you know anything
9:19
Speaker 1: about parcels, that is a staggering number.
9:21
Speaker 2: That's huge.
9:22
Speaker 1: It speaks to a guy who was driven, charismatic, and
9:25
Speaker 1: clearly deeply connected to the people in his town. Yes, definitely,
9:28
Speaker 1: and that connection became really obvious in the aftermath. A
9:32
Speaker 1: GoFundMe was set up for his widow, Mikayla, to help
9:35
Speaker 1: with just the unimaginable sudden burden of raising those three
9:39
Speaker 1: babies alone. Right, and the community response was title I
9:43
Speaker 1: mean it quickly soared past one hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
9:46
Speaker 2: That is amazing.
9:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. The organizer even wrote that seeing the financial support
9:50
Speaker 1: pour in restored their faith in humanity after such a
9:53
Speaker 1: senseless act.
9:54
Speaker 2: So we see a man deeply embedded in his communities
9:57
Speaker 2: supporting this young, growing family. Yeah. But then we look
10:00
Speaker 2: at the suspect, Tyler Edward Lynn, and the background that
10:04
Speaker 2: emerges here paints a very different psychological and professional profile. Okay,
10:08
Speaker 2: Lynn is thirty years old and he spent a significant
10:10
Speaker 2: portion of his adult life in the military. He served
10:13
Speaker 2: in the Army from August twenty fifteen to October twenty
10:16
Speaker 2: twenty three.
10:16
Speaker 1: So, according to a Fort Stewart spokesperson that was quoted
10:19
Speaker 1: in the reports, his specialty was as an unmanned aircraft
10:22
Speaker 1: systems repairer and he was stationed at Hunter Army Airfield
10:26
Speaker 1: in nearby Hinesville, Georgia, and he achieved the rank of specialists.
10:30
Speaker 1: I mean, eight years in the army is a substantial
10:32
Speaker 1: chunk of time.
10:33
Speaker 2: It is a lot of time. But the reporting notes
10:35
Speaker 2: to detail about his service record that is absolutely critical
10:38
Speaker 2: to isolate before we try to analyze his mental state
10:42
Speaker 2: at all. Okay, what's that over the course of those
10:44
Speaker 2: eight years in uniform, Lynn was never deployed.
10:48
Speaker 1: And I am so glad they highlighted that, because my
10:51
Speaker 1: brain immediately did what I think most people's brains.
10:54
Speaker 2: Do, jump to conclusions.
10:56
Speaker 1: Exactly. You hear military veteran involved in a public shooting,
11:00
Speaker 1: and society has sort of been conditioned to instantly jump
11:03
Speaker 1: to assumptions about combat trauma, hypervigilance, and PTSD from being
11:07
Speaker 1: in a war zone.
11:09
Speaker 2: It's a very common and honestly often very unfair cultural shorthand. Yeah,
11:13
Speaker 2: we tend to pathologize all military service as inherently traumatizing.
11:18
Speaker 2: In the same specific way. Establishing that he was never
11:22
Speaker 2: deployed to a combat zone. It's important because it prevents
11:25
Speaker 2: us from just writing this off with a lazy stereotype
11:27
Speaker 2: about a sudden flashback.
11:29
Speaker 1: Or something exactly.
11:29
Speaker 2: However, as doctor Bober points out in his clinical review
11:32
Speaker 2: of the case, just because Lynn didn't see combat does
11:35
Speaker 2: not mean his military background is irrelevant. Okay, eight years
11:39
Speaker 2: inside a rigid military training environment fundamentally alters how a
11:43
Speaker 2: human brain processes stress and conflict. Oh, I see, which
11:47
Speaker 2: is something we are going to die into deeply when
11:49
Speaker 2: we look at his actions after the shooting.
11:51
Speaker 1: Right, so the conditioning is still there even if the
11:53
Speaker 1: combat wasn't. Exactly, and speaking of conditioning, the online community
11:58
Speaker 1: didn't just share rumors about the.
11:59
Speaker 2: Shit itself, right right, They dug into his past. Yeah.
12:03
Speaker 1: They also brought forward allegations about Lynn's behavioral history leading
12:06
Speaker 1: up to that Sunday. Another internet user claimed to have
12:10
Speaker 1: personal knowledge of Lynn and alleged that he had a
12:12
Speaker 1: terrifying history of severe road rage. Oh, we're talking about
12:16
Speaker 1: a pattern of aggressively cutting people off, break checking drivers
12:21
Speaker 1: on the highway, relentlessly following people who made him angry,
12:24
Speaker 1: and even initiating physical altercations outside of his vehicle.
12:28
Speaker 2: Now, again, we have to maintain our skepticism here. Of core,
12:31
Speaker 2: These are unverified claims that the police have not officially
12:35
Speaker 2: entered into the public record yet.
12:37
Speaker 1: Right, They're just rumors right now.
12:38
Speaker 2: Exactly. But let's look at this purely as a forensic hypothetical. Okay,
12:43
Speaker 2: what's fascinating here is how past behavioral patterns completely rewrite
12:48
Speaker 2: the narrative of a tragedy and illegal and psychological context.
12:52
Speaker 1: How does that work in a courtroom? Exactly? Because my
12:55
Speaker 1: initial thought is, well, you know, everyone gets mad in
12:57
Speaker 1: traffic sometimes.
12:58
Speaker 2: Oh sure, everyone experiences frustration. Yes, But if investigators can
13:03
Speaker 2: verify a documented history of the severe behaviors you just described,
13:08
Speaker 2: you know, the following people initiating physical contact, right, the
13:10
Speaker 2: extreme stuff, then the legal framing of the target shooting
13:14
Speaker 2: shifts seispickly.
13:16
Speaker 1: Okay.
13:16
Speaker 2: It ceases to be a story about a normal guy
13:19
Speaker 2: who just inexplicably snapped out of nowhere. Oh, I see,
13:22
Speaker 2: because sudden, unpredictable snapping is actually quite rare clinically speaking.
13:27
Speaker 2: Really yeah, Instead, it becomes a story of predictable escalation.
13:31
Speaker 2: It establishes a chronic pattern of aggressive reactivity.
13:34
Speaker 1: Wow.
13:34
Speaker 2: If true, the argument over the parking space wasn't an anomaly,
13:39
Speaker 2: It was the fatal culmination of a behavioral trajectory that
13:44
Speaker 2: had been building momentum for years.
13:46
Speaker 1: That reframing makes so much sense. It has like a
13:49
Speaker 1: pressure cooker that has been whistling loudly for months and months,
13:53
Speaker 1: and the parking lot was just the moment the lid
13:55
Speaker 1: finally blew off.
13:56
Speaker 2: That's a perfect analogy, which really.
13:58
Speaker 1: Brings us to the core of doctor Boberra's psychiatric analysis.
14:02
Speaker 1: In the source, I want to understand the actual mechanics
14:05
Speaker 1: of that explosion. Yes, why do you complete strangers end
14:09
Speaker 1: up fighting over a parking spot to begin with? Like,
14:11
Speaker 1: how do you traverse the massive psychological distance between wanting
14:16
Speaker 1: a convenient spot near the target entrance and deciding to
14:18
Speaker 1: pull a trigger?
14:19
Speaker 2: To explain that leap, doctor Bober uses a clinical term.
14:22
Speaker 2: It's called reactive aggression.
14:23
Speaker 1: Okay. Reactive aggression so as opposed to someone like waking
14:26
Speaker 1: up in the morning and planning to commit a crime,
14:28
Speaker 1: it's a spontaneous reaction precisely.
14:30
Speaker 2: Proactive or predatory aggression is calculated, you plan it right.
14:33
Speaker 2: But reactive aggression is a volcanic response to a specific,
14:37
Speaker 2: immediate trigger. It almost always stems from a perceived slight.
14:42
Speaker 2: The individual feels they are being profoundly disrespected or challenged
14:46
Speaker 2: in some way.
14:47
Speaker 1: Oh I see.
14:48
Speaker 2: From a clinical perspective, individuals who regularly display extreme reactive
14:52
Speaker 2: aggression usually have underlying deficits in two main areas, which
14:56
Speaker 2: are cognitive control and emotional regulation. Their internal breaks just
15:00
Speaker 2: don't work the way yours or mine do. Okay, But
15:03
Speaker 2: doctor Bober introduces a brilliant psychological concept to explain exactly
15:08
Speaker 2: how that trigger gets pulled in the mind.
15:10
Speaker 1: What is it.
15:10
Speaker 2: It's called hostile attribution bias.
15:13
Speaker 1: Hostile attribution bias. Okay, I love this because it puts
15:16
Speaker 1: a label on a phenomenon I think we've all encountered
15:19
Speaker 1: out in the wild. Oh absolutely, What is the actual
15:21
Speaker 1: mechanism happening in the brain with this bias?
15:24
Speaker 2: So at its core, hostile attribution bias is a knee
15:27
Speaker 2: jerk cognitive reflex that misinterprets reality. Okay, Think about an
15:32
Speaker 2: ambiguous situation in public. For instance, two cars pull down
15:35
Speaker 2: a parking aisle from opposite directions and both drivers simultaneously
15:39
Speaker 2: signal for the exact same open space.
15:41
Speaker 1: Happens all the time, exactly to.
15:43
Speaker 2: A typical, healthy brain that is recognized as an annoying
15:48
Speaker 2: random coincidence.
15:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, your brain says, ah, bad timing, Guess I'll find
15:51
Speaker 1: another spot, right.
15:53
Speaker 2: But a brain burdened with hostile attribution bias skips the
15:57
Speaker 2: logic of coincidence entirely and jumps straight to malice.
16:00
Speaker 1: So it manufactures an enemy out of thin air.
16:03
Speaker 2: Yes, their internal monologue instantly says, this person saw me coming,
16:08
Speaker 2: and they are purposely trying to steal my spot to
16:12
Speaker 2: humiliate me. It becomes this is a targeted, deliberate, hostile
16:17
Speaker 2: attack against my ego and my safety.
16:20
Speaker 1: It's like they are walking through life wearing a pair
16:22
Speaker 1: of incredibly distorted glasses that filter every single neutral interaction
16:26
Speaker 1: as a personal threat.
16:27
Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
16:28
Speaker 1: Like, think about the last time someone accidentally bumped your
16:31
Speaker 1: shoulder in a crowded hallway. Yeah, if you have those
16:33
Speaker 1: glasses on, your brain doesn't say, oh, they chipped or
16:35
Speaker 1: it's crowded. Your brain instantly screams, they just shove me.
16:38
Speaker 2: They want to fight, yes, exactly. And to take that
16:41
Speaker 2: glass's analogy a step further, imagine those lenses don't just
16:44
Speaker 2: distort reality, they also give you extreme tunnel vision. Doctor
16:48
Speaker 2: Bober explains that when a person with this bias registers
16:51
Speaker 2: that manufactured threat, the resulting surge of anger physically and
16:55
Speaker 2: neurologically narrows their focus. Literally literally, it's a biological response
17:01
Speaker 2: meant for fighting predators in the wild, but it's misfiring
17:05
Speaker 2: in a retail parking lot, So.
17:06
Speaker 1: They literally lose perspective on the world around them entirely.
17:10
Speaker 2: That sudden anger temporarily disables the higher level executive functions
17:14
Speaker 2: in the prefrontal cortex.
17:15
Speaker 1: The logic center.
17:16
Speaker 2: Right, They literally lose the cognitive ability to problem solve.
17:20
Speaker 2: They lose the capacity to pause and reinterpret the other
17:23
Speaker 2: driver's intentions. Wow, And most terrifyingly, they lose the behavioral
17:28
Speaker 2: option to simply put the car in reverse, let the
17:31
Speaker 2: spot go, and walk away. The brain locks onto the
17:34
Speaker 2: perceived threat with absolute singular intensity.
17:37
Speaker 1: They are biologically trapped in the confrontation at that point, Yes,
17:40
Speaker 1: they are. And then doctor Bober points out the terrifying
17:42
Speaker 1: variable that turns this psychological trap into a tragedy, the firearm. Yes,
17:48
Speaker 1: you take a human being experiencing that extreme narrowing of focus,
17:52
Speaker 1: someone whose emotional breaks have completely failed, and you introduce
17:57
Speaker 1: a firearm into that exact split second of tunnel vision.
18:01
Speaker 1: He describes it as a lethal perfect storm.
18:04
Speaker 2: Because a firearm compresses the timeline of consequences so drastically.
18:08
Speaker 2: What do you mean, Well, without a gun, poor emotional
18:11
Speaker 2: regulation in a parking lot might result in a screaming match,
18:15
Speaker 2: some rude gestures, maybe even a fistfight, right, sure.
18:17
Speaker 1: A lot of adrenaline, maybe a bruise jaw exactly, But.
18:21
Speaker 2: The introduction of the firearm takes a temporary emotional misfire
18:25
Speaker 2: and turns it into a permanent, deadly outcome in a
18:28
Speaker 2: fraction of a.
18:28
Speaker 1: Second before they can even think.
18:31
Speaker 2: Right before the executive functioning of the brain ever has
18:33
Speaker 2: a chance to come back online and say, wait, what
18:35
Speaker 2: are we doing here?
18:36
Speaker 1: Which opens up a huge question about the immediate aftermath. Okay, like,
18:40
Speaker 1: once the trigger is pulled and the deafening noise stops,
18:43
Speaker 1: what happens when that executive function tries.
18:45
Speaker 2: To boot back up right the aftermath?
18:47
Speaker 1: How does the human brain process the horrific reality of
18:50
Speaker 1: what it just did? Because in the source reporting, there
18:54
Speaker 1: is a fascinating moment where the host asked doctor Bober
18:57
Speaker 1: about interrogating suspense in these situations. That yeah, basically asking,
19:01
Speaker 1: you know, if a detective sits down with someone who
19:03
Speaker 1: just shot a stranger in a fit of reactive rage,
19:06
Speaker 1: can that suspect even give a straight, reliable answer about
19:10
Speaker 1: what just happened?
19:10
Speaker 2: And doctor Bober's clinical response to that is a definitive
19:14
Speaker 2: resounding no.
19:15
Speaker 1: Wait, I have to push back on that a little
19:16
Speaker 1: bit because it seems evolutionarily backward to me. Oh so, well,
19:20
Speaker 1: if I am in a life or death confrontation, a
19:22
Speaker 1: massive moment of trauma. Shouldn't my brain be hardwired to
19:26
Speaker 1: record every single tiny detail of that event so I
19:29
Speaker 1: can learn from it and avoid that threat in the future.
19:31
Speaker 2: It seems like it should.
19:32
Speaker 1: Yeah right, Why would my memory just blank out?
19:35
Speaker 2: It does feel counterintuitive, but you have to think about
19:38
Speaker 2: what the brain prioritizes in the moment of extreme danger. Okay,
19:42
Speaker 2: the body is instantly flooded with an overwhelming cocktail of
19:46
Speaker 2: survival chemicals, right, yeah, massive amounts of adrenaline, cort is,
19:49
Speaker 2: all other neurotransmitters, just a total chemical flood exactly. Think
19:54
Speaker 2: of your brain like a computer with a limited amount
19:57
Speaker 2: of processing power. Okay, right, When that survival alarm rings,
20:03
Speaker 2: the brain redirects all of its available RAM to run
20:07
Speaker 2: the fight or flight's survival program.
20:09
Speaker 1: It needs the energy for that, right, It needs.
20:10
Speaker 2: Your muscles primed, your heart pumping, your pupils dilated. To
20:14
Speaker 2: do that, it has to shut down non essential background applications, and.
20:18
Speaker 1: Long term memory encoding is a non essential background app Exactly.
20:22
Speaker 2: The hippocampus, which helps form and store memories, is severely
20:26
Speaker 2: disrupted by that flood of stress hormones. Oh wow. The
20:29
Speaker 2: brain is basically saying we don't have the energy to
20:32
Speaker 2: screen record this right now. We just need to survive
20:34
Speaker 2: the next ten seconds.
20:35
Speaker 1: That is fascinating.
20:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, And because of that chemical override, perpetrators and very
20:40
Speaker 2: often victims and bystanders too, they have zero accurate recall
20:44
Speaker 2: of the mechanics of the event immediately after it happens.
20:47
Speaker 1: So they aren't just making it up, right.
20:48
Speaker 2: They aren't necessarily lying to the detectives to save themselves.
20:52
Speaker 2: Their brain physically did not encode the data properly. They
20:56
Speaker 2: literally cannot give you a factual answer.
20:59
Speaker 1: That is why. Well, the unreliable narrator isn't a choice.
21:02
Speaker 1: It's literally built by adrenaline exactly. But if the conscious
21:06
Speaker 1: memory making brain is short circuiting during the violence, it
21:09
Speaker 1: makes the physical subconscious reactions we discussed earlier even more
21:13
Speaker 1: critical to analyze. Very true, Let's go back to that
21:16
Speaker 1: chilling eyewitness rumor about Tyler Lynn's behavior. He allegedly shoots Trewick,
21:22
Speaker 1: and then instead of panicking, he calmly removes the magazine
21:25
Speaker 1: from the gun, places it on the roof of the car,
21:27
Speaker 1: and waits right the stillness. If a flood of adrenaline
21:30
Speaker 1: makes a normal person irrational and chaotic. How does someone
21:33
Speaker 1: act with such cold, methodical precision.
21:36
Speaker 2: This is exactly where doctor Bober points back to the
21:38
Speaker 2: eight years Lynn spent in the army. Ah, even without
21:41
Speaker 2: a combat deployment, military training is designed to hack the
21:45
Speaker 2: human stress response.
21:46
Speaker 1: How just do that?
21:47
Speaker 2: The entire purpose of drilling soldiers repeatedly is to instill
21:51
Speaker 2: what we call procedural fallback behaviors.
21:53
Speaker 1: We usually just call that muscle memory, right, yes, but
21:56
Speaker 1: it's deeper than just muscles, right, it's neurological. Okay.
22:00
Speaker 2: The military trains you so that when your conscious brain,
22:04
Speaker 2: your prefrontal cortex, is completely overwhelmed by fear or stress
22:09
Speaker 2: or adrenaline, your body defaults to the lowest level of
22:13
Speaker 2: its deeply ingrained training, which is stored where in different
22:17
Speaker 2: parts of the brain, like the basal ganglia.
22:19
Speaker 1: Oh okay, It's like why you can drive the same
22:22
Speaker 1: route home from work every day and pull into your
22:24
Speaker 1: driveway and suddenly realize you don't actually remember the last
22:26
Speaker 1: ten minutes of the commute.
22:28
Speaker 2: Yes, perfectly, said.
22:29
Speaker 1: Your conscious brain was thinking about what to make for dinner,
22:32
Speaker 1: but your procedural brain was perfectly stopping at red lights
22:35
Speaker 1: and using the turn signal.
22:36
Speaker 2: That is the exact mechanism. Now apply that to firearms training,
22:40
Speaker 2: oh Man, Removing a magazine, clearing the chamber, and making
22:44
Speaker 2: a weapon safe after an engagement is a procedure that
22:47
Speaker 2: is drilled into a soldier thousands of times below, over
22:50
Speaker 2: and over exactly. So what looks to a terrified bystander
22:54
Speaker 2: like the chillingly calm, calculated actions of a cold blooded
22:58
Speaker 2: killer might clinically sp be an individual whose conscious brain
23:02
Speaker 2: has completely checked out. Wow, adrenaline spiked, the violence happened,
23:07
Speaker 2: and with the conscious mind overwhelmed, the procedural reflex just
23:11
Speaker 2: automatically ran the script to save the weapon.
23:13
Speaker 1: Wow. If that's what actually happened, I mean that distinction
23:17
Speaker 1: is going to be incredibly heavily contested in a courtroom.
23:19
Speaker 2: Oh, undoubtedly.
23:20
Speaker 1: But before we get to the legal battle, we have
23:22
Speaker 1: to talk about the collateral damage. Yeah, and I mean
23:24
Speaker 1: the most agonizing detail of this entire tragedy. The reporting
23:28
Speaker 1: confirmed that Matthew Treiwick's three young children were inside his
23:32
Speaker 1: vehicle when the argument and the shooting took place.
23:35
Speaker 2: It just adds an almost unfathomable layer of generational trauma
23:40
Speaker 2: to an already devastating event.
23:41
Speaker 1: It really does. It's horrible, And the interviewer asked doctor
23:44
Speaker 1: Bober about the psychological fallout for children that young. You
23:48
Speaker 1: know again, a four year old, a two year old,
23:49
Speaker 1: and an infant. Yeah, what does the psychiatric landscape look
23:53
Speaker 1: like for kids who are exposed to the sudden, violent
23:55
Speaker 1: death of their father from just a few feet away.
23:58
Speaker 2: It's incredibly grim. Yeah, But doctor Bober offers a very
24:01
Speaker 2: measured but deeply serious clinical assessment of this.
24:05
Speaker 1: Okay, what did he say?
24:06
Speaker 2: He starts by noting a psychological truth, which is that
24:09
Speaker 2: children possess an incredible almost biological resilience.
24:13
Speaker 1: Right.
24:13
Speaker 2: Kids bounce back, they do that, they have an astounding
24:16
Speaker 2: capacity to adapt to terrible circumstances. However, exposure to this
24:21
Speaker 2: specific type of sudden, extreme loud trauma at a vital
24:25
Speaker 2: developmental stage places them at a severe risk for what exactly,
24:30
Speaker 2: for developing acute stress reactions in the short term and
24:33
Speaker 2: complex PTSD as they grow. Wow, the brand's alarm system
24:37
Speaker 2: gets calibrated to danger much too early in their development.
24:40
Speaker 1: That's heartbreaking.
24:42
Speaker 2: But the most poignant point doctor bobermade was introducing the
24:44
Speaker 2: concept of the new normal.
24:46
Speaker 1: The new normal what does he mean by that in
24:48
Speaker 1: this specific context.
24:49
Speaker 2: He explains that grief and trauma of this magnitude aren't
24:53
Speaker 2: things you process and eventually recover from in the sense
24:56
Speaker 2: of returning to who you used to be. It's not
24:59
Speaker 2: a broken bone that heals back to its original shape.
25:01
Speaker 1: Right right. You don't just get over it.
25:03
Speaker 2: No, the old reality, the life where Dad comes home
25:06
Speaker 2: and they yell his name in the driveway, the reality
25:09
Speaker 2: is permanently gone. Yeah, the family is forced to navigate
25:14
Speaker 2: an entirely new baseline of reality. They have to build
25:18
Speaker 2: a new normal from the wreckage, and they have to
25:20
Speaker 2: do it one day or sometimes one hour at a time.
25:23
Speaker 1: It's just a devastating lifelong sentence for that family.
25:26
Speaker 2: It truly is.
25:27
Speaker 1: And while they're forced to figure out that new normal,
25:30
Speaker 1: the justice systant is going to attempt to figure out accountability. Yes,
25:34
Speaker 1: so let's look at the legal rode ahead for this case.
25:37
Speaker 1: Based on the court record sided in the reporting, Tyler
25:40
Speaker 1: Lynn is currently being held without bail. He's facing serious charges, obviously,
25:44
Speaker 1: including aggravated assault and murder. With court proceedings moving forward,
25:49
Speaker 1: from an expert perspective, how do we expect a trial
25:53
Speaker 1: with these specific behavioral elements to actually unfold well.
25:56
Speaker 2: According to doctor Bober's experience with the courts, there's a
26:00
Speaker 2: very high probability that a comprehensive mental health evaluation will
26:05
Speaker 2: be a focal point early on.
26:06
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
26:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, this can be requested by the defense team to
26:10
Speaker 2: start building a case around his state of mind, or
26:13
Speaker 2: it can be ordered directly by the judge to ensure
26:16
Speaker 2: the defendant is legally competent to stand trial.
26:19
Speaker 1: And that state of mind at the exact moment the
26:21
Speaker 1: trigger was pulled is going to be the absolute center
26:24
Speaker 1: of gravity for the entire trial, absolutely, which brings up
26:28
Speaker 1: a fascinating legal contradiction that the reporting touches on. It
26:32
Speaker 1: is like a masterclass in how trials are less about
26:35
Speaker 1: objective truth and more about a narrative battle over the facts. Yes,
26:39
Speaker 1: let's look at the fact that Lynn stayed at the scene,
26:41
Speaker 1: he disarmed himself and waited for the cops. We know
26:44
Speaker 1: this happened.
26:44
Speaker 2: It's a single undisputed fact.
26:46
Speaker 1: Right exactly. But the defense attorneys and the prosecutors are
26:49
Speaker 1: going to look at that exact, same undisputed fact and
26:52
Speaker 1: tell the jury two completely irreconcilable stories. About what it
26:56
Speaker 1: actually means.
26:57
Speaker 2: It's a brilliant observation about the mechanics of the legal system.
27:00
Speaker 1: How will they spin it, Well.
27:01
Speaker 2: The defense is going to seize on his decision to stay.
27:04
Speaker 2: They will likely argue that by remaining at the scene safely,
27:07
Speaker 2: disarming himself and waiting for law enforcement, Lynn demonstrated complete
27:13
Speaker 2: compliance and a lack of malice. Okay, they might paint
27:16
Speaker 2: a picture of a man in a profound state of traumatic.
27:19
Speaker 1: Shock, right, like we talked about.
27:21
Speaker 2: They could argue that, in his mind, burdened by a
27:24
Speaker 2: perceived threat, yeah, you know that hostile attribution bias, he
27:29
Speaker 2: genuinely believed he had acted in self defense in that
27:32
Speaker 2: chaotic split.
27:32
Speaker 1: Second because he felt threatened, right.
27:35
Speaker 2: And that is exactly why he felt no need to
27:37
Speaker 2: run away like a guilty man would.
27:39
Speaker 1: So the defense says, I stayed because I thought I
27:41
Speaker 1: was in the right exactly. But the prosecution is going
27:44
Speaker 1: to take that sam exact behavior and flip it completely
27:47
Speaker 1: upside down exactly.
27:48
Speaker 2: The prosecution will look at the jury and argue that
27:51
Speaker 2: calmly unloading a weapon, placing the magazine on the roof,
27:54
Speaker 2: and standing there silently, well, that isn't the behavior of
27:58
Speaker 2: someone in shock. No, they'll say it is the cold
28:02
Speaker 2: calculated behavior of a man acknowledging his guilt. They will argue,
28:06
Speaker 2: he knew exactly what he had done, his anger had subsided,
28:10
Speaker 2: and he simply accepted the inevitable consequences of his crime.
28:13
Speaker 1: That is a wildly different story.
28:16
Speaker 2: And the incredible irony here, as doctor Bober points out,
28:19
Speaker 2: is that if Lynn had panic and fled the scene,
28:23
Speaker 2: the prosecution would have used that as their primary proof
28:25
Speaker 2: of guilt, arguing that only a guilty man runs from
28:28
Speaker 2: the law.
28:29
Speaker 1: Oh man, you can't win.
28:30
Speaker 2: Right in the courtroom. The physical actions matter less than quote.
28:34
Speaker 2: How you tell the story of those actions.
28:36
Speaker 1: It's entirely about framing the psychology for the jury. It
28:39
Speaker 1: is now, before we wrap up this deep dive, there
28:42
Speaker 1: is one final element of doctor Bober's analysis that we
28:45
Speaker 1: need to address. Okay, and I want to set some
28:47
Speaker 1: very clear boundaries for our listeners right here, because we
28:50
Speaker 1: are going to look at this strictly through the impartial
28:52
Speaker 1: clinical lens provided by the forensic psychiatrist in the reporting right,
28:57
Speaker 1: we are entirely sidestepping the political debates surrounding the topic
29:00
Speaker 1: because our goal is simply to convey the psychiatric and
29:03
Speaker 1: behavioral observations made by the expert.
29:05
Speaker 2: Understood completely. We are looking at the clinical outcomes, not
29:08
Speaker 2: the legislation.
29:09
Speaker 1: Right exactly. So, during the interview, doctor Bober was asked
29:14
Speaker 1: if he had any advice for people to prevent these
29:16
Speaker 1: kinds of mundane altercations from turning violent, and he answered
29:21
Speaker 1: by addressing the presence of firearms directly framing it from
29:25
Speaker 1: what he called a strictly public health perspective. Okay, He
29:28
Speaker 1: stated that the mere presence of a firearm in a
29:31
Speaker 1: home or in a vehicle during a commute exponentially increases
29:35
Speaker 1: the statistical probability of a lethal outcome if a confrontation occurs,
29:39
Speaker 1: which lives.
29:39
Speaker 2: Perfectly back to his explanation of reactive aggression and that
29:43
Speaker 2: narrowing a focus we talked about earlier, right, because the
29:45
Speaker 2: presence of the tool completely removes the margin for error
29:50
Speaker 2: in human emotional regulation.
29:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
29:53
Speaker 2: If your emotional breaks fail and you don't have a gun,
29:56
Speaker 2: you get embarrassed or.
29:57
Speaker 1: Bruised, you look foolish.
29:59
Speaker 2: Right, But if they fail and you do have one,
30:01
Speaker 2: someone dies.
30:02
Speaker 1: Exactly, But he highlights a really complex behavioral paradox regarding
30:06
Speaker 1: why people carry them in the first place, specifically regarding accessibility.
30:10
Speaker 2: Okay, what's the paradox.
30:11
Speaker 1: Well, people generally choose to carry a firearm in the
30:14
Speaker 1: center console of their vehicle or on their person because
30:18
Speaker 1: they want it immediately accessible for protection if a severe
30:21
Speaker 1: life threatening situation arises, Right, you need it fast.
30:24
Speaker 2: Right.
30:24
Speaker 1: If you advise them to lock it in a safe
30:27
Speaker 1: in the trunk where it takes three minutes to reach,
30:30
Speaker 1: they will logically argue that completely defeats the purpose of
30:33
Speaker 1: having it for sudden self defense.
30:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a paradox built on risk assessment, right exactly.
30:38
Speaker 2: But this is where doctor Bober issues a profound clinical warning.
30:43
Speaker 2: What is it? While immediate accessibility might be the logical
30:46
Speaker 2: goal for self defense for a specific subset of individuals,
30:51
Speaker 2: those with a reactive temperament, right, people who are clinically
30:54
Speaker 2: prone to flying off the handle.
30:56
Speaker 1: Or those with the hostile attribution bias.
30:57
Speaker 2: Exactly, for those navigating the world to that distorted lens,
31:01
Speaker 2: that exact same accessibility is precisely the catalyst for tragedy.
31:06
Speaker 1: The convenience literally becomes the danger.
31:09
Speaker 2: Yes, for someone who cannot regulate their anger, having a
31:13
Speaker 2: lethal option available in a fraction of a second is
31:15
Speaker 2: a recipe for disaster over things as trivial as a
31:20
Speaker 2: parking spot or emerged lane.
31:22
Speaker 1: Wow.
31:22
Speaker 2: Doctor Ober noted that in his clinical practice he regularly
31:25
Speaker 2: sees patients in the hospital who must have their firearms
31:28
Speaker 2: temporarily removed from their possession, not because they are inherently
31:32
Speaker 2: evil people, right, but because their psychological temperament in that
31:35
Speaker 2: specific moment makes immediate accessibility an unacceptable danger to themselves
31:41
Speaker 2: or to the public.
31:42
Speaker 1: It's a tragic paradox. Really, the tool acquired to ensure
31:45
Speaker 1: safety becomes the exact mechanism of a nightmare, simply because
31:48
Speaker 1: the person holding it experienced a momentary inability to regulate
31:52
Speaker 1: their own mind. It's sobering, very so what does this
31:56
Speaker 1: all mean for us? We started today looking at a
31:58
Speaker 1: completely mundane target parking lot. We explored a devastating loss
32:02
Speaker 1: of life, a community rallying around a grieving widow and
32:05
Speaker 1: three young children who are now forced to learn a
32:07
Speaker 1: very painful new normal. And along the way we've unpacked
32:10
Speaker 1: some pretty frightening concepts, from the distorted reality of hostile
32:14
Speaker 1: attribution bias to the robotic nature of procedural stress reactions.
32:20
Speaker 2: I think the most vital takeaway here is a realization
32:24
Speaker 2: about the inherent volatility of the public spaces we share.
32:27
Speaker 2: What do you mean, Well, when you walk out of
32:29
Speaker 2: that grocery store, you have absolutely no idea what the
32:33
Speaker 2: person pushing the cart next.
32:34
Speaker 1: To you is dealing with, right, You're totally blind to it.
32:36
Speaker 2: You don't know if this stranger idling in the car
32:38
Speaker 2: waiting for your spot is carrying a massive load of
32:41
Speaker 2: unseen psychological baggage, or if they're looking at you through
32:45
Speaker 2: the paranoid filtering glasses of hostile attribution bias. Exactly, you
32:49
Speaker 2: cannot control their emotional breaks. You can only control your.
32:52
Speaker 1: Own, Which makes it a pretty sobering reminder to de
32:56
Speaker 1: escalate whenever you possibly can. Absolutely, Like, think about the
32:59
Speaker 1: last time someone you off, Your pride flared up. You
33:01
Speaker 1: wanted to honk, you wanted to yell. Just let the
33:04
Speaker 1: parking spot go, let the lane merge go. It's not
33:07
Speaker 1: worth it, It's really not. But before we finish, there
33:10
Speaker 1: was one detail from doctor Bober's explanation of the brain
33:13
Speaker 1: that I just I can't stop thinking about. It's the
33:16
Speaker 1: way our brains betray our memory in our most desperate moments, ah.
33:21
Speaker 2: The adrenaline memory.
33:22
Speaker 1: Wise, yes, Doctor Bober noted that in the heat of
33:25
Speaker 1: a violent altercation, the flood of survival chemicals shuts down
33:28
Speaker 1: the brains recording software, making accurate recall almost biologically impossible.
33:33
Speaker 2: Right, it just drops the ram.
33:35
Speaker 1: Which leaves me with a really unsettling thought. Okay, if
33:38
Speaker 1: our memories are neurologically compromised during moments of extreme life
33:43
Speaker 1: or death stress, if our brains physically cannot record the
33:47
Speaker 1: objective truth of a violent encounter, how many legal self
33:51
Speaker 1: defense verdicts throughout history have been handed down by a
33:54
Speaker 1: jury based entirely on a person's absolute, genuine belief in
33:58
Speaker 1: a memory that never actually really happened.
34:01
Speaker 2: Wow, that is a profound question, and honestly, and it
34:04
Speaker 2: was one that should keep every defense attorney and every
34:07
Speaker 2: juror awake at night.