Latest / Crime Night / Roblox Revenge: The Digital Puppet Master Who Used Sibling Jealousy to Orchestrate Patricide

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Roblox Revenge: The Digital Puppet Master Who Used Sibling Jealousy to Orchestrate Patricide · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we're looking at a
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: really disturbing case. It starts somewhere you wouldn't expect, not
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: some dark alley.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: No, this one began, believe it or not, inside a
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: children's video game, on those brightly lit screens.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's this terrifying story about how well, how real
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: world hate really. Someone's need for revenge found this perfect
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: tool in online anonymity, right.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: And it turned what seemed like a normal family home
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: down in Florida into the target for a meticulously planned crime,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: attempted murder. Essentially.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: What's really crucial here, I think, is understanding the how,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the method.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Absolutely the person behind this, the manipulator. They never even
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: had to set foot in the house. This whole case
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: is just a stark reminder of how a child's you know,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: normal vulnerability, like jealousy towards a new sibling, precisely, something
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: like sibling jealousy which many families deal with, can be
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: spotted by someone online, exploited, and then just completely weaponized
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: all through a platform the child trust.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's set the scene. We need to go back
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to that night. You've got this pretty standard Florida home
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: aiden and Sophie married eleven years.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they have their ten year old daughter, Amelia, and
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: very recently, just two months before this, they welcomed a
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: new baby.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: So life is chaotic, busy, exhausting, you know how it
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: is with.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: A newborn, and that exhaustion, that lack of maybe constant supervision.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: It's key. It creates this little vacuum, doesn't it, right, a.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Space that someone calculating could use to get closer to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the target. In this case, Amelia exactly.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Isolation is the first step.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So it's late. The house is quiet, that kind of
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: deep middle of the night silence. Sophie's downstairs, maybe in
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the kitchen, grabbing water, just trying.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: To get five minutes piece, everything still, and.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Then she hears it from upstairs. Just one sound, but
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: it cuts right through the quiet, sharp violent a thud, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: a sickening kind of thud. Something you instantly know is wrong,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: deeply wrong.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: That sound pure primal fear, isn't it. It's that immediate
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: gut punch, something terrible just happened in the one place
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: you thought was completely safe.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: You're home, So Sophie just bolts runs up the stairs,
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  Speaker 1: heart pounding, She bursts into the.
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  Speaker 2: Room and finds the infant, the two month old baby
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: lying on the floor, motionless, clearly badly hurt.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: And standing right there nearby, just silent, terrified, rigid is
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: ten year old Amelia.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: The first reaction, obviously, it's all about the baby getting
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: medical help.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Stat They rush the infant to the hospital emergency care,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and the injuries are severe. We're talking a fractured.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Skull sustained from the force of a blow, a deliberate act.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, this brings us to how things looked initially, that
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: first phase, the seeds of suspicion. The police, the doctors.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Their immediate thought was this came from within Amelia.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Right, sort of psychological crisis. They looked at the context. Parents, busy,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: new baby, you know.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Aiden and Sophie were stretched thin work newborn demands.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Melia had been spending a lot of time alone in
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: her room, hours behind a closed door, playing games, mostly rodblocks,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and the.
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  Speaker 2: Parents had noticed changes, classic signs you might think of
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a child feeling displaced.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: She became withdrawn, quite.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, withdrawn, isolating herself. They definitely saw jealousy towards the
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: new baby, but they won't They talked it up to.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Normal adjustment, understandable. I guess she didn't only child for
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: ten years.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: That's a big shift, it is, But tragically they dismissed
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: it within that normal framework.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: But looking closer, especially in those last two weeks before
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the incident, her behavior wasn't just typical rivalry, was it.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: There were specific warning.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Signs, definitely signs of manipulation. Really not just moodiness. She
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: seemed constantly distracted, like she was sunk in thought, almost haunted.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: And the question she started asking.
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  Speaker 2: That was the critical red flag. These weren't just you know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: whiny demands for attention. They were deeper, probing questions, asking
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  Speaker 2: her parents, do you still love me more than the baby?
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: And then she just retreat again deeply. It suggest someone
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: was already planting seeds of doubt, of fear, exploiting that
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  Speaker 2: core bond between parent and child.
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  Speaker 1: It's just staggering that this grooming was happening while they
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: thought it was just heightened sibling issues. Okay, let's go
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: to the hospital. The babies and surgery fighting for life.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And the psychiatric team is talking to Amelia. Still operating
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: under the theory that this was some extreme impulsive act
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: driven purely by jealousy.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: But that explanation just didn't quite fit, did it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: No, because Amelia's general temperament, her history, it wasn't violent.
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  Speaker 2: They calculated nature of the act, the sheer force it
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: fell off. It didn't match the child they knew.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So the breakthrough didn't come from the professionals initially.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: No, it came later, after the immediate shock wore off
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: a bit. It came from a conversation between Amelia and
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: her mother, Sophie.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Sophie's just trying to understand, Yeah, talking to her daughter,
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  Speaker 1: and Amelia says something utterly chilling.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. She tells her mom she she chose the easiest
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: solution so that she and her parents could live, because
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: she loved them.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: The easiest solution, yeah, to harm the baby. Yes.
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  Speaker 2: And then almost immediately she panics, says that because the
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: infant survived, she herself was now threatened that she might die,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: threatened by whom exactly that kind of language, solutions, threats,
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  Speaker 2: talk of an original plan. That's not the language of
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: simple jealousy.
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  Speaker 1: The father aiden he picked up on that too, right,
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  Speaker 1: the mention of an original plan.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, Amelia let slip that the original plan involved her
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: parents dying first. That's when it clicked for him. This
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: wasn't Amelia's thinking. This was like a script, someone else's words.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's the pivot point, the moment everyone realized this
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't just a psychological breakdown, this was something else. Compliance
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: under duress, maybe precisely so.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: They bring Amelia back for a more formal interrogation, and
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: that's when the full picture starts to emerge. Unmasking this
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: digital puppet master.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: They find out she didn't just impulsively lash out. She
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: is given.
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  Speaker 2: Options, a menu, essentially, a horrifying menu of ways to
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  Speaker 2: harm the infant, all designed to be lethal, and the.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Source material detailed these. What were they?
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  Speaker 2: It's grim Option one, burn the infant with boiling water,
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  Speaker 2: Option two, stab the infant with a knife, Option three
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: throw the infant from a high place.
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  Speaker 1: And Amelia chose the third option, believing it was the.
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  Speaker 2: Easiest way, yes, the easiest solution, to follow the command
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  Speaker 2: she'd been given.
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  Speaker 1: But it gets even darker, doesn't it. This attack on
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the baby wasn't even the first plan.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: No, that was Plan B, the original goal, the one
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: being pushed during those two weeks she seems so withdrawn,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: was far worse, what was it? Patricide and arson? The
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: instructions were explicit kill her parents first, use flammable material
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: on their beds, the couches, set the house on fire,
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  Speaker 2: then get out before they died.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: My god, the level of planning from what Amelia thought
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: was just another kid online? How long was this going on?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: For about a month and a half, all conducted through
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: check messages within the Roblox game.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: She thought she was talking to another child.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, someone named Sikes, someone she believed was her age
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  Speaker 2: appear a friend. The police seized her PlayStation and the
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: chat logs confirmed everything, and that's where the commands came from.
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  Speaker 1: So when they looked at those chats, what screamed adult
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  Speaker 1: predator and not ten year old friend?
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Well, the vocabulary was too advanced for one, but more
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  Speaker 2: than that, it was the tactics pure emotional blackmail, coercive control,
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  Speaker 2: classic grooming patterns. It wasn't friendly chat, No, Sykes wasn't asking.
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  Speaker 2: Sikes was commanding. The language was designed to create intense,
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  Speaker 2: fear specific threats. If Amelia didn't obey the orders, kill
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  Speaker 2: the parents first, then the sister, then Amelia would be killed.
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  Speaker 1: That constant threat hanging over her. It explains the compliance
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the fear she expressed.
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  Speaker 2: Later, absolutely build trust, then leverage absolute terror.
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  Speaker 1: But how did this Sikes, This supposedly random online kid
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  Speaker 1: knows so much, the new baby, the family details, even
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: their address.
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  Speaker 2: Ah, that's the social engineering part. This wasn't random at all.
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  Speaker 2: Sykes used the cover of being a peer to extract information.
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  Speaker 1: Asking seemingly innocent questions.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly leading questions about her life, her family, the house,
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  Speaker 2: the new baby, her feelings about it, all masked as
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  Speaker 2: friendly chat. This bill to Amelia's trust. Wow, this person
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  Speaker 2: really gets me. They know everything. But it was all
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: intelligence gathering.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, so who was it? Who was this person using
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a kid's game to orchestrate all this?
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Police trace, the digital footprint, the IP address. It led
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: them to tar Sykes, a thirty six year old woman
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  Speaker 2: married with three children of her own.
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  Speaker 1: Tar Sykes, And she wasn't a total stranger.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: No, she knew Aiden and Sophie's family, not intimately maybe,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: but from a distance. Social circles, community connections, something like that.
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  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the motive phase four. And it's
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  Speaker 1: it's twisted. It's about revenge, isn't it? Personal revenge against
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the community.
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  Speaker 2: That's exactly right, Tar Sykes. It turns out, had recently
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: gone through a major public scandal herself, a really ugly
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  Speaker 2: family situation.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: What happened.
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  Speaker 2: Her own fourteen year old daughter became pregnant by a
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: twenty year old man. But instead of pursuing charges going
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: to the police, what did they do? Tara and her
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: husband allegedly took money, a significant amount, reportedly one hundred
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars from the man's family to drop the issue,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: to keep it quiet.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: That's unbelievable, taking money to cover up something.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Like that extortion essentially, and eventually the daughter herself reported it.
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  Speaker 2: The whole thing blew up publicly.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So Tara Syke's face backlash.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Massive condemnation. People were furious about the alleged cover up,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the improper conduct. Friends, acquaintances, people like Aiden and Sophie
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  Speaker 2: cut ties with her. She became a social pariah, and.
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  Speaker 1: Her response was this to lash out.
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  Speaker 2: To inflict pain. It seems equal to the shame and
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: isolation she felt. She decided to target the families who
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: had condemned her, starting with Aiden and Sophie, and she
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: used roeblocks used Amelia as her weapon.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Why use a child, though, why not go after them
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: directly if she was so angry?
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Ah, that's the truly chilling calculation legal insulation. Sykes knew
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: or believed that a ten year old perpetrator would face
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: a very different justice system than a thirty six year
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  Speaker 2: old adult orchestrator.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: She was trying to commit murder by proxy, using a
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: child to take the fall.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely calculated malice executed remotely, using a vulnerable child to
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: ensure she Tara Sykes couldn't be directly implicated or she
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: hoped seriously harmed legally.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: But it didn't work out that way. The police found
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the evidence.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, the chat logs on her devices confirmed everything Amelia
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: had confessed under duress. Tara Sykes was arrested, charged with
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: incitement to murder violence against children.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: The police in Florida, their reaction was pretty strong, wasn't it.
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  Speaker 2: They were very clear. They said they'd never encountered a
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: case quite like it, such clinical calculated depravity, where this intense,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: real world malice was filtered entirely through the disguise of
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: a children's online game.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: It really underscores the danger, doesn't it. Anonymity online combined
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: with someone who has a real world grudge and the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: patience to.
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  Speaker 2: Plan absolutely chilling this whole case.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: It's more than just a true crime story. It's a
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: brutal lesson for parenting today. In this digital world. We
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: really can't just dismiss big behavioral shifts and kids withdrawal isolation,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: those weird, probing, fearful questions.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Right, it's not always just too much screen time or
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: normal sibling rivalry. Sometimes it's a sign of something much
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: more sinister.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: When a child's behavior shifts from just being upset to
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: almost like calculated compliance. Like Amelia's easiest solution, you have
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to look deeper. You have to consider that the commands
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: might be coming from outside.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Vigilance isn't passive anymore. Parents almost need to be, you know,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: active participants. Sometimes knowing who your kids are talking to
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: online is one thing, but maybe understanding what they're talking
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: about is even more critical.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Now, understanding the manipulation tactics.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, the social engineering, because these predators they blend in,
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  Speaker 2: they look like part of the fun part of the game.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So Tara Sykes was caught. The immediate threat to this
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: family was stopped, but Alicia with a really unsettling thought
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't it. What needs to change not just with parents
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: being more aware, but systemically within these huge, often anonymous
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: online platforms like roeblocks. What changes are needed there to
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: actually protect kids from this kind of sophisticated long term
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: grooming and manipulation, especially when the danger is hiding behind
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the mask of an innocent game