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The Montana Tragedy: A Young Hero Among Eight Slain · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We are pretty much conditioned to believe that the most
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: dangerous places in America are public spaces. You know, like
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: a dark alley. Right.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Or a crowded theater.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Or a subway car late at night. You
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: lock your doors and you turn the deadbolt and you
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: pull the curtains because you fundamentally believe the threat is
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: outside and it's trying to get in.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: It is the whole concept of a home, right? Yeah.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: It's your fortress.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: It is. What if the data told us that the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: ultimate threat to your life isn't actually trying to break
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: through your locked front door? Because, well, because they already
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: have the key.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: It completely upends everything we think about personal safety.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: It really does. So today we are looking at a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: deeply tragic and honestly deeply unsettling piece of reporting from
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: CBS News. This was originally published on August 26, 2026.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it details just an unfathomable family tragedy that
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: unfolded in Billings, Montana.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And I want to be clear right up front. Our
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: goal today with this deep dive isn't just to recount
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: a nightmare for the sake of true crime consumption. We
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: are really going to dissect the anatomy of this event.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We have to look at all the intersecting factors here.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: We want to understand the human elements, like who these
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: victims were and the profound, just staggering heroism displayed by
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: a child in the absolute darkest of moments.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Which is a heavy thing to process, but so important
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: to talk about.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Right. And we also need to contextualize this within the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: broader and very sobering national data on domestic violence.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Because this wasn't an isolated statistical anomaly, unfortunately.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: No, it wasn't. We are channeling our usual curiosity into
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a profound exploration of human resilience and the psychology of
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: domestic threats. And, of course, the systemic statistics surrounding mass
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: killings in this country.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Because to even begin to comprehend the magnitude of what
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: happened that Sunday evening... You first have to look at
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the physical scene itself.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. The geography of this home actually
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: compounded the tragedy in ways that turned a rescue operation
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: into like a logistical paralysis.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to understand that paralysis, you really have to look
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: closely at the jurisdictional lines drawn on a map.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds crazy that zoning plays a part
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: in a tragedy, but it does.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does. This event took place on a Sunday
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: evening at a home located in a subdivision that was
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: just outside the city limits of Billings, Montana.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: And just outside city limits usually just means what, like
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: cheaper taxes?
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Right. To the average person, being just outside city limits
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: sounds like a minor administrative footnote. I mean, it means
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: you pay different taxes or maybe your trash gets picked
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: up by a private company instead of the municipality.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Right. It's purely bureaucratic stuff normally.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Normally, yes. But in a crisis, that invisible geographical line
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: becomes literally the defining factor of life and death.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: According to the report, a neighbor named Dave Hiller, essentially
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: had a front row seat to the onset of all
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: this chaos.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: What did he see exactly?
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: So he received a call from another neighbor alerting him
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: to an active shooting right on their block. And he
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: could actually hear the gunshots ringing out.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: He looked out his window and he saw police officers
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: already taking cover in his backyard and in his neighbor's backyard.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: So the police are physically there. They are on the scene.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: They hear the gunshots coming from the back of the property.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And then almost immediately, the house is completely engulfed in flames.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Right, which completely changes the nature of the emergency.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It's not just a tactical law enforcement situation anymore. It
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: is a raging structural inferno.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And this is exactly where the logistics of that specific
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: location become catastrophic.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Because of the city limits thing.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because the home was built in a subdivision outside
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: the city limits, it fell under totally different zoning and
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: infrastructural regulations.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Meaning what for the fire department?
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Namely, it was not required to have fire hydrants.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Wait, there were no fire hydrants at all?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: None. Billings Fire Department Chief Matt Hopple stated that his
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: firefighters had to battle this blaze until around 1 a.m. Monday.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: That is hours and hours of fighting a fire.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Yes. But here is the really critical, agonizing detail. They
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: couldn't just rush in and start fighting the fire the
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: second they arrived.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Because of the active shooter. Right.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Their efforts were severely delayed because the site had to
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: first be secured by law enforcement. You have an active
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: shooter discharging a weapon.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: And firefighters aren't cops. They don't have weapons.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Firefighters are not armored tactical units. They cannot just
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: drag hoses into a hot zone where a gunman is
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: actively trying to kill people.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I really want to pause on that for a second
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: for you listening because it's a terrifying convergence of factors.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: It's not just dad luck. It's like a cascading failure
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: of environment and circumstance.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: It's the perfect storm of vulnerabilities.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a perfect storm. Think of the jurisdictional
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: zoning issue like a medieval moat.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: A moat. I like that analogy.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Right. Because by building a house just outside the city line,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you know, to gain privacy on a larger lot and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: some distance from the noise of the city, the subdivision
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: inadvertently created this jurisdictional moat.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: It kept the city out.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it kept the noise of the city out. But
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: in a crisis, it also kept the life-saving infrastructure out,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: like a pressurized water grid and fire hydrants.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Which you just take for granted until your house is
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: on fire.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So when the fire department arrives, they are facing
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: an active shooter, which paralyzes their ability to deploy. And
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: even when the shooter is finally neutralized and they can act,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: they are suddenly hindered by this massive infrastructural deficit.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Right. They don't have a hydrant to hook up to.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Which just sounds so helpless. Yes.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: You're touching on a very complex evolution in emergency management protocols, actually.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: How so? Post Columbine and certainly post Sandy Hook, law
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: enforcement and fire departments had to completely rewrite how they
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: interact at active scenes.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Because in the past, they would just wait. Yeah.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Historically, fire and EMS would stage blocks away and wait
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: for police to declare the entire scene, quote unquote, cold,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: meaning completely secure.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: But the problem with that is people bleed out while
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: they wait.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. People were bleeding to death while the fire
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: department waited blocks away. So they developed these warm zone protocols.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: What's a warm zone protocol?
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: It's where rescue task forces with body armor can go
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: in with police escorts to treat victims while the shooter
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: might still be in another part of the building.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay. But that's for medical rescue. What about a
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: massive fire?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: That's the issue. A structural fire is entirely different. You
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: cannot fight a fully involved house fire in a warm
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: zone capacity while taking small arms fire.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Because you need heavy equipment.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Right. The math of firefighting requires hundreds of gallons of
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: water per minute. Without a hydrant, you are relying on
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: water tender trucks.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: And those have to be driven back and forth, right?
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They have a finite supply and they take time
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: to cycle back and forth to a water source. So
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: the geographical isolation of the house effectively weaponized the environment
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: against the first responders.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Wow. That is incredibly bleak. And the result of that delay,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: combined with the lack of immediate water infrastructure, is just
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: total devastation.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Unimaginable devastation.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Jeff Stovall, who is a spokesperson for the Billings Police Department,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: released a statement. He extended his deepest condolences, obviously, but
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: he also highlighted a really grim reality for the investigators.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: The physical state of the scene.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The investigation was severely complicated by concerns about the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: structural integrity of the house.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Meaning it was too dangerous to enter.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: More than that. The fire literally burned the home down
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to its foundation. The house was structurally obliterated.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Which creates an absolute nightmare for forensic reconstruction.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine where you start with a pile
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: of ashes.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: When a house burns to the foundation, you are losing
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: the fundamental spatial context of the crime. Law enforcement relies
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: on geometry.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Right, like bullet trajectories and stuff.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Where was the shooter standing relative to the victims?
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: What was the trajectory of the bullets? Was there a struggle?
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: In blood spatter, you lose all of that.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Blood spatter analysis, defensive wounds, the exact sequence of events
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: from room to room, all of that physical narrative is
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: erased by the thermal destruction.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Because fire just eats everything.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Fire consumes organic evidence, warps ballistics, and it collapses the
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: very floors and walls that investigators need to map the timeline.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So you're left with an evidentiary void? Investigators are forced
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to rely almost entirely on external witnesses and digital artifacts
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: like 911 calls.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: And just the tragic final outcome itself to piece together
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: what happened.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Right. The crime scene is reduced to ashes before a
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: single evidence marker can even be placed.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Precisely. And the psychological toll that takes on the investigating
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: officers and especially the surviving family members is profound.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Because you never really know exactly how it played out.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Right. Because closure often relies on understanding the how. When
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: the physical space is consumed, the how becomes this enduring mystery.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: It's so tragic. The total physical destruction of that house
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: is deeply, painfully symbolic here, too.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: How do you mean?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Because it mirrors the eradication of this deeply connected, loving
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: family unit. A family that had literally built their entire
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: lives around that physical proximity.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: That's a really powerful point.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: This wasn't just a house on a lot. It was
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the center of gravity for four generations of a single family.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: And to truly comprehend the scale of this loss, we
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: really have to look at the intentionality behind this family structure.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: They weren't just casually living near each other.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. These victims represented four generations originally
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: from the Seattle area. At the center of the matriarchy
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: was Evelyn Smith.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: And she was in her 90s, right?
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Yes. She was a great grandmother in her 90s who
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: used a wheelchair and lived in a nearby retirement community. Okay.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Then you have the grandparents, Dana and Barb Smith. They
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: specifically uprooted their lives and moved from Washington to Montana
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: for one single reason.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: To be near their daughter.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. To be near their daughter.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Right. And the daughter is Megan Geckier. And Megan's household
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: was this beautifully realized, blended family.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Which is so rare to see working so flawlessly.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: It really is. Megan had two children from her previous
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: marriage to Brad Ireland. That's 13-year-old Owen and 7-year-old Chloe. Right.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: And she also had two stepchildren with her current husband,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Adam Geckier.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: That's 15-year-old Landon and 12-year-old Charlotte.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: From a sociological standpoint, modern family dynamics can be incredibly fraught.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Like the blended family is often portrayed in media as
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a source of endless friction.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely. The evil stepmother trope or the bitter exes,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: it's everywhere.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But what we see here is the concept working perfectly.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: It was sustained by immense emotional maturity.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Yes. Jennifer Mercer, a neighbor and family friend who set
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: up the online fundraisers and was authorized to speak for
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: the family, described them as, quote, very loving and close.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: She really emphasized how well the kids got along, didn't she?
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: She made it a specific point to emphasize that the
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: children all got along wonderfully. Furthermore, she noted that the parents,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: meaning Megan and her ex-husband Brad, remained amicable even after
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: their divorce six years prior.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I think we really need to sit with that for
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a second. Think about your own lives or people you know.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It takes so much active daily effort and grace to
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: maintain that kind of closeness after a divorce.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: It requires completely putting your ego aside for the absolute
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: well-being of the children.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And look at the physical geographical effort they all made.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Dana and Barb bought a house nearby just to be
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: close to Megan and the grandkids. Evelyn was placed in
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: a nearby community.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: They were consciously building a village.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They were building a protective web of adults around
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: these four kids.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: And that protective web makes the timing of this event
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: carry such a devastating irony.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Because it was a Sunday dinner. Right.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Societally, the Sunday dinner is the quintessential safe routine family gathering.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: It is the anchor of the week.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: It's when everyone is supposed to be together and safe.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: But according to Adam Gacare, Megan's current husband, his children,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Landon and Charlotte weren't even supposed to be there that night.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Wait, they weren't supposed to be there.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: What happened?
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Adam noted that the family dinners were usually held on Fridays.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: For whatever reason, the schedule shifted to Sunday that particular week.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: So Landon and Charlotte were present.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: That is just heart-wrenching.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: It's one of those minor, utterly mundane scheduling changes that
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: happens in every single family. You push dinner back two
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: days because someone is busy or someone has to work.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: But in the context of what was about to happen,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: that tiny logistical shift resulted in two more children being
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: in the line of fire.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Yes. It's truly a tragedy of timing.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: The randomness of that is sickening. Consider the profound, incomprehensible
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: grief of the two fathers left behind in this scenario.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to even fathom what they are going through.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: You have Brad Ireland living in Arizona. And you have
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Adam Gekier, who was actually at work at the Billings
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Airport when this happened.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Two men just going about their normal routines.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Think about the disparate realities converging in that moment. Brad
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: is in another state, probably going about a normal Sunday,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and he receives a phone call that his ex-wife, with
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: whom he had a healthy, amicable relationship, and both of
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: his biological children, Owen and Chloe, are gone.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Just completely erased.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Erased. Meanwhile, Adam hears over a dispatch radio at his
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: workplace about an active shooter at a specific location, and
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: he realizes it's his own house.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: He was literally listening to the police chatter at the airport.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: He calls every member of his family. He gets a
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: no answer. He races frantically across town and arrives to
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: find his home, the center of his world, ablaze with
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: a massive police presence.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: And then he has to wait hours for confirmation.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Right. Two hours later, he is informed that his wife, Megan,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: and his two biological children, Landon and Charlotte, have been killed.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Two fathers, separated by states, living entirely different days, are
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: suddenly and violently stripped of their futures in an instant.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: It is entirely destabilizing to the human psyche to process
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a loss of that magnitude.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: It really is. And the community response perfectly reflects that shockwave.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Tell me about the community reaction because it seemed huge.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: It was massive. Jennifer Mercer noted that the entire community
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: was devastated, even people who never knew the family.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Why do you think it resonated so deeply with strangers?
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Well, when a tragedy involves children who are just preparing
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: for their school years, Landon was about to start his
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: sophomore year at Billings Senior High School, and Starla was
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: about to start seventh grade. It fractures the foundational sense
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: of safety for a whole town.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Because a school community operates on the assumption of tomorrow.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You see this fractured safety reflected in the immediate,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: almost desperate mobilization of support.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Like the GoFundMe campaigns.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Yes. The GoFundMe campaign for Adam Gekier raised over $ 100, 000
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: very quickly. And a separate one for Landon and Charlotte
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: raised over $ 70, 000.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: People just want to do something to feel less helpless.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They throw money at the problem because it's the
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: only tangible way to show support.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Here's is where it gets really interesting, though. And I
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: say interesting in the context of the extraordinary human spirit
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: amidst all this horror.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: You're talking about Charlotte.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Yes. Charlotte spent her final moments trying to protect her
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: family from a threat.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: A 12-year-old girl. Right.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: But the most terrifying part of her heroism is that
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: she wasn't hiding from a stranger who broke down the door.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: No, she wasn't.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Before we talk about the threat, though, we have to
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: talk about exactly what this 12-year-old girl did. Because amidst
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: all that fire, all that gunfire and absolute chaos, the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: youngest members of this family demonstrated a level of courage
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: that just defies logic.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Charlotte Gagier is explicitly hailed as a hero in the reporting,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: and rightfully so.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: What exactly did the police tell Adam she did?
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Police confirmed to her father, Adam, that it was Charlotte
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: who managed to dial 911 from inside the house while
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: the attack was actively occurring.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I really want to break down the mechanics of that.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: She is 12 years old. She's supposed to be picking
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: out her backpack for seventh grade, you know, worrying about
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: locker combinations.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Normal middle school stuff.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Instead, she is thrust into the middle of an
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: active shooter situation. The house is catching fire. The adults
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: around her are being attacked. And she possesses the executive
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: function to find a phone dial, 911, and summon help.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: It's astounding.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: How does a child's brain even process that level of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: trauma in real time without just completely shutting down?
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: That is the staggering reality of what she accomplished. In
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: moments of extreme life-threatening stress, the human brain typically defaults
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: to the amygdala's primitive response. You know, fight, flight, or freeze.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And in kids, I imagine freeze is the most common.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, incredibly common. Because their prefrontal cortex, which is the
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: part of the brain responsible for logical decision-making planning and
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: overriding panic, is still highly underdeveloped at 12.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: So biologically, she was wired to just freeze or panic.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. For a 12-year-old to bypass the overwhelming biological urge
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: to panic or freeze and instead take a deliberate tactical
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: action to communicate with dispatchers.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: While surrounded by immediate deafening danger.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Right. It requires extraordinary fortitude. It is a profound triumph.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: of willpower over biology.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Mercer gave a very poignant quote to the press
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: about this. She said, quote, The one thing we do
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: know is that Charlotte was the hero. She tried to
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: save her family. And that's something the family does want
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: out there.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: And that distinction is so vital. The family wants that
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: out there.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Because they want to control the narrative.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In the aftermath of mass violence, the narrative is
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: almost always violently stolen by the perpetrator. The killer's actions,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: the killer's motives, the usually dominate the headlines.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: We see that all the time. The media obsesses over
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the shooter. Right.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: By pushing Charlotte's heroism to the forefront, the family is
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: actively reclaiming the narrative. They are demanding that her final
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: act of immense love and bravery define her memory rather
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: than the violence that took her life.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Her father, Adam, shared this incredibly heartbreaking memory of her
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: that I just cannot stop thinking about.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: The I love you more quote.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He said that whenever he would tell Charlotte I
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: love you, she would always reply... I love you more.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: It's such a simply universal game that parents play with
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: their kids.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: It is. But in this context, it stands as this
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: profound testament to exactly who she was. She was a
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: girl who loved her family so fiercely and so deeply
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: that she literally tried to save them while her world
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: was ending.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: I love you more wasn't just a phrase for her.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: It was an action.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: It perfectly illustrates the excruciating dichotomy of this event. On
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: one hand, you have the absolute purest expression of human
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: love and protective instinct embodied by a 12-year-old girl.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: And on the other hand?
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, on the other hand, to truly grapple with the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: necessity of her heroism, we are forced to confront the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: source of the danger she was fighting against.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: A threat that came from inside the house.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Right. As we mentioned earlier, the threat didn't come from
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a stranger in an alley. It came from the man
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: who used to sit at that very dinner table.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: The invisible threat within.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: The shooter was identified by Brad Ireland as 44-year-old Alan Smith.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Let's map out exactly who this is in relation to
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the family.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, so this was the biological son of Dana and
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Barb Smith. Right.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: He was Megan's brother.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Yes. And he was the uncle to all four of
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: those children.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Which is just nauseating. He murdered his own 90-year-old grandmother,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: his parents, his younger sister, and all four kids before
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: turning the gun on himself.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And he actually survived the self-inflicted wound initially.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but he died later at the hospital, right?
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Correct. If we look closely at the profile provided by
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: the family in the text, a very specific and disturbing
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: picture of Alan Smith begins to emerge.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: What kind of picture? Brad Ireland called him a hermit.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Yes. Brad Ireland described him as a hermit who spent
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: almost all of his time, 247, in his room on
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: a computer.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: So he was 44 years old, living with his parents.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Living with his parents for years. He had attended Eastern
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Washington University at one point in his past, but he
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: dropped out or failed to launch.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: And he didn't work.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: No, he was subsequently unable to find or hold down
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: a job.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: So what set him off that specific Sunday?
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: The critical triggering event, the catalyst for this massacre, seems
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: to have been that a couple of weeks prior to
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: the shooting, his parents finally asked him to move out.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: This is where I struggle and where I think a
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: lot of people looking at this case struggle.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: The lack of warning signs.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Well, no, there were warning signs according to the family.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: There's this chilling juxtaposition between how he's perceived by the
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: family and how he was perceived by the law.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Right, the criminal record.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Or lack thereof.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Brad Ireland gave this haunting statement. He said, quote, There
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: were many red flags and many people spoke out. No
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: one listened.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: But the article explicitly notes that a comprehensive search of
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: criminal records in both Montana and Washington found absolutely no
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: record that Alan Smith had ever been arrested or charged
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: with a crime in his entire life.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: That is just baffling to me. Brad Ireland even acknowledged that,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: to his knowledge, Alan had never been physically violent before this.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: though he could be highly verbally abusive.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Verbal abuse isn't generally illegal, though. I know, but I
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: don't understand how a guy can be verbally abusive, isolate
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: himself completely 24-7, terrify his family to the point where
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: they have to evict their own son, and yet the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: police have zero record of him. How does the system
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: fail that spectacularly?
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I have to challenge the premise that the system
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: failed here, at least in the legal sense.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: What do you mean? How is this not a failure?
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Because the legal system in the United States isn't designed
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: to police bad attitudes, severe isolation, or even deeply weird
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: antisocial behavior. It polices actionable crimes.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: But shouldn't those red flags count for something?
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Morally, perhaps. But legally, being a 44-year-old hermit is not
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: a crime. Being verbally unpleasant to your parents is rarely
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: a crime unless it crosses a very specific legal threshold
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: of a criminal threat.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: So until he actually hits someone, there's nothing they can do.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Until a physical line has crossed our laws, specifically the
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Fourth Amendment, actually protect a person's right to be isolated, angry,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: and strange in the privacy of their own home.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I hate that you're right about that, but you are.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: The red flags that Brad Ireland mentions almost certainly weren't
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: illegal acts. They were severe behavioral anomalies.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. It's like a silent gas
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: leak in a house.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: A gas leak. That's a good way to put it.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: You can't see the flames. There's no smoke alarm going
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: off because he hasn't actually broken a law yet.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: But.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the environment inside that house is becoming increasingly suffocatingly toxic.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: The pressure is just building and building.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly. There is this invisible buildup of pressure, the verbal abuse,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the complete failure to launch the intense digital isolation. But
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: how do you quantify a gas leak when the person
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: is legally completely clean?
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: You can't. Not really.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: How do you force society or law enforcement to intervene
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and listen to the red flags and When the person
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: is just quietly sitting in their bedroom staring at a screen.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: It's nearly impossible.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: It's only when a specific spark hits that the whole
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: thing detonates. And by then, it's too late.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: That is an excellent analogy because in the psychology of
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: familial violence, we are always looking for that spark.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: And here the spark was the eviction.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, the spark appears to be the eviction. His parents
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: finally drew a boundary and asked him to move out.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Which any normal 44-year-old should be able to handle.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Right. But when you study the criminology... of adult-dependent domestic
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: violence eviction or estrangement is a massive, highly volatile trigger.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: It threatens the perpetrator's foundational stability.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Because he felt entitled to be there.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: We are looking at a terrifying manifestation of what psychologists
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: call familial entitlement.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: What does that mean exactly, familial entitlement?
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it means the perpetrator views the family members not
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: as autonomous human beings, but as extensions of himself. or
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: as possessions that owe him stability.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So he didn't see his parents as people
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: with their own rights.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When his parents asked him to leave, he likely
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: didn't process it as a necessary step for his own independence.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: He processed it as a profound betrayal.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: A grievance that demanded violent retribution.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Precisely. So he unexpectedly returned to the home on Sunday
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: evening during the weekly family dinner.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Which we know Adam said he probably didn't even expect
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the kids to be there.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Right. Adam Gierkeer, reflecting on the tragedy... noted his belief
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: that Allen didn't even expect Adams' children to be there
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: since dinners were usually on Friday.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Which implies a terrifying level of premeditation regarding the specific targets.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: He knew exactly who he wanted to hurt.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Allen likely walked into that house intending to annihilate the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: core family members he felt directly aggrieved by. His parents,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: who kicked him out, and perhaps his sister, who represented
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the successful independent adulthood he never achieved.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: The golden child versus the black sheep dynamic taken to
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: an extreme.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the fact that extra children were there didn't
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: deter him at all. He just expanded the collateral damage.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: As Adam Gekier said, quote, monster isn't even enough to
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: describe what he did.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: The violent reaction to being pushed out of the nest
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: by your own parents resulted in the eradication of the
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: entire bloodline present in that house.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Criminologists categorize this specific type of killer as a family annihilator.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Is that a common term?
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Very common in criminal psychology. And within that category, there
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: are subtypes. Well, there's the anomic killer whose family has
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: become an economic burden to them. There's the disappointed killer
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: who feels the family has let them down. Or the
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: righteous killer seeking to punish.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Alan seems to fit that last one.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, Alan Smith seems to fit the profile of a
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: paranoid or righteous family annihilator. He was punishing his parents
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: for withdrawing their support.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It is a totalizing violence. He didn't just target the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: individuals who asked him to leave. He targeted the entire
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: family structure.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: And while the specifics of Alan Smith's isolation and his
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: toxic dependency on his parents are unique to this one
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: household in Montana, the grim reality we have to face
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: is that this type of domestic massacre is not an anomaly.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Not at all. It is part of a much larger,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: highly quantifiable, and deeply disturbing American pattern.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: When we zoom out from Billings, Montana, and look at
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the national landscape provided by the data in this report,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the numbers completely reframe how we think about mass violence.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: They really challenge our preconceptions.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: According to a database maintained by the Associated Press, USA Today,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: and Northeastern University, this horrific event in Billings was the
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: 22nd mass killing in the United States in the year 2026.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: And it is the breakdown of that data that requires
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: our closest attention because it tells a very specific story
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: about where the danger actually lies.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Out of those 22 mass killings, 15 of them stemmed
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: from domestic disputes.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: 15 out of 22. Let that sink in.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: The text also notes that this Montana shooting is the
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: bedliest in the U.S. since April of that same year, 2026,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: when a father in Louisiana fatally shot eight children, seven
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of them his own biological children, and wounded his wife
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: and another woman.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: So the two deadliest events were both domestic.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: 15 out of 22. We spend so much societal energy,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: billions of dollars, and endless political debate figuring out how
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: to secure our public spaces.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: The metal detectors, the clear backpacks.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We put metal detectors in schools. We hire security
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: guards for malls and theaters. We have active shooter drills
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: for our kids. We do all of this because the
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: public mass shooter is the monster under the bed.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: But this data says the vast, vast majority of these
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: mass casualty events are happening behind closed doors. perpetrated by
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: people who already live there.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean?
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Well, we have to look at the insights of James
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Allen Fox. He's a criminologist at Northeastern University who actually
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: manages this specific database.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: What does he see in the numbers?
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: He pointed a very significant statistical shift that is occurring
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: right now. The current rate of domestic dispute mass killings,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: which is 15 out of 22, or roughly 68%, is
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: noticeably higher than the historical average.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: What is the historical average?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Historically, domestic disputes account for about 50% of U.S. mass killings.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: So we are seeing a nearly 20 percent jump in
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: the proportion of mass killings that are domestically rooted.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: That is a massive spike. Why is that shift happening?
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: If we are jumping from a baseline of 50 percent
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: to almost 68 percent in 2026, what are the mechanisms
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: driving that? What does this contextualize for us about modern society?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Well, the article doesn't give a single definitive cause. Criminologists
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: like Fox often point to compounding variables.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Like economic factors.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. You have severe economic stressors that lead to a
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: higher rate of failure to launch adults remaining in their
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: parents' homes well into middle age, which creates high pressure environments.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: And the isolation piece, right?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. You have an unprecedented rise in digital isolation. Individuals
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: can fall down algorithmic rabbit holes of grievance and radicalization
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: and without ever leaving their bedrooms.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Just marinating in their own echo chambers.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: The echo chamber validates their sense of entitlement and rage.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: And fundamentally, societally, we are conditioned to view the home
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: as the ultimate safe haven.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Which means no one is watching. Right.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: The police cannot easily intervene in a private residence without cause.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: It is an unregulated space. When a pressure cooker environment
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: is created in an unregulated space, the resulting explosion is
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: often catastrophic.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: It completely inverts the societal narrative of safety. It shatters
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the illusion of the locked front door. You lock the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: door to keep the bad guys out. But the data
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: suggests that in 68% of these extreme cases, the threat
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: isn't trying to get in.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: The threat is sitting on the couch.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: The threat is eating at the Sunday dinner table. The
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: threat is quietly typing on a computer in the bedroom
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: down the hall. We've covered immense ground. today, and none
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of it is easy to carry for you listening.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: It's a very heavy topic.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: We started this deep dive looking at the geographical complications
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: of a blazing house in a subdivision, exploring how a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: desire for privacy inadvertently created a jurisdictional moat that paralyzed
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: first responders.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: A literal moat of red tape.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: We examined the deep intentional love of a four-generation blended
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: family marveling at the sociological grace required to maintain that closeness.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: They really were a beautiful family model.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: We tried to comprehend the staggering neurological fortitude of 12-year-old
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Charlotte who pushed past human panic to spend her final
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: moments trying to save the people she loved.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: A true hero in every sense.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: We debated the insidious, isolated nature of the perpetrator who
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: slipped through every legal crack because his toxic red flags
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: didn't violate the criminal code.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Until it was too late.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: And we pulled back to confront the sobering national statistics
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: that proved the American home is increasingly becoming the epicenter
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: of mass violence.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: It is a profound amount of information to process.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: What stands out to you the most after looking at
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: all this?
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: The contrast that stands out the most is between the
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: community's rapid, overwhelming support evidenced by the massive financial and
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: emotional response to the GoFundMe campaigns and the deep, unchecked
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: isolation of the perpetrator.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: It's a stark contrast.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: It is. A community can rally in extraordinary, beautiful ways
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: after a tragedy, but we're still fundamentally struggling as a
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: society to identify and intervene with isolated individuals before the
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: tragedy occurs.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Because they're hidden.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The legal system can't do it, and families are
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: often too close to see the danger clearly.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Think about your own neighborhood for a second. We all
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: see the GoFundMe pages pop up when tragedy strikes, and
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: we see how fast a community rallies. It is a
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: beautiful testament to human empathy.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: But it makes you wonder, how many closed doors on
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: your street are hiding that exact kind of isolation right now?
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: It's a chilling thought. Which leads to one final chilling
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: thread that I want to leave you to mull over.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: The text explicitly mentions that Alan Smith spent $ 247 in
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: his room on his computer. His former brother-in-law, Brad Ireland, noted, quote,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: no one knew what he did in there, 247.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: A complete digital black box.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In an era where someone can live entirely inside
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: a digital world while physically residing in a family home,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: how much of a person's psychological deterioration is hidden by
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: a closed bedroom door and a glowing screen?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: We might never know until it boils over.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: When the red flags are entirely digital, when they are
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: deeply internalized in chat rooms, online behaviors, or algorithmic rabbit
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: holes that the family never actually sees, how can families
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: possibly know the depth of the danger? They can't. How
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: can parents know when a simple necessary boundary like an
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: eviction notice will turn into a death sentence? It's a
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: question without an easy answer, but as the data shows us,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: it's a question we desperately need to start asking.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: We definitely do.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on this intense, important deep dive.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Stay curious, take care of yourselves, and hold your loved
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: ones close.