Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Body of Missing Fishers Teen Hailey Buzbee Found in Ohio, Attorney Says

Transcript

Body of Missing Fishers Teen Hailey Buzbee Found in Ohio, Attorney Says · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the deep Dive. Usually we kick things
0:03
off with a bit of energy, maybe a weird fact
0:06
about space or a new tech breakthrough. But today, today
0:10
the move is different. It has to be. We are
0:13
looking at a stack of documents here that represent a
0:16
parent's worst nightmare, just crystallized into a police report. It
0:21
is we are stepping into a territory I've started calling
0:24
the digital wild.
0:25
Speaker 2: That is a very specific and frankly a really accurate term,
0:28
the digital wild. It implies a frontier, doesn't it a
0:32
place where the rules of the civilized world, you know,
0:34
the physical world, they don't quite apply in the same way.
0:38
And you're right, the energy is different today. We aren't
0:40
just exploring a topic. We are we're confronting a reality.
0:44
Speaker 1: We are recording this on February second, twenty twenty six,
0:46
and I mentioned the date because it really matters. Just
0:49
hours ago, the waiting ended for a family in Fisher's, Indiana,
0:53
and it didn't end the way anyone hoped. We are
0:55
talking about the Hailey Busby case. If you live in
0:58
the Midwest, this is in your entire news feed for
1:01
the last month it's been unavoidable. But for everyone else,
1:05
this might be the first time you're hearing the name.
1:07
Speaker 2: And sadly, it is a name that is going to
1:09
be added to a list that is already just far
1:12
too long. Haley was seventeen, she was a high school student.
1:16
She vanished in early January, and today authorities in Ohio
1:20
confirmed the recovery of remains.
1:22
Speaker 1: It is the grim conclusion. It's the end of the
1:25
story that nobody wanted to read. But here is our
1:28
mission today, and I want to be very very clear
1:29
about this. We are not here to act as a newsticker.
1:33
If you want the headlines, you can check your phone.
1:35
We are here to do what we always do, look
1:37
at the mechanics underneath the event exactly. We have police
1:40
reports from Fisher's PD, FBI filings from Indianapolis, court documents
1:45
from Franklin County, Ohio, and a whole stack of research
1:47
on predator psychology and platform safety.
1:50
Speaker 2: We need to dissect the machinery of this tragedy. We
1:53
have to. We need to understand how a seventeen year
1:56
old girl sitting in her bedroom and what is supposed
1:58
to be one of the safest suburbs in Indiana can
2:01
be targeted, groomed, and then physically extracted from her home
2:05
by a stranger living two hours away. Right, this isn't
2:08
just about one bad actor, it is about an entire
2:11
ecosystem that allowed him to operate.
2:13
Speaker 1: So we're going to look at the timeline, the psychology
2:16
of that runaway label, which I have a lot of
2:17
questions about, and the specific mechanics of online gaming that
2:24
turn a console into a hunting ground.
2:26
Speaker 2: It is heavy material. I want to warn the listener
2:28
right now, we are going to discuss grooming, manipulation, and
2:32
the recovery of a miner's body. But we aren't doing
2:34
this for shock value. We are doing this because ignorance
2:38
is of vulnerability. It just is. If you don't understand
2:40
how the trap works, you can't see the tripwire.
2:43
Speaker 1: Well, put ahead, let's take a breath and get into it.
2:45
We have to start with the victim, because before she
2:48
was a headline, she was a person who was Hailey Busby.
2:52
Speaker 2: That is the most important place to start. Haley was seventeen,
2:55
a student at Hamilton Southeastern High School. Now, looking at
2:58
the demographic data for Fisher's, Indiana, this is a community
3:02
built on the promise of safety. Oh absolutely, It's affluent,
3:05
it's fast growing. It's the kind of place where people
3:08
move specifically to get away from crime, to have good school.
3:11
Speaker 1: I was looking at the neighborhood on the map, the
3:14
enclave at Vermilion. That name alone, enclave, it suggests a fortress,
3:20
doesn't it. It does a bubble, a protected space. It's
3:23
near flat war Creek Park. It looks idyllic, manicured lawns,
3:27
new construction, the whole nine yards.
3:29
Speaker 2: It is the epitome of modern suburban stability. And Haley
3:33
from all accounts and she fit that picture. The reports
3:35
describe her as kind, outgoing, involved in typical teen activities,
3:40
but like millions of kids her generation, she had a
3:42
digital life that was just as real, if not maybe
3:46
more vibrant than her physical way.
3:48
Speaker 1: And she was a gamer. She was a gamer, And
3:50
we need to be careful here not to demonize gaming
3:53
right out of the gate. Right for her and for
3:56
millions of kids, this wasn't some dark, seedy underworld. He
4:00
was just where she hung out, correct.
4:02
Speaker 2: For a seventeen year old in twenty twenty six, gaming
4:05
is the equivalent of the mall in the nineteen nineties.
4:08
Speaker 1: That's a great analogy.
4:09
Speaker 2: It's the social square it's where you meet friends, where
4:11
you debrief after school, where you complain about your parents.
4:14
But the difference is the mall had security guards, the
4:17
mall had closing hours. The internet has neither.
4:20
Speaker 1: And it has no geographic boundaries none. So let's go
4:24
to the timeline. January fifth, twenty twenty six. The last
4:27
time her parents saw her.
4:28
Speaker 2: Was around ten pm standard weeknight.
4:30
Speaker 1: Everything seemed normal. She's in her home, likely in her room,
4:34
probably online. But then in the early early morning hours
4:37
of January sixth, she leaves.
4:40
Speaker 2: And this is a critical pivot point in the investigation.
4:42
She left voluntarily. There was no kicked in door, there
4:45
was no shattered glass, no signs of a struggle in
4:47
the hallway. She walked out. And because of that, because
4:50
she was seventeen and there was no evidence of forced entry,
4:53
the police initially labeled her an endangered runaway.
4:57
Speaker 1: I want to stop on this term endangered runaway. Yeah, Like,
5:00
we hear this a lot, and it frustrates me every
5:02
single time. It feels like a dismissal, like, oh, she
5:05
chose to leave, so it's less urgent. It lowers the
5:07
temperature on the whole thing.
5:08
Speaker 2: That frustration is completely valid and It points to a
5:11
systemic flaw in how we handle missing teens. Legally, a
5:16
runaway classification triggers a different police response than an abduction.
5:22
If a child is dragged into a van screaming, you
5:24
get an amber alert, you get the cavalcade, you get helicopters.
5:28
But if a child walks out the door, even if
5:31
they are walking into a trap, they don't understand. The
5:33
resource allocation is just it's lower. The urgency is perceived
5:38
as lower.
5:38
Speaker 1: But isn't that a massive blind spot. I mean, if
5:41
I trick you into coming outside, if I manipulate you
5:43
for weeks to get you to walk out that door,
5:45
is that really voluntary?
5:47
Speaker 2: Psychologically no, of course not. Legally it's great. This is
5:50
what we call coerced.
5:51
Speaker 1: Voluntary, now a worst voluntary.
5:52
Speaker 2: The victim physically moves themselves, but their will, their decision
5:56
making process has been hijacked. The police see physical action
6:00
walking out the door, and they have to categorize it
6:03
based on that, but they miss the invisible strings pulling
6:06
her out.
6:07
Speaker 1: So for the first critical hours, maybe even the first
6:09
couple of days, the narrative is she ran away. The
6:12
public perception is different. It is meanwhile, she's in a
6:16
car with Tyler Thomas.
6:17
Speaker 2: Let's talk about him. Tyler Thomas, thirty nine years old,
6:21
a resident of the Victorian Village area in Columbus, Ohio.
6:25
Speaker 1: Okay, just doing the math, Haley is seventeen, he is
6:28
thirty nine. That is a twenty two year age gap.
6:32
Speaker 2: A huge guy.
6:33
Speaker 1: That's not a misunderstanding. That is not a they're just
6:35
friend's situation. That is predatory by its very definition.
6:39
Speaker 2: It is a generational divide. This isn't a peer, this
6:42
isn't a high school boyfriend. And the investigation shows this
6:45
wasn't some random encounter. He didn't just spot her walking
6:47
down the street. They met on a gaming platform. This
6:51
relationship was cultivated entirely in the digital space, likely over weeks,
6:56
maybe even months.
6:57
Speaker 1: And the logistics of that night are just they're chilling.
7:02
When you look at the map. He drove from Columbus
7:04
to Fishers, that's what a two hour drive?
7:07
Speaker 2: About two hours? Yeah, maybe a little less late at night.
7:10
But think about the commitment that requires the premeditation exactly.
7:14
This isn't a crime of opportunity. He didn't just grab someone.
7:17
He got in his car, drove over one hundred miles
7:19
across state lines, navigated into a specific subdivision, the Enclave
7:24
at Vermilion, and picked her up from her own front
7:27
door or near it or near it. That requires a
7:30
high degree of coordination with the victim. She had to
7:32
know when to come out, She had to be waiting
7:34
for him.
7:34
Speaker 1: And despite all his planning, his apparent meticulousness, he made mistakes.
7:40
Take one the digital wild least footprints in the real world.
7:43
Speaker 2: Too, exactly. This is the paradox of modern crime. You
7:47
can use a VPN to hide your IP address, but
7:49
you can't easily hide a two ton vehicle from license
7:52
plate readers, and you know your neighbor's ring doorbell camera,
7:55
which is exactly what they found exactly. Investigators found surveillance,
7:59
footge and vehicle tracking data that placed his car near
8:03
her home at the exact time she vanished.
8:06
Speaker 1: So the police connect the docks pretty quickly. Then they
8:09
tracked the car back to Ohio. They find him. They
8:12
bring Thomas in for questioning, and this guy the audacity.
8:17
What was his initial story?
8:18
Speaker 2: He tried to play the good Samaritan angle, or at
8:20
least a minimized version of events. He admitted to picking
8:24
her up, but he claimed he just gave her a ride,
8:27
and that he dropped her off along a road somewhere
8:29
in western Ohio.
8:30
Speaker 1: I gave her a ride, that's all. I was just
8:32
helping out kid who wanted to run away, right.
8:34
Speaker 2: But that lie fell apart almost instantly. Digital forensics and
8:38
GPS data from his car from his phone disproved it.
8:42
He never stopped where he said he stopped. The data
8:45
showed he drove straight back to the Columbus area.
8:47
Speaker 1: And that lie was the lever the police needed.
8:49
Speaker 2: It was everything. It gave them probable cause to execute
8:52
her to warrants. Once you lie to federal agents, the
8:54
gloves come off, and.
8:56
Speaker 1: They searched two places, his home in Columbus on Hunter
8:59
Avenue and a short term rental in Hawking Hills. Now
9:02
I know Hawking Hills. It's beautiful, caves, waterfalls.
9:04
Speaker 2: It is.
9:05
Speaker 1: But it's also it's isolated. It's very remote.
9:08
Speaker 2: It is extremely isolated. It's rugged terrain, you have spotty
9:12
cell service in many areas. It's a vacation spot for family, sure,
9:17
but for a predator, it's a place where you can
9:19
control the environment.
9:20
Speaker 1: Completely, no neighbors close by.
9:22
Speaker 2: No witnesses. The fact that he had access to rental.
9:25
There suggests the desire for privacy that goes way beyond
9:30
just a quiet weekend away from the city.
9:32
Speaker 1: And it was during these searches that the case went
9:34
from missing person to something much much darker. They found
9:38
digital devices.
9:39
Speaker 2: They did, and on those devices they found see Sam
9:43
Child's sexual abuse material. But it wasn't just you know,
9:46
generic material downloaded from the dark web. It was material
9:49
featuring Hayley.
9:50
Speaker 1: That is the moment the stomach drops out for the investigators,
9:53
for the family, that is the smoking gut.
9:55
Speaker 2: It confirmed two things immediately, First that this was sexually motivated,
9:59
which they suspec Second, and most importantly, that Haley had
10:02
been in his custody and had been exploited. She wasn't
10:05
just a runaway he gave a ride to.
10:07
Speaker 1: He was lying about everything everything.
10:10
Speaker 2: Based on that, they arrested him. He was charged with
10:13
pandering sexually oriented material, involving a minor, and tampering with evidence.
10:17
The judge set bond at one and a half million dollars.
10:21
Speaker 1: But at that point, this was late January, Haley was
10:24
still missing. They had the guy, they had the pictures,
10:26
they had the proof of exploitation, but they didn't ever correct.
10:29
Speaker 2: The search was still active. The hope, however, Slim was
10:32
still there, which brings us to the last twenty four hours,
10:37
the turning point.
10:38
Speaker 1: Yesterday, February first, there was a press conference with Fisher's
10:42
PD and the FBI Special Agent Timothy O'Malley and Chief
10:46
Ed Geppart. I watched it. They looked defeated. It's exhausted, Yeah,
10:50
and they announced they believed Haley was deceased.
10:52
Speaker 2: It's unusual for police to make that announcement without a body.
10:55
It's a very big step to take. It usually means
10:58
the evidence they have, perhaps forensic evidence from the car
11:02
or the rental or you know, maybe specific statements from
11:04
the suspect was just overwhelming. They were preparing the public
11:08
for the worst.
11:09
Speaker 1: And then today in February second, the confirmation. But the
11:14
way we found out was it was strange. It didn't
11:18
come from the police chief. It came from the suspect's lawyer.
11:21
Speaker 2: Sam Schmanski. He's a very well known, high profile defense
11:24
attorney in Columbus. He stepped out of a court appearance
11:27
and essentially broke the news to the media waiting outside.
11:30
Speaker 1: He announced it.
11:31
Speaker 2: He did, He confirmed that his client, Tyler Thomas, had
11:34
cooperated with the FBI to locate the remain cooperated.
11:37
Speaker 1: That's a heavy word in this context. Yeah, legal strategy
11:40
usually means a plea deal is in the works, or
11:43
he's trying to avoid the death penalty.
11:44
Speaker 2: It's strictly strategic. Once the CSAM was found, Thomas likely
11:48
realized the walls were closing in completely. His attorney probably
11:52
advised him that his only chip left to play, the
11:54
only thing that might save him from the absolute maximum
11:57
punishment was the location of the Bible.
12:00
Speaker 1: Give the family closure in exchange for a slightly less
12:02
severe sentence.
12:04
Speaker 2: That's the cold, hard calculation.
12:06
Speaker 1: And where was she found?
12:07
Speaker 2: Perry County, Ohio.
12:08
Speaker 1: Now help me out with the geography here, because it's
12:10
getting complicated. We have Vickers, Indiana, where she's from. We
12:15
have Columbus, Ohio, in Franklin County where he lives. We
12:19
have Hawking Hills, which is in Hawking County where the
12:21
rental was. Where does Perry County fit in?
12:24
Speaker 2: Terry County is east of Columbus. It borders the Hawking
12:27
Hills region. It is the foothills of Appalachia. We are
12:30
talking about dense woods, old mining roads, very very rural.
12:35
Speaker 1: Territory, so even more isolated than Hawking Hills in many ways.
12:39
Speaker 2: Yes, it is a world away from the manicured subdivisions
12:41
of Fishers. It's a place where if you don't want
12:44
something found, you think it won't be found.
12:46
Speaker 1: This creates a mass legally, doesn't it. You've got a
12:49
victim from Indiana, a suspect from Franklin County, Ohio, a
12:54
potential crime scene at a rental in Hawking County, and
12:58
a body recovery site in Perry can That's four different
13:01
jurisdictions potentially fighting over this case.
13:03
Speaker 2: It's a jurisdictional web, and it's a nightmare for prosecutors.
13:07
Usually murders prosecuted in the county where the death occurred.
13:11
But what if they can't determine that, What if the
13:13
adduction started in Indiana? Federal laws kick in.
13:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, why the FBI is leading this Yes, because it
13:19
crossed state lines.
13:20
Speaker 2: Exactly the moment he drove Hailey from Indiana to Ohio.
13:24
It triggered the Lindberg Law, the Federal Kidnapping Act. It
13:27
allows the FBI to take supremacy. Also, practically speaking, the
13:31
Perry County sheriff's office is likely a small department. They
13:35
don't have the forensic resources, the digital crime labs, the
13:38
manpower to process a massive digital exploitation case that spans
13:41
two states. They need the Feds.
13:43
Speaker 1: So we are expecting murder charges to be filed soon.
13:46
Speaker 2: Yes, Shamansky, the defense attorney, indicated as much. The question
13:50
is whether they will be federal charges or state charges,
13:53
or maybe both. But either way, Tyler Thomas is never
13:57
getting out of a cell.
13:57
Speaker 1: Again, that's the only small for here, But it doesn't
14:02
bring Haley back, and it doesn't answer the question that
14:05
is haunting every parent listening to this right now, How, yes,
14:09
how does this happen? We are not talking about a
14:12
toddler wandering off. We're talking about a seventeen year old,
14:15
someone who can drive, someone who might have a job,
14:17
someone with a circle of friends. How does a grown
14:20
man manipulate her into this situation?
14:24
Speaker 2: This is where we need to slow down and really
14:26
really dig in, because there's a misconception that grooming is
14:29
just flattery.
14:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, that it's just someone saying you're pretty.
14:31
Speaker 2: Exactly, and it is so much more sophisticated than that.
14:34
It is psychological warfare. Waged on a child in secret.
14:38
Speaker 1: We have a stack of research here from the NCMEC,
14:41
the National Center from Missing and Exploited Children, and some
14:43
activit papers on predator psychology. They break this down into stages,
14:48
and I think it's crucial we walk through these step
14:50
by steps so people can see the pattern.
14:52
Speaker 2: Agreed. The model we generally look at has five stages.
14:56
And the scariest part, the part that makes this so
14:58
effective is that the first few stages don't look like abuse.
15:01
They look like friendship.
15:03
Speaker 1: So stage one victim selection and targeting. It's not random,
15:08
not at all.
15:09
Speaker 2: Predators aren't just throwing a net into the ocean and
15:11
hoping for the best. They are spearfishing. They are scanning
15:15
what they call hunting grounds, public social media profiles, TikTok comments,
15:21
and specifically gaming servers like Discord or platforms like Rowblocks.
15:26
Speaker 1: What are they looking for? What's the signal? They're tuning into?
15:28
Speaker 2: Vulnerability signals? And it's subtle. It might be a kid
15:31
who posts a status update at two in the morning
15:33
saying I hate this house. Or maybe they post a
15:35
picture and the caption is about feeling ugly or lonely,
15:39
or they complain about their parents grounding them, So.
15:41
Speaker 1: They're looking for a crack in the armor, any sign
15:43
of discontent or isolation.
15:45
Speaker 2: Exactly. A happy, well adjusted kid with strong family communication
15:50
is a high effort target. It's a lot of work.
15:53
A kid who already feels misunderstood by their parents is
15:56
a low effort target. Predators are in their own twist
16:00
did way efficient. They go where the door is already
16:03
slightly ajar and once.
16:04
Speaker 1: They pick a target, they move to stage two, trust billing,
16:07
the friendship formation. Yeah, this is where the mask comes on.
16:10
Speaker 2: Yes, and they have a whole repertoire of masks. They
16:13
usually pose as a peer. I eighteen, I live in California.
16:15
Or is the cool, understanding adult mentor figure who gets
16:20
it the way their parents don't.
16:22
Speaker 1: And they use what the research calls grooming currency.
16:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:25
Speaker 1: I want to double click on this because when I
16:26
first read it, I thought it meant actual money. But
16:29
it's not just cash, is it.
16:30
Speaker 2: No? And this is where parents often get confused. They
16:32
might check their kids' bank account or Venmo and see
16:35
nothing weird. But grooming currency is about value within the
16:39
digital ecosystem.
16:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, explain that.
16:41
Speaker 2: In a game like Roblocks, it's roebucks, the in game
16:44
currency in Fortnite, it's v bucks to buy skins.
16:48
Speaker 1: A skin is just an outfit for your character, right,
16:50
a cosmetic item. Why is that such a big.
16:54
Speaker 2: Deal, Because in the digital hierarchy of a teenager, a
16:57
rare skin is status rolex, it's a designer bag. If
17:03
you have the default nube skin, you are invisible or
17:06
you're mocked. If you have the glowing, rare twenty dollars skin,
17:10
you are someone. People notice you.
17:12
Speaker 1: So the predator identifies a kid who wants a particular
17:15
skin and can't afford it, correct.
17:16
Speaker 2: And then he swoops in, Oh you want that new skin,
17:18
No problem, I got you gives it to them, and
17:21
here's the psychological trap. It immediately triggers what's called the
17:25
reciprocity norm. It's a fundamental part of human social psychology.
17:29
If I give you a gift, you feel an obligation
17:31
to give something back.
17:32
Speaker 1: But if the kid doesn't have money to give back.
17:34
Speaker 2: Exactly, so what do they have? They have? Their attention,
17:36
their loyalty, their secrets. The predator says, hey, I bought
17:39
you that skin. The least you can do is add
17:41
me on discord and voice chat. With me for ten minutes.
17:44
It creates a debt that is insidious.
17:47
Speaker 1: It weaponizes generosity, It makes the kid feel like they
17:49
owe him something.
17:50
Speaker 2: And it sets up the sunk cost fallacy. The kid
17:54
starts thinking, well, he's been so nice to me, he's
17:56
spent money on me. I can't just block him now,
17:58
that would be rude friend.
18:00
Speaker 1: The hook is set, so now he's a friend. Stage
18:03
three isolation.
18:06
Speaker 2: This is the off platforming phase. This is the single
18:09
most critical move for a predator. You see public gaming
18:13
lobbies like in rodblocks or call of duty are dangerous
18:17
for them. Also, they're often recorded. There are moderators. Sometimes
18:21
other players might overhear something creepy and report it. So
18:24
the predator's number one goal is to move the victim
18:27
to a private, encrypted channel.
18:28
Speaker 1: Hey add me on Discord. What's your snab?
18:31
Speaker 2: Yes, the excuse is always plausible. The chat here is lagging.
18:35
Let's switch to Discord. Or I have a secret server
18:37
just for our group of friends. I'll send you an invite.
18:40
Once they move to an encrypted private chat, the witnesses
18:43
are gone, the safety rails are gone. It's just them
18:46
and the child man.
18:46
Speaker 1: That's with a narrative shifts right. You start driving a
18:49
wedge between the kid and their real life, their real friends,
18:52
their family.
18:52
Speaker 2: They position themselves as the only person who truly understands.
18:57
Your parents are so strict. They just don't get you
18:59
like I do. Your friends at school sound so immature.
19:02
We're on the same level, you and I. They isolate
19:06
the victims psychologically long before they ever try to isolate
19:09
them physically. They build a secret world for just the
19:12
two of them.
19:12
Speaker 1: This is our thing, don't tell.
19:14
Speaker 2: Anyone precisely, and that secrecy becomes another form of currency.
19:18
Speaker 1: It bonds them, which leads to Stage four desensitization. The
19:23
research calls it the boiling frog effect.
19:25
Speaker 2: It's a perfect analogy. You don't ask for a nude
19:28
photo on day one. You'd get blocked immediately. The frog
19:31
would jump out of the pot. So you turn up
19:33
the heat slowly.
19:34
Speaker 1: What is that we're going to chat?
19:35
Speaker 2: You normalize sexual talk. You share a dirty joke, then
19:39
maybe a meme that's a little risky. You test the boundaries.
19:42
If the victim laughs or plays along, you move a
19:45
step closer. You turn up the heat. If the victim
19:48
gets uncomfortable, you immediately back off and apologize. You say, WHOA, Sorry,
19:53
I was just joking. Didn't mean to offend you. Don't
19:55
be so uptight.
19:56
Speaker 1: That's gaslighting.
19:57
Speaker 2: It is pure gaslighting. Make the victim feel like they're
20:01
the weird one for having boundaries. They make them question
20:04
their own judgment, and eventually, after weeks of this, the
20:07
boundaries erode. What was shocking a month ago now seems normal.
20:12
And that's when the request for images comes.
20:14
Speaker 1: And it probably doesn't start with an explicit request.
20:17
Speaker 2: Never, it starts with, hey, you said you went to
20:19
the beach, Send me a pick in your swimsuit. It's
20:22
framed as something innocent, but once that first image is sent,
20:26
that's the trap snapping shit.
20:28
Speaker 1: Stage five coercion, the endgame.
20:31
Speaker 2: This is where we see the term sextortion. Once the
20:34
predator has a compromising image, the dynamic flips instantly. The
20:38
nice guy, the friend, the mentor, he vanishes and.
20:40
Speaker 1: The real person emerges.
20:42
Speaker 2: A real person emerges. Now it's send me more or
20:44
he send this picture to your dad, Mimi and the park,
20:46
or I will create an Instagram account and send this
20:48
to everyone at your high school.
20:49
Speaker 1: And for a seventeen year old, that threat feels like
20:52
the end of the world.
20:53
Speaker 2: It feels unsurvivable, it feels like social death. And teenagers
20:58
their entire world revolves around their social standing. They will
21:02
do almost anything to avoid that kind of public humiliation.
21:06
That is likely what happened with Haley. We don't have
21:08
the chat logs in front of us, but the fact
21:10
that she left her house in the middle of the
21:11
night suggests she felt she had.
21:13
Speaker 1: No choice, or that she was so deep in the
21:17
distortion field that she actually thought he was her savior,
21:20
that running away with him was were only escape.
21:22
Speaker 2: That's the other terrifying possibility, that the manipulation was so
21:26
complete she saw him as the solution, not the problem.
21:29
Speaker 1: And let's look at the gaming aspect again, because section
21:32
four of our outline highlights the gaming ecosystem vulnerability. I
21:36
feel like a lot of people, especially parents from an
21:39
older generation, just hear gaming and they think Mario or
21:42
shooting bad guys. But these platforms are sophisticated social networks.
21:47
Speaker 2: They absolutely are. They're arguably more complex and immersive than
21:51
Facebook or Instagram. Take a platform like Roadblocks, it's not
21:54
just one game. It's a platform where users make games.
21:56
A metaverse essentially a user generated metaverse, and there are
22:01
millions of these experiences. Some are innocent obstacle courses or
22:05
pizza making simulators, but others are what users call condos
22:10
or roleplay clubs.
22:12
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the condo? I've never heard that term.
22:14
Speaker 2: It's user created slang for a private digital space designed
22:17
for simulated sex or dating. The developers at roblocks try
22:21
to ban them, but they pop up like whack a mole.
22:24
In these spaces. User avatars, which they've customized, mimics sexual acts.
22:29
It normalizes the idea of digital intimacy with complete strangers.
22:33
Speaker 1: It blurs the line between play and something very adult.
22:37
Speaker 2: It demolishes that line.
22:38
Speaker 1: And what about Discord? I use Discord for work, but
22:41
I know it's the absolute backbone of the gaming world.
22:43
Speaker 2: Discord is the infrastructure it allows for voice chat, video streaming,
22:46
and private servers. The danger with Discord is that it
22:50
feels like a living room. It's very casual. You're hanging
22:52
out in a voice channel, listening to music, playing a
22:54
game together. It creates what researchers call hyper intimacy.
22:58
Speaker 1: Hyper intimacy. Explain that.
23:00
Speaker 2: Okay, so think about a phone call versus playing a
23:03
video game on a phone call. We just talk in
23:07
a game. We are doing something together. We are teammates.
23:10
We have a shared objective. If I revive you in
23:13
the game and save your life, your brain releases dopamine
23:17
and oxytocin. You feel a bond. If we win a
23:19
championship together, we feel like we've been through a war together.
23:23
It dramatically accelerates trust and intimacy. You feel like you
23:26
know this person, like you can rely on them even
23:29
though you've never met them and you don't even know
23:30
their real name.
23:32
Speaker 1: And predators know this. They exploit this. They use a
23:35
tactic that a reports called.
23:36
Speaker 2: The carry right a carrie is when a high level,
23:39
very skilled player, the predator, finds a low level, less
23:44
skilled player the victim. He says, hey, stick with me.
23:46
I'll carry you, I'll protect you, I'll get you the
23:48
good loot, I'll get you the win. It creates dependency Instantly,
23:52
the child starts to think I need him to win.
23:54
That quickly becomes I need him to have fun, and
23:57
that's a very short step too. I need him to
23:58
feel good about myself. It's a transition from game dependency
24:03
to emotional dependency.
24:05
Speaker 1: And we are seeing this trend just explode. The NCMEC
24:09
reports the tips coming into the cyber deaplane. The numbers
24:12
are vertical. They're going stored up ar.
24:14
Speaker 2: The pandemic accelerated it. Kids were isolated online more than ever,
24:18
and the technology is outpacing the defense. We are seeing
24:22
predators use AI to generate fake verification selfies.
24:26
Speaker 1: How does that work?
24:27
Speaker 2: So a platform might ask to prove your a team,
24:30
upload a photo of yourself holding a piece of paper
24:33
with your username on it. The predator uses an AI
24:36
image generator to create a unique photorealistic face of a
24:40
sixteen year old boy and then photoshops in the username.
24:43
It passes the check.
24:44
Speaker 1: So the walls we try to build are just getting
24:46
climbed over or tunneled.
24:48
Speaker 2: Under constantly, which brings us to the aftermath, the reaction.
24:51
What do we do now?
24:52
Speaker 1: Fisher's is grieving the whole community. There are vigils, the
24:56
school district is bringing counselors for the students at Hamilton Southeastern.
25:00
The Buzzby family, I have to give them so much credit.
25:03
In the middle of this absolute hell, they are already
25:06
trying to change the law.
25:07
Speaker 2: They are they are petitioning for something they're calling a
25:09
pink alert.
25:10
Speaker 1: How is that different from an Amber alert, which everyone knows.
25:13
Speaker 2: The Amber alert has very very strict criteria. Typically, law
25:19
enforcement needs a confirmation of an abduction, like a witness
25:23
saw the child being forced into a car okay, And
25:26
they need descriptive information a license plate, a vehicle description,
25:31
and a belief that there is imminent danger of death
25:34
or serious injury.
25:35
Speaker 1: So if a kid walks out the door like Haley did,
25:38
it doesn't meet the criteria. It doesn't trigger an.
25:41
Speaker 2: Amber alert, correct because officially it's a runaway situation, not
25:45
a confirmed abduction. The pink alert would fill that gap.
25:48
It would be a specific alert for endangered miners who
25:51
may have left voluntarily, but where the circumstances like a
25:54
known history of online grooming or a sudden disappearance of
25:58
their digital footprint, suggest a very high level of danger.
26:01
Speaker 1: But there's pushback on these ideas, right people talk about
26:03
alert fatigue.
26:04
Speaker 2: That's the argument. If every runaway triggers a phone glass,
26:07
people will start to ignore them. They'll become background noise.
26:10
Speaker 1: I see the point.
26:11
Speaker 2: But the counter argument is, in the digital age, the
26:14
line between runaway and abduction is so blurred that we
26:17
need a new category. We need a way for law
26:20
enforcement to tell the public this child is missing, and
26:23
we believe the Internet was the weapon used to lure
26:26
them away. Be on the lookout for this specific type
26:29
of scenario.
26:30
Speaker 1: It acknowledges the modern reality of these cases exactly. We
26:33
also need to talk about the transient predator. This is
26:36
a term I saw in the FBI notes regarding Thomas.
26:39
It's a specific profile.
26:40
Speaker 2: It refers to his lifestyle and how he used it
26:43
to facilitate his crimes. He compartmentalized everything. He had the
26:47
urban apartment in Columbus and Victorian Village, a dense historic neighborhood.
26:51
It's anonymous, it has high speed internet. That's his digital
26:54
hunting ground.
26:55
Speaker 1: And then he had the rural cabin in Hockey Hills,
26:57
right isolated, private, a place for physical control.
27:02
Speaker 2: He could move between these two worlds.
27:04
Speaker 1: He split his life. The online persona and the real
27:06
world actions were kept in separate geographic locations.
27:10
Speaker 2: Yes, and that splitting makes it incredibly hard for local
27:13
cops to connect the dots. The Columbus police see a
27:16
guy living in an apartment. The Hawking County Sheriff's office
27:20
sees a weekend tourist renting a cabin. Nobody sees the
27:23
whole picture until the FBI steps in and pulls data
27:26
from both locations.
27:28
Speaker 1: So we need better data integration between these jurisdictions, so
27:32
that when a red flag pops up in one place,
27:34
it automatically waves in the other place too.
27:36
Speaker 2: We desperately need it because predators exploit these jurisdictional seams.
27:41
They know a county sheriff in a rural area doesn't
27:44
have the resources to track their digital footprint back to
27:47
a major city.
27:48
Speaker 1: It feels like we are constantly playing catch up the
27:51
predators running a sprint in law enforcement, and parents are
27:54
just jogging.
27:55
Speaker 2: We are. We are teaching our kids to look both
27:58
ways before crossing the street, but we are sending them
28:00
onto a digital super highway with no traffic lights, no cops,
28:04
and no map. We're giving them the keys without any lessons.
28:07
Speaker 1: That's the thought I want to leave everyone with today.
28:10
Section five of our outline talks about systemic failures, but
28:14
really it's a parenting failure. It's a societal failure. We
28:17
spend thousands of dollars on driver's head. We sit in
28:20
the passenger seat, white knuckle teaching them how to merge
28:22
onto a freeway.
28:24
Speaker 2: But when we hand them a smartphone, a device that
28:26
connects them to millions of strangers, including people like Tyler Thomas,
28:30
we just say be careful and walk away.
28:33
Speaker 1: We need to get in the passenger seat of their
28:35
digital lives. And I don't mean that in a spying
28:38
read all their texts kind of way necessarily, but to guide,
28:43
to be involved, to be present, to ask questions. Who
28:46
is that you're playing with? Oh, he's from Ohio? Cool?
28:48
Why did he give you that twenty dollars scin? That
28:50
was nice of him? What does he want in return?
28:52
Speaker 2: You have to be the disruption. You have to be
28:54
the voice of skepticism that breaks the grooming spell. Because
28:57
if you aren't talking to your kids about their online lives,
29:00
I promise you someone else's.
29:02
Speaker 1: Hailey Busby should be in school today. She should be
29:05
planning for prom or applying to college. Instead, a family
29:09
is planning a funeral. If her story does anything, let
29:13
it be the wake up call that forces us to
29:14
look at the digital wild.
29:16
Speaker 2: For what it really is, a hunting ground.
29:18
Speaker 1: Stay safe, hug your kids and check their devices. We'll
29:22
see you on the next deep dive.
29:23
Speaker 2: Take care