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Top 5 Most Shocking Motives for Murder · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So imagine you are just sitting there in a jury box.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: You have been selected for this massive, high-profile murder trial.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: And for weeks, you just sit there. You watch as
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: prosecutors parade all these forensic experts and timeline specialists up
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: to the stand.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Witness after witness.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And they show you the cell phone pings, right?
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: The ones that place the defendant right at the scene.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: They show you the ballistics. And they basically prove beyond
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: any shadow of a doubt that the defendant had the weapon.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: They had the opportunity.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that they absolutely pulled the trigger. But they
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: never tell you why. Right.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: The missing piece. Right.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: They never offer a single explanation for why this person
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: just you know, woke up one Tuesday and decided to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: end a life.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Which is wild to think about.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: It really is, because if you are like most human beings,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: you are going to feel this intense, almost physical frustration.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, you might even hesitate to convict someone based
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: on that alone.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Which really highlights one of the most fascinating disconnects in
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: our entire justice system, I think.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Well, if you talk to literally any seasoned prosecutor, they
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: will tell you that under the strict letter of the law,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: motive is just entirely irrelevant.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Irrelevant?
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Really? Yeah, completely. The state does not have to
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: prove why a crime was committed at all.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: To get a conviction, the prosecution simply has to prove
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: the physical elements, right? The means, the opportunity, and the
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: act itself.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: So just the mechanics of it.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The legal equation only requires the what, the where,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: and the how. It explicitly does not require the why.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: But human nature violently rejects that.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. We absolutely demand the why.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: We really do. Because, you know, if a horrific act
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of violence happens and there is just no underlying reason,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: it sort of implies that we are living in the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: state of terrifying random chaos. Right.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: That it could just happen to anyone. Yeah.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: It implies that violence is a lottery and any single
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: one of us could be the next random victim.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: We need a reason to make the world feel safe again.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: We do. Yeah. I like to think of a murder
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: trial like a massive jigsaw puzzle that just gets dumped
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: on a table. Okay.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I like that analogy. Right.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So the forensic evidence, the timelines, the witness testimonies, those
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: are all the little cardboard pieces.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: The raw data.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And technically, if you just force all those interlocking
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: edges together, you have a complete shape.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: And the law says that is enough to send someone
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: to prison.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But the motive, the motive is the picture on
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the front of the puzzle box.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, that makes perfect sense.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can physically assemble the pieces without it. But
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the picture is what actually allows a jury to step
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: back and say, OK, now this makes sense.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: It is how a prosecutor takes all that raw data
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: and translates it into a story that human beings can actually,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: you know, digest.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Right. And our mission for today's deep dive is to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: really look at the pictures on those boxes.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of them to go through today.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: We really do. We have pulled together this extensive collection
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of source materials. court transcripts, psychological evaluations, and audio recordings.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: From some of the most complex and shocking trials we
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: have seen recently.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We are going to examine the actual mechanisms of motive.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: We are going to look at how prosecutors uncover the why.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: And in doing so, we are really exploring the darkest
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: corners of human psychology.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: For sure. I mean, we are looking at individuals who
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: committed unthinkable acts just to protect financial legacies.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: We are looking at teenagers... whose biological inability to see
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: the future led to catastrophic violence.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Right. And families who treated murder like it was just
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: some bureaucratic business transaction.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: And even people who weaponized these wild cosmic religious delusions
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: just to hide very earthly greed.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you are listening to this on your
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: commute or, you know, while you are making dinner, just
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: be prepared.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Brace yourself.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Because some of these motives just defy Everything we think
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: we know about logic.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: They really do. Where are we starting?
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Well, let's start with a scenario that seems completely counterintuitive
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: at first glance.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: We are looking at a man who seemingly possessed every
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: single advantage society has to offer.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: A very wealthy, highly educated guy.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Exactly. A generational power broker in the legal community. And yet,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: this is a man who executed his own family. Right.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: We are diving into the trial of disgraced South Carolina
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: attorney Alec Murdaugh.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: That's the one. And, you know, to understand the motive here,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: we really first have to understand the enormous evidentiary hurdle
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: that the prosecution was facing.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: It was a massive hurdle. Let's set the scene. June
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: of 2021. Okay. Alec Murdaugh's wife, Maggie, and his adult son, Paul,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: were found brutally shot to death.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Right. Out near the dog kennels on their sprawling rural estate.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And From a purely investigative standpoint, the state had
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: a huge problem right out of the gate.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: No witnesses, right?
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: None. There were no eyewitnesses to the shootings at all.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: The murder weapons were completely missing.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: They were never recovered, were they?
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Never recovered. And the initial physical evidence at the scene
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: was circumstantial at best.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And Murdoch himself had a very clear narrative he was
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: sticking to.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, he had his story locked in. He claimed he
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: had been napping inside the main house.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Said he woke up, left to visit his ailing mother,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: and only discovered the bodies when he returned later that night.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: So he just vehemently denied ever being down at the
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: dog kennels during the time frame of the murders.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He swore he was nowhere near them.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Wow. So that is a tough puzzle to put together
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: when the physical pieces are just that sparse.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Extremely tough.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you break an alibi like that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: without any witnesses or a weapon?
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Well, you find a digital ghost.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: A digital ghost? Tell me about that.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: The prosecution actually discovered a video that was just buried
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: in the data of the son's cell phone, Paul's phone. Oh, wow.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: And it was filmed just minutes before investigators believed the
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: murders took place.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Just minutes?
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Just minutes. Paul was taking a video of a dog
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: down to the kennels.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: And in the background of this video, you can clearly
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: hear Alec Murdaugh's distinct voice.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: You can hear him talking?
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He's just casually talking about the dog. He says...
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Quit cash. Come here. He's got a bird in his mouth, Bubba.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: He's got a bird in his mouth. I mean, it
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: is just such a mundane, completely ordinary family interaction.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: And yet that mundane phrase is the linchpin of a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: double homicide case.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because that audio recording definitively placed Alec Murdaugh at
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: the exact scene of the crime.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: At the exact time of the murders.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Yep. Completely obliterating the alibi that he had maintained for
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: months and months.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Wow. So it proved he was there. Right.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: But, you know, proving a husband and father is just
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: standing near his family is very different from proving he
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: pulled a trigger and slaughtered them.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah. I mean, being there isn't a crime.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The jury still needed the why. Right.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: The picture on the box.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. And the prosecution presented a motive built around this
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: concept they called a gathering storm.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: A gathering storm.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: What does that entail? Well, the state basically introduced a
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: mountain of financial documents.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: And these documents reveal that Alec Murdaugh was living this
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: spectacular lie.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: He wasn't just a successful lawyer, was he?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Not at all. He was secretly embezzling millions upon millions
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: of dollars.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Wow. From who?
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: From his own law firm and even worse, from the
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: incredibly vulnerable clients that he represented.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: That is just awful. So we have this massive financial
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: house of cards.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: But let me ask you to explain a specific term
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the prosecutor used during the trial, because I think it's
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: crucial for you listening to grasp the psychological pressure here.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Sure. Which term?
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: The state said Murdaugh was addicted to the velocity of money.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: What exactly does that mean in the context of embezzlement?
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: It is actually a brilliant way to describe a white-collar
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Ponzi scheme.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: The velocity of money doesn't Just meaning you like having
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: cash in your bank account to buy nice things.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: It means you're trapped in this cycle where the money
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: has to constantly, rapidly move just to keep the whole
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: illusion alive.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: So how does that work in practice?
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Well, say you steal a million dollars from client A
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: to fund your lavish lifestyle.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Eventually, client A's case settles and you legally have to
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: pay them their money.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: But you already spent it. Right.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: So what do you do? You steal a million and
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: a half dollars from client B.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: You use a million to pay off client A, and
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: you keep the extra half million to live on.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: But now you owe client B even more money.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So the speed or the velocity at which you
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: have to steal new money just to cover the old thefts,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: it constantly accelerates.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: It just speeds up and speeds up.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Right. It becomes an all-consuming addiction just to maintain the
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: status quo.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: So it's basically a financial treadmill that just keeps speeding
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: up until you eventually get thrown off.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: That is a great way to put it.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: And for Murdaugh, the thing that was going to throw
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: him off the treadmill wasn't actually an audit by his firm.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, at least not initially.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: No, it wasn't. It was a completely separate tragedy involving
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: his son.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Right. This is where the threads of the story really collide.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So a couple of years before the murders, Murdaugh's son, Paul,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: was allegedly driving a boat while heavily intoxicated.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: The boat crashed, and tragically, a young woman named Mallory
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Beach was killed.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Just awful. Yeah.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: And because of this fatal crash, the Beach family filed
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: a massive civil wrongful death lawsuit against the Murdoch family.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: OK, I want to just pause here and look at
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: this from the perspective of someone who might not be
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: super familiar with civil litigation. Sure. If I get sued
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: in a car accident, my insurance company usually just handles it, right?
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: So why is this civil lawsuit the specific catalyst for
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: a double murder? What is the actual mechanistic threat that
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: this lawsuit posed to Alec Murdoch's secret financial life?
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Well, the threat is a legal process called discovery.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Discovery.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: In a civil lawsuit of this magnitude, the plaintiffs actually
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: have the legal right to demand a full accounting of
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: the defendant's finances.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, to prove they can actually pay the damages.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The court can literally compel Alec Burdock to open
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: his books.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Wow. So if he is forced to hand over his
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: financial records to a hostile, opposing attorney.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: The missing millions will be instantly discovered.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And the velocity of money just hits a brick wall.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: It completely stops.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Wow. And if it stops, all the dominoes fall.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: All of them.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: He loses his law license. He faces decades in federal
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: and state prison for financial crimes. His family's multi-generational reputation
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: is just destroyed.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: And he is left entirely penniless.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So the walls are really, truly closing in on him.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Fast.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: But here is the question that I think every single
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: person listening is probably shouting right now.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Well, if your goal is to prevent financial investigators from
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: looking into your private life, how does committing a double
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: homicide solve that?
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: It seems crazy, right?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: It does, because a double murder guarantees that the police,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: the state investigators, the media, literally everyone will be crawling
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: all over your property and your life. Right. I mean,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: it just seems completely, totally irrational.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: It does sound like the absolute worst possible solution to
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: his problem. Yeah. But to understand the deeply cynical, calculated
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: logic behind it, we have to look at the testimony
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: of Mark Tinsley.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, who's Mark Tinsley?
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: He was the attorney representing the Beach family in that
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: civil lawsuit.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Tinsley took the stand, and he explained the cold, brutal
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: mathematics of how civil juries actually operate.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: He told the court, nice people get good verdicts.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Nice people get good verdicts. Yeah.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: And he used this very stark analogy. He asked the
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: jury to imagine a trial where the defendant is Attila
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: the Hun.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Attila the Hun.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: And the other defendant is a sweet, grieving grandmother.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And he asked, who is the jury going to punish financially?
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Well, obviously, they are going to punish Attila the Hun.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: They are going to feel terrible for the grandmother.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Precisely. And Tinsley testified that if Alec Murdoch suddenly becomes
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: the victim of an unfathomable tragedy.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Like a grieving father and husband whose wife and son
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: were just slaughtered.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: By unknown vigilantes, right?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: If that happens... The civil lawsuit is effectively dead in
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: the water.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Because no jury in South Carolina is going to financially
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: ruin a man who just suffered that kind of horrific loss.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Wow. So the sympathy would just be this impenetrable shield.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And Murdaugh knew the legal system inside and out. Right.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: He's a lawyer.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: He knew that extreme tragedy acts as an immediate pause
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: button on all legal and financial scrutiny. Man.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: So he made a calculation.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: He did.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: He traded an unavoidable permanent problem, which was his impending
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: exposure for embezzlement, for a temporary emotional shield of public sympathy.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: He spent the lives of his wife and son just
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: to buy himself some time.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: That is sickening. And I think the most terrifying detail
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: in these source materials is that the strategy actually worked,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: didn't it?
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: It worked flawlessly in the short term.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Well, the prosecution brought in Jeannie Sechinger. She was the
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: chief financial officer of Murdaugh's law firm.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: She testified that the firm had finally noticed some missing fees. Oh, boy.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: And on the exact day of the murders, she walked
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: into Murdaugh's office, directly confronted him about the missing money,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: and demanded to see proof that the funds were where
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: they were supposed to be.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Wait, the exact same day?
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: The exact same day.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: The pressure must have been suffocating for him.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. But listen to what happened after the shootings. Okay.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: The firm's paralegal, a woman named Annette Griswold, also testified.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: What did she say?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: She described the atmosphere in the office right following the
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: deaths of Maggie and Paul.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: She said the entire legal community, the entire firm, they
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: all just rallied around Alec to support him in his grief.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Because he's the grieving father now. Right.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: And when the prosecutor asked her if anyone continued to
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: press him about the missing money in the weeks after
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: the tragedy, her response just summarized the entire motive. She said,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: what fees? No one was looking into this missing money.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: What fees? Wow.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: The investigation just evaporated instantly.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: So the sympathy shield held up exactly as he had calculated.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: It did.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is a stunning indictment of how easily
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: human empathy can be just completely weaponized by a sociopath.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: It really is. But as we established, the velocity of
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: money always demands more.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Right. He still needs the cash.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. A few months later, as the sympathy kind of
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: began to wane and the financial realities started closing in again,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Murdaugh orchestrated another deeply flawed, complex scheme.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: What did he do this time?
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: He actually contacted a distant cousin and offered to pay
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: him to shoot Murdaugh in the head on the side
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: of a rural road.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Wait, a suicide for hire plot?
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: The goal was for Murdaugh to die so that his
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: only surviving son, Buster, could collect a $ 10 million life
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: insurance payout.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: $ 10 million? Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: And the cousin actually shot him, but the bullet only
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: grazed his head.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So he survived.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: He survived and the whole plot unraveled almost immediately.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Wow. Which really just perfectly encapsulates the prosecution's entire theory,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't it?
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Because if you look at this guy and ask, you know,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: is it really possible that a father could concoct a convoluted, violent,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: fatal plot involving his own family just to solve a
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: financial crisis?
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Right. The defense says that's totally ridiculous.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: But the prosecution can just point to the roadside shooting
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: and say, well, he literally did it again three months later.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He viewed human life, including his own, as nothing
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: more than currency to be spent when he was backed
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: into a corner.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Just unbelievable.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So ultimately, the jury saw the picture on the box.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: They did.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: They convicted him of the murders and he was sentenced
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to consecutive life terms plus decades for the financial crimes.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: So the Murdoch case is basically the ultimate example of
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a fully developed adult brain using its knowledge of the
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: system to calculate these long-term, complex, albeit deeply broken, strategies. Right.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: A high-level intellect stripped of all empathy.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But what is the excuse when the brain doing
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the calculating is literally physically incapable of long-term foresight?
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: That's a very different scenario. Yeah.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: If we strip away the millions of dollars and the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: legal degrees... What happens when catastrophic violence is triggered by
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: something just incredibly small?
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Well, we are moving from a powerful man in his
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: 50s trying to preserve a dynasty to two 16-year-old boys
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: in Iowa.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Teenagers who destroyed multiple lives over something so agonizingly trivial
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: it almost defies belief.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: We are diving into the 2021 murder of Nohema Graber, right?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. She was a 66-year-old high school Spanish teacher.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. Set the scene for us.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Well, Mrs. Graber was a really beloved figure in her community.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: But she was found brutally beaten to death with a
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: baseball bat. Horrific. And her body was hidden under a tarp,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: a wheelbarrow, and heavy railroad ties in a local park. Wow.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: The investigation very quickly zeroed in on two of her students,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: 16-year-olds Willard Miller and Jeremy Goodow.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Okay. So when you look at a crime this violent...
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, an ambush, a weapon like a bat, the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: methodical hiding of the body under railroad ties.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: You expect a massive catalyst. Right.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: You assume there is a huge reason.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: You expect like a history of profound abuse or a
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: gang initiation or some severe psychological break.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: What was the actual catalyst that set this whole thing
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: in motion?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: A bad grade.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Wait, what? Yeah.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Willard Miller was currently failing his Spanish class.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I want you listening to just sit with that for
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: a second. A bad grade in high school Spanish.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: That's it. The source materials indicate that Miller was frustrated
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: because this failing grade was threatening his GPA.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: And he believed it might prevent him from participating in
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: an upcoming study abroad program.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: So a study abroad program. Yeah.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: And the way this grievance evolved into an actual murder
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: plot is just terrifyingly casual.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: How did it happen?
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Well, Jeremy Goodale, the accomplice, he eventually confessed and described
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: how he was recruited. Okay. They weren't in a dark
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: basement drawing up blueprints or anything. They were just sitting
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: in the school cafeteria.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Just at lunch?
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: At lunch. Goodale told police that Miller simply leaned over
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: and asked, would you help me if I kill this
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Spanish teacher?
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: And what is Goodale's response to being asked to commit
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: murder during third period lunch?
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Goodale stated that he paused for a second and then
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: just said, sure. Sure.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: A single syllable.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, I am struggling with this, and I know
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: everyone listening is too, because I've been 16. Right.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: We all have.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: We all know what teenage impulsivity looks like. It looks like,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: you know, shoplifting a candy bar or getting into a
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: fistfight behind the bleachers.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Or sneaking out to a party.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Those are bad choices. But sitting down... plotting a homicide,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: recruiting a friend, executing an ambush with a bat, and
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: dragging a body under railroad ties?
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: It's a massive leap. It is.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: So where does the law draw the line between an
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: immature teenage brain and pure, unadulterated sociopathy?
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: That is the exact tension that the court had to navigate.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And it really requires a deep dive into the biological
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: mechanics of adolescent development.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: OK, break that down for us.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: So the defense brought in Dr. Mark Cunningham. He's a
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: forensic psychologist, and he came to explain the why.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: To put it in relatable terms, Dr. Cunningham explained that
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: the teenage brain is essentially a high-performance sports car equipped
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: with a massive, powerful engine.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, the engine being what?
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Those are the emotional, impulsive, reward-seeking drives. Got it. But
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: that sports car has the brakes of a bicycle.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: The brakes of a bicycle, wow.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Right. The brakes are the prefrontal cortex, which is the
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: area of the brain responsible for mature judgment, self-regulation, empathy,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: and foreseeing long-term consequences.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: And at 16?
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: In a 16-year-old, those brakes are literally everything. physically not
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: fully installed yet.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Okay. So if we apply that biological framework to Willard
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Miller specifically, what is the equation his brain is running?
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Well, Miller is faced with a highly temporary, easily solvable problem, right?
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: A bad grade.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Happens all the time.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: An adult brain with fully formed breaks would see the problem,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: weigh the options, and realize that studying harder or taking
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: a summer school class is the logical path.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: But Miller's sports car engine wants an immediate reward. It
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: wants the removal of the stressor without any of the effort.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: So his underdeveloped prefrontal cortex completely fails to calculate the profound,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: permanent cost of his solution.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He cannot biologically grasp the totality of destroying Mrs.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Graber's life, ruining his own life, and devastating the whole community.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: The calculation is just entirely broken.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: But what about Jeremy Goodale? I mean, he wasn't even
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the one failing Spanish.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Right. He had no stake in it.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: He had literally no tangible problem to solve by participating
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: in this. Why does his brain say, sure?
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Goodale's motive is perhaps even more disturbing because it is
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: entirely social.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Social? Mm-hmm.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: How? Dr. Cunningham testified that Goodale proceeded with this horrific
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: act purely out of loyalty to a friend.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Adolescents are biologically hardwired to seek peer approval above almost
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: everything else.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Right. Fitting in is everything. Yeah.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Goodale just wanted to be seen positively in Miller's eyes.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: So he traded a massive, horrific, permanent moral cost for
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: a tiny, fleeting social reward.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate failure of risk assessment.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: It really is. And, you know, the aftermath of the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: murder really highlights how childish and disjointed their thinking was,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: despite the incredibly adult nature of the crime.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. The sources know that they didn't act like
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: criminal masterminds at all.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: What did they do?
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Well, Goodale was almost immediately sending incriminating messages about the
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: murder on Snapchat, just seeking attention from other kids.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Bragging about it on Snapchat.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And when Miller was brought in for interrogation, his
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: lies were almost absurd.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: What did he say to the cops?
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: During his police interview, Miller eventually admitted that he was
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: present and knew what happened. Okay. But he tried to
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: claim that the real killers were a random bunch of
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: masked kids. who suddenly appeared and forced him to help
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: move the body.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: A bunch of masked kids.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It is just a transparent, childlike lie applied to
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: this monstrous reality.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. Ultimately, both teenagers pleaded guilty to murder, right? With
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Goodale agreeing to testify against Miller.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: And when it came time for sentencing, Judge Sean Showers
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: addressed the exact question we've been circling.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: The line between youth and evil.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Yes. The judge sentenced Miller to life in prison with
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a mandatory minimum of 35 years before parole eligibility.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: A very heavy sentence.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: But I want to focus on what the judge actually
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: said to Miller in the courtroom because he completely rejected
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the idea that this was just some biological mistake.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Judge Showers pointed to a specific psychological report.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Tell me about that.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: So during his time in the juvenile detention center awaiting trial,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Miller had actually bragged to the staff there.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Bragged about what?
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: He told him he believed he had a much higher
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: IQ than most of the people working there. Wow. Yeah.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: And the judge looked at Miller and said, this sort
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: of arrogance is sometimes a reflection of youth. Other times,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: it's just your personality.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Just your personality.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: The judge concluded that Miller's actions were driven by an
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: intellectual superiority mindset.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: An intellectual superiority mindset. Right.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: He wasn't just a confused kid. He genuinely believed he
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: was smarter than everyone else, including the law.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And that belief gave him the right to just eliminate
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: someone who inconvenienced him.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: That takes us from a bad grade to a life sentence.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: It is a tragic jump.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: So we've just seen what happens when the underdeveloped teenage
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: brain fails to grasp long-term consequences.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: But what is the excuse when the perpetrators are highly educated,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: wealthy adults in their 30s and 60s?
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: You'd expect some calculated foresight there.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: You really would. But instead, in our next case, we
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: see a family that treated a personal dispute like a
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: corporate hostile takeover.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Complete with outsourced subcontractors?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We are diving into the deeply convoluted conspiracy surrounding
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the murder of Dan Markell.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Yes. So in 2014, Markell, who was a highly respected
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: law professor at Florida State University, was executed in broad daylight.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Where did it happen?
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: He was just sitting in his car in the driveway
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: of his Tallahassee home.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And someone walked up and shot him twice in the head.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Just a straight-up assassination.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And for years, the case went completely unsolved.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Until?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Until investigators finally unraveled a plot orchestrated by his own
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: former in-laws.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Who were they?
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: A successful Miami periodontist named Charlie Adelson and Charlie's mother,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Donna Adelson.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, so to understand the why here, we have to
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: look at the core conflict. Right. Dan Markell was divorced
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: from Charlie's sister, Wendy Adelson. Right. They had two young
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: sons together, and they were embroiled in a remarkably bitter
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: custody battle.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Very bitter.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: And the central figure pushing this conflict was the grandmother,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Donna Adelson.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: She was very involved.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the prosecution painted a picture of a matriarch who
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: absolutely despised her former son-in-law.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Despised him.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And she was obsessively desperate for Wendy and the grandchildren
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: to move away from Tallahassee and down to South Florida
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: to be close to her.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: And we really need to emphasize... just how desperate Donna
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: was and the sheer financial privilege she wielded.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, tell us about that.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: The prosecution presented evidence that prior to the murder, Donna
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Adelson actually proposed offering Dan Markell a $ 1 million bribe.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: A million dollars. Let's just pause on that.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: It's wild.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: In most families, a custody dispute involves, you know, lawyers
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and mediation.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe a counselor.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Right. In the Adelson family, the first instinct is to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: literally try to buy a human being's parental rights with
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: a mountain of cash.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Just write a check to solve it. Oh, and Charlie Adelson,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: her son, he actually offered to kick in over $ 300, 000
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: of his own money to help fund the payoff.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Just incredible. But Dan Markell was a brilliant legal mind.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: He obviously refused to take a million-dollar payoff to abandon
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: his sons.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: He absolutely refused.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: In fact, he escalated the legal fight, didn't he?
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: He did. Right before he was murdered, Markell filed a
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: very aggressive motion in family court.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: What was the motion?
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: He alleged that Donna Adelson was actively disparaging him to
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: his own children, basically trying to poison their relationship. Okay.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So he asked the judge to legally prevent Donna from
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: having any unsupervised contact with her grandchildren.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So if you are Donna Adelson, the million-dollar
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: check didn't work. Nope. And now the legal system is
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: threatening to cut you off from your grandchildren entirely. Right.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Your wealth can't solve the problem anymore.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: So what do you do?
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: According to the state, she made it her son's problem. Right.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: The prosecution heavily emphasized the enmeshed dynamic between Donna and Charlie.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: They talked a lot, right?
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Multiple times a day. He was basically her fixer.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: The prosecutor stated that this custody dispute was a big,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: big problem for Donna Adelson, and she made it the
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: defendant's problem to solve.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And Charlie's solution was to essentially outsource some murder using
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: this bizarrely bureaucratic chain of command.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: It really was bureaucratic.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: So let's break down the mechanics of this. How does
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: a wealthy dentist actually go about hiring a hitman? How
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: does that transaction occur?
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Well, Charlie didn't go to the dark web or find
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: a cartel member. He used his personal network.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Who did he ask?
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: He approached his ex-girlfriend, a woman named Catherine Magmanua, who
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: actually worked in his dental office.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: He asked her if she knew anyone capable of doing harm.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And did she?
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: She did. Magmanua reached out to the father of her children,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: a man named Sigfredo Garcia.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's two steps removed.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Right. And then Garcia recruited a childhood friend and gang associate,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Luis Rivera.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: So it's like a corporate supply chain.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Rivera later testified that the total payout for the
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: assassination was.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: $ 100, 000.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: A hundred grand.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which was handed over.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: In stapled stacks of cash and distributed among the three
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: of them.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: It's literally like subcontracting a kitchen remodel, but the commodity
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: is a human life.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And the most sickening part of this entire corporate-style hit
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: is that the motive achieved its exact goal, didn't it?
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Sadly, yes.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Did it really work?
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: It did. Just 48 hours after Dan Markell was assassinated
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: in his driveway, Wendy Adelson packed up her children and
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: moved to South Florida.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Within 48 hours.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: She eventually settled into a home just blocks away from Donna.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: And that pending court motion regarding unsupervised visits, it just
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: vanished from the docket because the petitioner was dead.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: The problem was permanently solved.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Permanently.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I have to ask the obvious question here. I mean,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: how do highly educated people a family of significant means
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: leave a paper trail like this?
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: It's baffling.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: They involve a dental assistant, two hitmen from out of town,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: rental cars, toll booths, massive cash withdrawals.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Do they really think they can orchestrate a $ 100, 000 murder-for-hire
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: plot and just go back to fixing cavities on Monday
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: morning without the FBI noticing? Is it just staggering hubris?
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate insulating bubble of wealth.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Explain that.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: When you live a life where every problem, whether it's
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: a parking ticket, a failed class, or a million-dollar custody dispute,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: can be made to disappear by just writing a check.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: You start to think you're untouchable.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You begin to believe that consequences are only for
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: people who can't afford to avoid them. Wow. They viewed
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Dan Markell not as a human being, but as a
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: logistical obstacle. And we see this hubris in a staggering
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: piece of evidence the prosecution presented.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: What was it?
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Charlie Adelson had previously made jokes to his sister, Wendy.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: about his solution to her divorce. Jokes. Yeah. He told her,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: I looked into hiring a hitman, and it was cheaper
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: to get you this TV as a divorce gift.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: A joke about the cost-benefit analysis of murder.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Yes. And the crazy thing is, according to his ex-girlfriend's testimony,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: that initial quote for the hit was actually around $ 15, 000.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Which roughly matched the cost of the high-end television he
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: actually bought. The joke was financially accurate.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: That is deeply chilling.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: It is. And law enforcement knew exactly how to weaponize
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: that paranoia and hubris against them.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: How did they do that?
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: The FBI orchestrated this brilliant sting operation. Okay. They had
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: an undercover agent dress casually, walk up to Donna Adelson
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: on the street in Miami, and hand her a news
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: article about the Markell murder with a phone number written
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: on it. Oh, wow. The agent posed as an associate
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: of the hitmen and told Donna, We know what you did,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: and we want to be taken care of.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: It was an outright extortion demand. Yes. Yes. They wanted
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: to shake the tree and see what fell out.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: So what happens psychologically when a wealthy family, accustomed to
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: total control, suddenly realizes they are being blackmailed by a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: street gang?
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Absolute panic.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I bet.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: The FBI was secretly wiretapping their phones, waiting for the reaction.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Almost immediately, Donna calls Charlie.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: And what do they say?
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: They start having these heavily coded, desperate conversations. Charlie is
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: caught on tape discussing the extortionist.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: What does he say?
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: At one point, his hubris shines through again. And he says,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: if they had evidence, we would have already gone to
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: the airport.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Meaning he thinks it might be the police.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Right. And in another recording, he coldly debates whether they
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: should pay off the blackmailer with a lump sum or
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: if they should hire another hitman to kill the black man.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? No. He learned absolutely nothing.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Nothing.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: His solution to being extorted over a murder-for-hire plot is
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: to brainstorm a second murder-for-hire plot.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: That was his go-to move.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: When he finally gets arrested and goes to trial, what
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: on earth is his defense? How do you explain away
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the wiretaps and the money?
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: His defense was a masterclass in trying to reverse the narrative.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Charlie took the stand and claimed he was actually the
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: victim of a massive extortion plot from the very beginning.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Wait, what?
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: He testified that Catherine McGuania and the two hitmen took
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: it upon themselves to travel to Tallahassee and murder his
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: brother-in-law without his knowledge.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Just completely on their own. Yeah.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Then, according to him, they came back, held a gun
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: to his head, and told him that if he didn't
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: pay them $ 100, 000 in installments, they would kill him next.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: That is wild.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: He claimed the wiretaps were just him panicking about paying
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: his extortionists.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Did the jury buy that he was just an innocent
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: victim who accidentally funded his enemy's assassination?
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Not for a single second.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: How long did they deliberate?
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: The jury deliberated for only three hours.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Charlie Adelson was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: and sentenced to life in prison.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: But there's a postscript to this story, right?
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: The postscript is what truly caps it off. Just days
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: after Charlie was convicted, his mother, Donna Adelson, realized the
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: walls were finally closing in on her.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: So what did she do?
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: She booked a one-way flight to Vietnam.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Vietnam.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Because it's a country that does not have an extradition
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: treaty with the United States.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: But federal agents arrested her as she was literally walking
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: onto the jet bridge at Miami International Airport.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Right on the jet bridge.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She is now facing her own trial for murder.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: That is just a sprawling, multi-tiered conspiracy, born out of
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: a toxic family dynamic and way too much disposable income.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: It took them months to plan and cost a fortune.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: But our next case proves that a shocking motive doesn't
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: actually require complexity or money or long-term planning.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the most lethal violence is terrifyingly mundane and erupts
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: over absolutely nothing.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are looking at the case of Kayvon Watkins
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: out of Macon, Georgia from February 2018.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, lay it out for us.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Kayvon was 16 years old when he strangled his 19-year-old
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: sister Alexis to death in the hallway of their own home.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, the Adelsons killed over custody of children. Murdoch killed
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: over millions of dollars in financial fraud.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: What sparked this teenager to kill his sister?
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: The Wi-Fi password.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: The Wi-Fi password. I need to speak for everyone listening here.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: A human life was extinguished over an internet connection.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Yes. It is horrible. The source materials outline a scenario
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: that is probably familiar in millions of households right up
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: until the violence starts.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: What happened?
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Kayvon came home from school and wanted to play online
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: video games.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: But the internet connection was lagging because his mother, his sister,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: and his younger brother were all also using the home Wi-Fi.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Right. Normal family stuff.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: So Kayvon made a unilateral decision. He logged into the
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: router and changed the Wi-Fi password.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Intentionally locking his entire family off the internet.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Just so he could have uninterrupted bandwidth for his game.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: And obviously his 19-year-old sister, Alexis, is not going to
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: just sit there and accept that her younger brother has
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: commandeered the Internet.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Alexis went to Kayvon's room, grabbed the physical Internet router,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: unplugged it entirely, and took it back to her room.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, boy.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Kayvon followed her. A verbal argument escalated into a physical confrontation,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: and Kayvon put his sister into a chokehold.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, we need to pause on this chokehold because the
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: time frame here is the absolute crux of the entire
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: legal case.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: It is the most important detail.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: How long did he hold her in this chokehold?
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: He held her in that chokehold for 15 minutes.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: 15 minutes. Yes. Let's really break down what that actually
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: means physically and psychologically.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: It's hard to even fathom.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Have you ever tried to hold your breath for one minute?
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: It feels like forever.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Or have you ever held a plank exercise for two minutes?
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Your muscles scream. Your body begs you to stop.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Fifteen minutes is an eternity. It is 900 seconds of
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: exerting sustained maximum physical force against another human being.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: And he wasn't doing this in an empty room, was he?
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Not at all. The scene in that house was absolute chaos.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: What was going on around them?
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Kayvon and Alexis fell to the floor in the hallway.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Their mother rushed in and desperately tried to physically pry
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: her teenage son's arms off of her daughter's neck.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Ugh.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: But you couldn't break his grip. The 13-year-old brother was
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: forced to call 911.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: The younger brother had to call. Yeah.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: And on that emergency recording, you can actually hear Kayvon
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: actively threatening to beat up his mother while he is
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: still strangling his sister.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: The level of rage there is just incomprehensible.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: And the detail that just stops you cold. A sheriff's
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: deputy testified about when they arrived, right?
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Yes. When law enforcement finally arrived with lights and sirens,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: they rushed through the front door. And found them in
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: the hallway.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: And?
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Kayvon Watkins was still holding his sister in the chokehold.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Still holding her?
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Still holding her. She was unresponsive and later died at
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: the hospital.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: God. Legally, this case presents a really fascinating question about
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: how we define motive during a continuous act, doesn't it?
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does. Kayvon opted for a bench trial, which
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: means a judge decides the verdict instead of a jury.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: His defense attorney argued heavily for a conviction of voluntary
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: manslaughter rather than murders.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: OK, can you explain the exact legal difference for the listener?
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Why does that distinction matter so much in a case
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: like this?
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: It comes down to the mindset at the exact time
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: of the killing.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Voluntary manslaughter is often called a crime of passion.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: It acknowledges that the defendant killed someone, but argues that
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: they did it in a sudden, intense heat of emotion
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: caused by a severe provocation.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Like they just snapped.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The argument is essentially, I snapped. I lost control.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: And before I knew what I was doing, it was
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: too late.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: And that carries a lighter sentence.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Significantly lighter. Felony murder, on the other hand, means you
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: caused the death while intentionally committing a dangerous felony.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Which in this case would be aggravated assault. Right.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: It implies a level of intent and continuation that goes
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: way beyond just a momentary loss of control.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: So how does a 15-minute time frame fit into that
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: legal framework? How does a judge weigh a split-second mistake
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: versus a quarter of an hour?
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Judge Vera Colvin looked at that timeline and completely rejected
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: the manslaughter argument.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: She did? Yeah.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: She convicted him of felony murder. Her reasoning cut right
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: to the physical reality of human biology.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: What did she say?
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: She noted that medical science dictates that someone in a
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: tight chokehold will lose consciousness within a few minutes. Right.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Judge Colvin stated from the bench in those 10 minutes
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: she had to have stopped moving. Perhaps that wasn't noticed
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: by the defendant because he was still angry.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: That is deeply chilling.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: She had to have stopped moving.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She went limp. And he just kept holding on,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: maintaining that muscle tension for another 10 minutes.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: It forces us to reevaluate what his motive actually was,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: doesn't it?
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: It really does. Because at minute one, sure, the motive
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: was anger over the Wi-Fi router.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: But what was the motive at minute 12th? What was
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the motive at minute 14 when his mother is screaming
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: and his sister is motionless?
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: It wasn't about the internet anymore. No.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: It had to be about absolute unchecked dominance.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: That is a very astute psychological observation. And Judge Colvin
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: spoke directly to that culture of unchecked dominance during her sentencing.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: What did she tell him?
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: She expressed a profound degree of sorrow, noting that the
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: adults in Kayvon's life had ultimately failed him by never
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: establishing boundaries.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: How did she phrase it?
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: She said, in this household, chaos was empowered. In this household,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: the ability to ignore and follow corrective discipline was empowered.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Chaos was empowered. That phrase is a gut punch. It
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: suggests that this wasn't an isolated lightning strike of random violence.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: It was the catastrophic culmination of an environment where rage
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: was allowed to just dictate the terms of reality.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Kayvon Watkins was sentenced to life in prison.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Did he appeal?
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: He did appeal, arguing again that it was just a
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: sibling fight gone wrong. But the Georgia Supreme Court upheld
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: his murder conviction.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: He acted in a fit of empowered, spontaneous chaos.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Which serves as a really stark contrast to the final
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: case in our source files.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: We just looked at explosive, unthinking rage. Now, we are
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: going to look at the exact opposite.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: What are we looking at?
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: We are going to examine a perpetrator who orchestrated the
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: deaths of her own family members with chilling, serene deliberation. Okay.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: And who masked her incredibly dark earthly motives behind an
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: elaborate cosmic alternative reality.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: If you follow true crime, you definitely know the saga
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: of Lori Vallow Daybell.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: It is infamous.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: It is a descent into absolute madness out of Idaho.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: We are talking about a mother who eliminated her children
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: and then quite literally danced on a beach.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Let's lay out the framework of this conspiracy.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Well, the scope of the destruction is just massive.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Who was involved?
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Lori Vallow Daybell and her new husband, an apocalyptic author
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: named Chad Daybell, were charged in a conspiracy that left
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: three people dead.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Three victims.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: The victims were Lori's own children. 7-year-old J.J. Vallow, who
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: had autism, and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: And the third victim?
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: The third victim was Chad's wife, 49-year-old Tammy Daybell.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: And it is really important to note the mechanics of
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: how these murders were actually executed because it speaks to
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: the cult-like dynamic of this group.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The evidence strongly suggests that Lori didn't physically wield
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: a weapon or pull a trigger herself.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Right. Who did?
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: The actual killings were largely carried out by Lori's brother,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: a man named Alex Cox. Okay. The children simply vanished.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Months later, their bodies were found buried in a makeshift
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: pet cemetery on Chad Daybell's rural property.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Awful. And what about Tammy?
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Tammy Daybell, who was initially ruled to have died in
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: her sleep of natural causes, was later exhumed.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: And what did they find?
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Autopsy results proved she had actually died by asphyxiation at
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: the hands of another.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Now, Alex Cox, the brother, could never testify or face
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: trial because he died of a blood clot shortly after
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: the murders.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: How convenient.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: But Lori and Chad were indicted on multiple counts of
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: first-degree murder and conspiracy.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: And the central question, right, the why, is almost incomprehensible
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: to a normal person. It is. Why would a mother
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: order the execution of her own vibrant teenage daughter and
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: her vulnerable seven-year-old son?
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: The prosecution argued that there wasn't just one motive. They
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: argued there were three overlapping motives that sort of fused
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: together into this lethal theology.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: What were the three motives?
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: First, Lori and Chad wanted a child-free life together to
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: pursue their affair unhindered.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Just to be alone together. Yep.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Second, there was pure, unadulterated financial greed.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Money.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: And third, the motive that generated all the headlines, an
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: extreme religious justification.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Let's unpack that religious aspect because it is incredibly complex.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: It is. Lori and Chad didn't just meet and fall
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: in love. They formed this closed theological echo chamber.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: What did they believe?
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: They claimed to share profound religious revelations. They told their
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: small group of followers that they had been married to
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: each other in prior probations.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Prior probations. What does that mean?
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: That was their term for past lives. Oh, I see.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: They believed they were reincarnated, exalted religious figures... tasked with
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: leading 144,000 survivors through the impending biblical apocalypse. Wow. Yeah.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: And the darkest part of this theology is how they
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: categorize the people around them.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Very much so.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Can you explain the concept of dark spirits for the listener?
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Sure. In their belief system, people's bodies can be taken
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: over by dark spirits or literally possessed by demons. Okay.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: If a person was possessed, their original human spirit was
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: trapped in limbo. and the entity inhabiting their body had
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: to be destroyed to free the original soul.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, man.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: They started assigning dark or light ratings to literally everyone
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: in their lives.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: And let me guess.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Yep. Conveniently, anyone who stood in the way of Lori
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: and Chad's romance, like Lori's children or Chad's wife, were
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: suddenly diagnosed as being possessed by powerful demonic entities.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: OK, if you are listening to this, you are probably
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: screaming at your steering wheel right now.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I know I am.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Because the big question is, were they actually suffering from
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: a genuine shared psychiatric delusion? Or was this entire demon
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: theology just a weaponized conscious smokescreen used to justify getting
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: rid of their families and stealing their money?
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Right. And the prosecution argued forcefully that it was a
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: smokescreen for greed.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: What did they say?
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Prosecutor Lindsay Blake told the jury that Lori Vallow used money, power,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: and sex, or the promise of those things, to get
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: what she wanted.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Money, power, and sex.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Blake pointed out the earthly realities of parenting. Raising a
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: seven-year-old boy with autism takes a lot of time, effort,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: and energy.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course it does.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: That energy took away from Lori's ability to travel and
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: be with Chad Daybell. She viewed motherhood as a burden
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: that was keeping her from her exalted destiny.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: And the financial timeline completely shatters the illusion of a
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: purely spiritual motive, doesn't it?
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: It completely destroys it.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: They weren't just praying. They were cashing checks.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The trial featured meticulous testimony from forensic accountant Michael Douglas.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: He tracked the money.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: He tracked every single penny. After Tylee and JJ were
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: killed and buried in the backyard, Lori did not report
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: them missing.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: She actively lied to authorities about their whereabouts.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Because if they are alive on paper... The money keeps flowing.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: What money?
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Douglas testified that between October 2019 and January 2020, Lori
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: collected over $ 7, 400 in Social Security survivor benefits on behalf
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: of Tylee.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: And over $ 7, 800 on behalf of JJ.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: She was depositing her murdered children's government benefits directly into
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: her own bank account.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, she was. And Chad Daybell was playing the exact
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: same game.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: After his wife Tammy was suffocated in her own bed,
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Chad was the beneficiary of her life insurance policy.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: And he cashed it out.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: The source materials note that he immediately started spending that
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: influx of cash. Both Lori and Chad were charged with
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: financial crimes alongside the murder charges.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Grand theft and insurance fraud.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: And if you really want to understand the true depth
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: of their callousness, you just have to look at the timeline.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: The timeline is staggering.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: The sources point out that exactly two weeks after Tammy
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Daybell's funeral.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Two weeks.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: And while Lori's children have already been rotting in the
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: ground for over a month, Lori and Chad fly to Hawaii.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they get married in a beautiful ceremony right on
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: the beach.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I've seen the photos. They are wearing leis, dancing, playing
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: the ukulele, just completely carefree.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: It's sickening. If their motive was to eliminate their burdensome families,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: collect the insurance and social security cash, and live happily
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: ever after on a tropical island, they flawlessly executed the plan.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Which brings us back to the most disturbing evidence, the
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: text messages.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: The texts are where you see the real them.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: How did they justify this to themselves in private?
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Well, the prosecution presented texts to show how they use
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: their religious beliefs to basically authorize the murders in real time.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: What did they say?
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Former Special Agent Douglas Hart read communications between Lori and
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Chad regarding 16-year-old Tylee.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: Kylie was just acting like a normal, rebellious, moody teenager.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: But Lori texted Chad. She put a bunch of holes
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: in the walls and doors. Definitely had demons helping her.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Demons helping her. Yeah.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: And then she wrote, we are both so tired of
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: taking care of demons. We are weary. Please ask the
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Lord to take them.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Please ask the Lord to take them.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: She is actively praying for the death of her own
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: children by labeling them as demonic entities.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate psychological abdication of responsibility. Right.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not killing my daughter. I'm destroying a demon.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And we know exactly how they reacted when their
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: quote-unquote divine plans hit a snag.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: What happened?
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Well, Zalma Pastones, who was the widow of the hitman
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: brother Alex Cox.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: She testified about a prior attempt on Tammy Daybell's life.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, there was a prior attempt?
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. About 10 days before Tammy was actually murdered, someone,
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: believed to be Alex, walked up to her in her
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: driveway with a paintball gun.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: A paintball gun.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: But they believe it may have been loaded with real ammunition.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: He shot at her, but missed.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: What was Lori's reaction to her brother failing to assassinate
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: an innocent woman?
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Zulma testified that Lori was absolutely furious.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Furious.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: She didn't pray for understanding. She complained to Zulma, calling
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: the shooter an idiot. and a moron who can't do
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: anything right.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Wait, hold on. If you genuinely believe that the timing
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: of death is controlled by God or divine intervention, you
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: would interpret a missed shot as a sign from the
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: universe that it wasn't her time.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: But if you get mad at the hitman's aim, that
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: proves you know it's a mechanical, earthly murder plot.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: It absolutely proves it.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: So I have to ask, do you think Laurie actually
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: believed her own lies?
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: That is the terrifying nexus of extreme narcissism.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: How does that work?
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Well, in many cult-like dynamics, the leader begins with a
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: fundamentally selfish desire, right? Wealth, sex, freedom from responsibility. Right.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: But human beings are psychologically fragile. Very few people can
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: look in the mirror and admit, I am a monster
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: who is going to murder my children for a beach vacation.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: So what do they do?
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: A narcissist will construct an alternate reality where their selfish
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: desires are actually a righteous, divine mandate.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Over time, through the constant repetition of the lie and
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: surrounded by an echo chamber of enablers like her brother
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: and her new husband.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: She begins to genuinely believe her own fiction.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The delusion becomes real to her because the truth
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: is psychologically unsurvivable.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: And we hear that exact psychological defense mechanism functioning perfectly
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: in a recorded jailhouse phone call, don't we?
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, we do.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Tell us about that call.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: So while Lori was incarcerated, her surviving adult son, Colby Ryan,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: called her.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: The bodies of his siblings had finally been unearthed. He
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: is weeping on the phone. He's pleading with his mother
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: for answers, telling her she threw her entire family in
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: the garbage.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: And what does she do?
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: She laughs.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: She literally chuckles.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: She does. She tells him, you can judge me all
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: day long. You don't know what happened.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: She acts as though she is a misunderstood martyr.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She claims she was the good mother, the one
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: in the hospital with Ty Lee, the one taking care
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: of JJ.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: She tells her grieving, devastated son, you don't know what happened.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Desperately clinging to this warped, secret justification that only she
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: is enlightened enough to understand.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: You don't know what happened. It is the ultimate impenetrable
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: shield of a narcissist.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: But the jury saw right through the theology and looked
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: at the money trail. Lori Vallow Daybell was convicted of
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: all charges and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: the possibility of parole.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: She is currently awaiting trial in Arizona for the murder
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: of her previous husband. And Chad Daybell is awaiting his
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: own trial where he faces the death penalty.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: It is truly staggering. We have covered a massive amount
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: of psychological ground today.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: We really have.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: We've examined the intricate puzzle boxes of motive. We've looked
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: at the desperate compounding mathematics of a wealthy lawyer trying
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: to maintain his multi-million dollar illusion.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: And we broke down the catastrophic lethal short-sightedness of a
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: teenage brain stressing over a Spanish grade.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: We explored the cold bureaucratic calculation of a family treating
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: a custody dispute like a mob hit.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: We analyzed the horrifying spontaneous rage of a teenager ending
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: his sister's life over a Wi-Fi password.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: And finally, we witnessed the terrifying weaponization of faith to
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: mask pure greed.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: And as we step back and look at all these
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: completed puzzle boxes, it leaves us with a deeply uncomfortable realization.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: We started this deep dive by noting that motive is
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: how prosecutors sell the story to the jury, how they
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: make sense of the senseless.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: But when you look at the extremes of human behavior
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: in these specific cases, you have to ask a harder question.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Is discovering the motive really about solving the crime, or
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: is it just society's way of reassuring itself?
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? How does a horrific
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: motive reassure us?
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: Well, if we can pin a neat, understandable label on
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: an act of violence, if we can definitively say, he
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: did it to hide stolen money, or she did it
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: because of a cult delusion, or they did it to
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: fix a bad grade, it allows us to believe that
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: evil operates by a strict set of rules. Oh, wow.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: It makes the monsters recognizable. And if we can recognize them,
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: we feel like we can avoid them.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: But the most terrifying thought isn't the motive itself. No.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: It's the realization of just how fragile the social contract
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: really is.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: The true horror is seeing how terrifyingly little it takes,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: a bad grade, a lagging internet connection, a pending audit,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: a desire for a beach vacation, for an ordinary person
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: to shatter that contract entirely and erase a human life.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Wow.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: That is the exact opposite of the comforting resolution we
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: usually expect at the end of a trial.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: It is unsettling.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: It turns out that finally seeing the picture on the
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: puzzle box doesn't always make us feel safer. Sometimes it
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: just shows us how easily the pieces of our own
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: reality could fall apart.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Very true.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: To everyone listening, thank you for joining us on this
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: intense deep dive. Keep questioning the headlines, keep looking for
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: the why, and remember that the mechanics of human nature
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: are always infinitely more complex than the final verdicts let on.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Until next time.