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‘Violent’ Man Kills 3 Random Women in Utah Mountain Mystery · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So imagine like living in a town of exactly 196 people.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Wow. Just 196.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: That is incredibly small.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Right. It's a place so remote, so defined by its
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: isolation that you probably wouldn't even own a key to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: your front door, you know?
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. You'd know the sound of everyone's truck on
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: the gravel.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You know who's out of town, who's visiting. Your
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: brain just operates on this baseline assumption of absolute geographic safety.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Because there's no anonymity there.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So imagine the sheer terror when a ghost from
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: over a thousand miles away just suddenly materializes in that town, right?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: He commits a string of just unspeakable crimes and then
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: vanishes right back into the dark of the mountains.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: See, that completely shatters the fundamental contract of rural living.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, we have this deeply ingrained psychological defense mechanism, right?
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: We equate population density with danger. So we assume... if
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: we remove ourselves from the noise and chaos of a city,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: we're removing ourselves from the threat of random catastrophic violence.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes total sense. Well, welcome to today's Deep Dive.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We are going to be unpacking an incredibly chilling sequence
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of events that recently tore through Wayne County, Utah.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: It's a heavy one, for sure.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: It really is. We're going to piece together the chaotic
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: timeline of a stunning triple homicide and figure out how
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a multi-state manhunt actually managed to corner a suspected killer
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: in just a matter of hours.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Which is pretty mind-blowing when you look at the geography involved. Right.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: And we'll also explore the really fascinating but kind of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: unsettling role that modern tracking technology played in resolving this
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: whole nightmare. So, okay, let's unpack this.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Our mission today isn't just to look at the grim
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: reality of what happened. I mean, we want to truly
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: understand how the modern world's invisible surveillance web works. and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: how it follows you even when you think you're completely
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: off the grid.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Because that is the real revelation here, I think. This
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: isn't just a story about a crime. I mean, it
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: is a story about the intersection of these vast, empty,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: physical spaces and the really dense, overlapping digital spaces we
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: all inhabit at the same time.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Right, like we exist in both places at once.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The tools used to catch the suspect are the
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: exact same tools that are operating in the background of
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: your life right now.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Which is honestly the perfect jumping off point. Because before
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: we trace the killer steps in Utah, we actually need
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: to look at our phones for a second.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is about the preamble and the source material.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. The source transcript starts with this massive privacy
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: investigation happening right now involving the food delivery app DoorDash.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: And it's not just like a minor footnote or a
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: random ad read. It's actually the perfect thematic setup for
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: understanding the mechanics of what happens later. out in the mountains.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is how the corporate and the criminal
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: justice worlds use the exact same tech.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Right. So the allegations are that between 2023 and 2025,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: this app was tracking its users precise locations and not
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: just tracking, but sharing that highly sensitive data with third
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: parties completely without genuine user consent.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: And we really need to define what precise location actually
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: means in this context.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's not just like, oh, you're in Chicago.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It goes way beyond just knowing what city or
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: zip code you're in. When you grant an application location permissions,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: it isn't just taking a casual glance at your GPS coordinates.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: What else is it doing?
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Well, it's often utilizing a combination of GPS satellite data,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: the MAC addresses of nearby Wi-Fi routers.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? The Wi-Fi routers in people's houses?
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Yep. And it combines that with the triangulation of local
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: cell towers. So this creates a multi-layered incredibly accurate pinpoint
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: of your physical self. We're talking sometimes down to a
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: few feet. Wow. And it's constantly updating in the background
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: while your phone is just sitting in your pocket.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, wait. I need to push back on that. Why
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: would a food delivery app need to run that kind
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: of sophisticated military-grade tracking in the background when I am
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: not actively ordering a burrito?
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, I understand them needing to know where my
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: house is to drop off my food, but But what
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: is the commercial justification for tracking me on a Tuesday
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: afternoon when the app is totally closed?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: So the commercial justification is that the data itself is
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: vastly more valuable than the delivery fee for your burrito. Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: You are looking at the app as a service provider.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: But to the data broker economy, the app is literally
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: a harvesting tool.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: So they're just farming us for data.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Basically, yeah. Developers often embed what are called SDKs. Software
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: development kits into their applications.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, SDKs.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Right. These are pre-written blocks of code provided by third-party
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: data monetization companies. The app developer actually gets paid to
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: include this code.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And in return, the SDK just quietly siphons off your
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: location data, anonymizes it, which, by the way, is a
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: highly debatable term, and aggregates it.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It's essentially like carrying around a digital ankle monitor that
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: you voluntarily plug into the wall every night to charge.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect way to describe it.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, you download an app for convenience to get dinner,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and suddenly your exact geographical coordinates are being commodified and traded.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: They know you went to an oncologist. They know you
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: went to a divorce lawyer.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: They know you sleep at a different house on Thursday nights. Yeah. Exactly.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: And they sell those behavioral patterns. So they aren't selling
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: a spreadsheet with your actual name on it. They're selling
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: a profile of a device that, say, spends eight hours
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: at a corporate headquarters and then stops at a fast
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: food restaurant every Friday. Right. Advertisers buy this to serve
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: you hyper-targeted ads. Hedge funds even buy aggregated foot traffic
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: data to predict retail earnings before they're announced.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: So they can see how many people walked into a
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: specific store this month.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It is a multibillion-dollar invisible economy, and it's running
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: entirely on the digital exhaust of our daily movements.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That is legitimately terrifying. When you break down the actual
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: mechanics of it, it feels like a massive invasion of
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: personal sovereignty.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: You hear that, and your immediate instinct is to just
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: instantly delete every app on your phone, throw it in
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: a river, and go live in a cabin somewhere.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Right. But what's fascinating here is the visceral psychological repulsion
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: we have to that corporate tracking.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it feels predatory.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It feels predatory because it is non-consensual and profit-driven.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: But here is the central tension we have to navigate today. Okay.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: That exact same capability, the ability to harness digital breadcrumbs,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: pinging devices, and automated locational data, that is the primary
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: reason a suspected triple murderer is sitting in a jail
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: cell right now instead of vanishing forever into the American West. Wow. Okay.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: The privacy paradox is that the infrastructure we fear is
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: spying on us is the exact same infrastructure that keeps
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: a killer from escaping.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: OK, that paradox is going to be the absolute backbone
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: of how this manhunt was executed later on.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: It's unavoidable.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: But before we get to that digital dragnet, we have
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: to understand the physical environment where this happened, because the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: contrast is just staggering. We are looking at Wayne County, Utah.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: A very specific kind of landscape.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Geographically, we are about three hours south of Salt Lake City.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: You've got this vast, sprawling height desert. Proximity to Capitol
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Reef National Park, huge mountain ranges.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: It's rugged. It is.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: It's renowned for its isolation.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: And that isolation is exactly why people choose to live there.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, you have to actively choose a place like
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Wayne County.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Right. Nobody ends up there by accident.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It requires a certain resilience. The geography dictates a
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: lifestyle that is fundamentally disconnected from the conveniences and, frankly,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: the anxieties of urban living. The crime rate, particularly for
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: violent crime, is historically almost non-existent out there. The environment
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: feels austere, but it feels incredibly secure.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Let's zoom in on the specific town where this nightmare started, Lyman, Utah.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: As I mentioned at the top, the population is 196.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Just tiny. Just wrap your head around the logistics of
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a town that small. You don't have a massive local
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: police department with a fleet of cruisers patrolling the blocks.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: No, of course not.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: You rely on a county sheriff whose jurisdiction covers thousands
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: of square miles of really rugged terrain. Right.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And in a community of 196 people, you're dealing with
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: what sociologists might call a primary group.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: A primary group.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: OK.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Meaning everyone is interconnected. The concept of a stranger is
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: almost alien.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, because everybody knows everybody.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: If an unfamiliar car drives down the main road, it
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: is noticed immediately. The social fabric is incredibly tight. Which
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: makes the introduction of sudden, chaotic violence not just a crime,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: but a catastrophic, traumatic event for the entire social organism.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It really is a violation of the deepest held assumption
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: of their reality.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Completely.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And you can see that immediate pivot from absolute tranquility
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: to sheer terror in how the local authorities responded. Once
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the scale of the violence started to become clear, the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Wayne County Sheriff put out an emergency alert to the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: entire county.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: And the wording of that alert was intense.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: The phrasing is something straight out of a horror movie.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Residents were told to keep all their exterior lights on,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: aggressively lock their doors, and do not, under any circumstances,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: leave their homes.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: It is the most primal, defensive posture imaginable.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Because when law enforcement issues a directive like that, they
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: are implicitly acknowledging two terrifying facts.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Which are?
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: First, there is a highly lethal, highly mobile threat currently
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: operating within the community. And second, law enforcement does not
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: know where the threat is, and they cannot guarantee your safety. Wow. Yeah.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: It perfectly mirrors that old school frontier mentality. It's like
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a settlement pulling up the drawbridge and manning the walls,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: That's a great analogy.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: You're out there, miles from help, the mountains are pitch black,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: And the only defense you have is to flood your
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: porch with artificial light and turn a deadbolt that you
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: probably haven't even used in a decade.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: And the structural response was equally severe. The following day,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: all local schools were completely shut down.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Which is huge for a rural county.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: It is a massive logistical decision. It shuts down the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: entire operational rhythm of the county. But it underscores the
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: absolute prioritization of physical safety.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Right. They couldn't risk it.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: They had to assume that anyone moving on the roads,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: particularly children waiting for buses in the early morning dark,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: was a potential target.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: So how did this escalate to the point where an
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: entire county had to pull up the drawbridge? We need
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: to trace the exact timeline of events from the source material.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: We do.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: So we are looking at a Wednesday evening, March 4th,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and the narrative begins in that tiny town of Lyman
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: at a residence situated near State Route 24.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: This is where the initial spark of the violence occurs.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: The victimology here gives us our first grim insight into
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: the nature of the suspect's behavior.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's awful. The victim at this first scene was
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: an elderly woman. The police noted she was in her
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: 80s and she was home alone.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Just heartbreaking.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: The authorities have stated they believe this was essentially a
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: crime of convenience, which honestly is such a sterile bureaucratic
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: phrase for something so deeply horrific.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: It is a sterile phrase, definitely. But in a criminological context,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: it distinguishes the motive, which is important for the investigation.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, how so?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: They're classifying this as instrumental violence rather than expressive violence.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Instrumental versus expressive.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: What's the difference? Expressive violence is driven by anger, hatred,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: or a desire to inflict pain just for its own sake.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Like a personal vendetta or a hate crime.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Instrumental violence, on the other hand, means the violence
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: was simply a tool used to achieve a secondary goal.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I see. In this case, the theory is that the
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: suspect desperately needed transportation, and the 80-year-old woman possessed a vehicle.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: The violence was just the instrument used to get the keys.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, I understand the distinction, but I have to push
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: back on that kind of minimizing the horror of it.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, it doesn't minimize it at all.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Because to be willing to use lethal force against an
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: 80-year-old woman who is home alone... just to get a
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: set of car keys. That speaks to a pathology that
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: is completely devoid of human empathy.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: 100%.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: It's not just a robbery gone wrong, you know. It
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: is a profound level of predatory desperation.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And that is a crucial point. While the motive
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: might have been instrumental, just getting the car, the execution
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: reveals a highly dangerous, extremely volatile individual.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Targeting an elderly individual in a rural setting is targeting
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: the ultimate soft target It is a cold calculation of vulnerability.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: And the success of that first crime, you know, actually
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: getting the vehicle, that immediately accelerates the timeline and expands
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: his geographical threat radius.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Because now he is mobile.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: So he takes the 80-year-old woman's car and leaves Lyman.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: He drives roughly 10 to 15 miles away to our
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: second crime scene, which is a trailhead located off State
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Route 12.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Now, State Route 12 is a very different environment than
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: a private residence in Lyman.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Right, it's public.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: It is a designated scenic byway. It draws outdoor enthusiasts, hikers,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: people looking to explore the natural geography. So the suspect
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: transitions from an isolated home to a public recreational area.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And at this trailhead, the suspect encounters two women. They
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: were just friends who had simply gone out for a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: hike together.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: During the initial press conference, there was a bit of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: back and forth about their exact ages. First, it was
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: reported as one in her 60s and one in her 30s,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and then later they clarified it was one in her
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: 30s and the other in her 40s.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: But regardless of the demographic details, these were two innocent
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: people doing what you do in Wayne County. They were
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: just enjoying the outdoors. Exactly.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: And this is where the narrative shifts from a targeted
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: vehicular homicide into a spree.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the suspect murders both of these women right at
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: the SR-12 trailhead.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: And the mechanics of what he does next are really
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: vital for how the investigation ultimately unfolds. He abandons the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: elderly woman's car at the trailhead, and he steals a
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: vehicle belonging to one of the hikers.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Specifically, a 2022 white Subaru Outback.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Right. So my question is, why the vehicle swap? If
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: he already had a working car from the first victim,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: why risk a double homicide at a public trailhead just
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: to get a different one?
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a tactical maneuver known as shedding heat.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Shedding heat.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Right. The suspect has to assume that at some point,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: the elderly woman is going to be discovered. And when
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: she is, a description of her specific vehicle will be
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: broadcast to law enforcement everywhere.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: So if he stays in that car, he's basically driving
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: a neon sign.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly. By swapping vehicles in a remote location, he's attempting
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: to reset his timeline. He believes he is trading a
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: car that is about to become highly sought after for
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: a car that belongs to people lying deceased on an
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: isolated trail.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: People whose vehicle won't be reported missing for hours or
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: maybe even days.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Right. He thinks he's buying distance. He thinks he has
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: a massive head start.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: But that entire calculation gets completely upended by an element
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: he couldn't have possibly factored in.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: And this is the part that changes everything.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: It really does. It's about 4.30 in the afternoon on
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that same Wednesday. The husbands of the two hikers realized
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that their wives had not returned home from their hike
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: when they were supposed to.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: That is the turning point of the entire case.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Because normally they'd wait, right?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. In missing persons protocols, especially in rural or wilderness areas,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: there was almost always a significant delay. People assumed their
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: loved ones got lost, took a longer trail, or had
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: a flat tire out of cell service.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Right, because there's spotty reception out there anyway.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Official search and rescue operations sometimes don't even initiate
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: until the next morning.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: But these husbands didn't wait.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: They didn't?
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: They didn't assume a flat tire. They actively went out
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: searching the trailheads themselves. And in an incredibly traumatic turn
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: of events, they are the ones who actually found the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: crime scene.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: It's just devastating.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: They discovered their wives deceased at the trailhead. And they
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: immediately called dispatch. It was 4.30 p.m.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I want to focus on the psychological weight of that moment.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Because it is unimaginable. To be the one seeking your spouse,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: hoping to find them just walking back to the car
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: with a twisted ankle, and instead being confronted with a
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: double homicide scene before law enforcement is even aware a
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: crime has occurred.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I can't even fathom it.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: It is a trauma that will resonate for generations in
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: that family. But strictly from an investigative standpoint, the promptness
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: of their action, their absolute refusal to wait and see,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: That is the linchpin that broke this case open.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Let's break down exactly how that accelerated the investigation. Because
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: if they hadn't found that scene, what happens?
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: If they hadn't found that scene, the suspect's plan works perfectly.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: He drives out of Utah, across state lines, in a
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: white Subaru that absolutely no one is looking for.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: But because the husbands called dispatch at 4.30 p.m., law
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: enforcement swarms the SR-12 trailhead. Right. And they don't just
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: find a tragic scene. They find the suspect's discarded puzzle piece.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: They find the 80-year-old woman's car abandoned right there in
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the parking area.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: That is the connection.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: The police run the plates on the abandoned car. It
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: traces back to the residence in Lyman. And they immediately
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: realize they are dealing with multiple connected scenes.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Right. They reverse engineer his path.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Precisely. They find the first victim in Lyman. And crucially,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: because the husbands are right there at the trailhead, law
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: enforcement knows exactly what the suspect is driving now.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: The missing 2022 white Subaru Outback.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: So in a matter of minutes, a local double homicide
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: becomes an active, multi-jurisdictional manhunt for a specific vehicle with
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: a highly dangerous mobile suspect.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: The timeline collapsed entirely on the suspect.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Completely.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: It is an incredible butterfly effect. The proactive, desperate search
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: by these concerned family members completely altered the trajectory of
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a killer's escape.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: It did.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the burning question. Who was behind
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the wheel of that Subaru? Law enforcement had to figure
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: out who just unleashed this chaos.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: And the profile that emerged was baffling, frankly. It defined
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: almost every typical geographical pattern of crime.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the suspect was identified as a 22-year-old man named
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Ivan Miller. And he was not a local. He wasn't
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: from the next county over. He was from a place
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: called Blakesburg, Iowa. For context, Blakesburg is another extremely rural
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: micro-community With a population of fewer than 300 people, but
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: it is located over a thousand miles away from Wayne County, Utah.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: This is what criminologists find so anomalous. Usually there is
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: a concept called distance decay in criminology.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Distance decay. What does that mean?
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: It means that crimes are most likely to occur relatively
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: close to the offender's home base or their usual travel routes.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, like they hunt where they're comfortable.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the frequency of crime drops off the further
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: away they get from that comfort zone. So for a
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: suspect to emerge from one deeply isolated community, travel across
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: the continental United States, and unleash catastrophic violence upon another
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: deeply isolated community is highly, highly unusual.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: And his background, at least what reporters were able to
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: dig up at the time of the press conference, was
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: basically a blank slate.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hardly a blip.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: The only known criminal history mentioned was this completely bizarre
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: charge from the previous July in Alaska. He was cited
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: by state troopers for operating a vessel without personal flotation devices.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: A minor maritime safety violation thousands of miles away.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: So weird.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: It is. It gives us a glimpse into a highly
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: transient lifestyle, moving from Iowa to Alaska, now down to Utah.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: But it offers absolutely zero predictive value for a violence-free.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Right. You don't go from no life jackets to triple homicide.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He wasn't on law enforcement radar for escalating violence.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: He was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost profile.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting and deeply terrifying. The
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: random factor.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is the scariest part.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: During the press conference, the police were explicit. They confirmed
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Miller had absolutely no prior relationship with any of the victims.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: He had no known connections to Wayne County at all.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: And they stated they do not believe the victims were
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: targeted simply for being women. It was entirely opportunistic.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: And the randomness is the hardest element for the public
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: psyche to process. We inherently seek narratives that make sense
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: of tragedy, you know?
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: We want a reason.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: We do. We look for discernible motives. A soured business deal,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: a bitter divorce, a targeted gang retaliation. Because those motives,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: however dark they are, provide a logical framework.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: They let us say, well, I don't do that, so
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I'm safe.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Precisely. They allow the public to distance themselves from the event.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: We think, well, I am not involved in those risky behaviors,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: so I am safe. Right.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: But a random crime strips away all of that psychological armor.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: It means it could have been anyone. It was literally
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: just a matter of who happened to be home when
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: he decided he needed a car or who happened to
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: be hiking the trail when he needed to swap vehicles.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: It is the absolute terror of being in the wrong
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: place at the wrong time.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: And that lack of a discernible pattern immediately fueled intense
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: speculation in the community and online. You saw this clearly
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: in the press conference when reporters started asking if they
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: were dealing with a serial killer.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, the rumors were flying.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Reporters noted that rumors were swirling on social media
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: about up to eight victims being found.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: The rumor mill was absolutely out of control. But the
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: police spokesperson actively, aggressively pushed back against that serial killer narrative.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Why is that distinction so important for law enforcement to make?
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, a killer is a killer, right?
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: It's important because the term serial killer implies a very
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: specific pathology. It implies a cooling off period between murders,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: a specific victimology, and a psychological compulsion to kill that
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: is the primary goal of the offender. Okay, I see.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Law enforcement pushed back because the evidence pointed to an
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: opportunistic spree killer. They characterized the initial murder as a
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: crime of convenience. They were framing this not as a
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: calculating predator hunting specific prey, but as a chaotic, highly
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: desperate individual whose primary goal was evasion and transportation.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: And he was just willing to use maximum violence to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: achieve it.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: It's a terrifying distinction. It wasn't an evil master plan.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: It was lethal improvisation.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: But the how of this whole event leaves a massive
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: gaping hole in the narrative. The reporters hammered on this
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: at the briefing. The biggest unanswered puzzle piece is how
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: on earth did Ivan Miller get to Lyman, Utah in
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the first place?
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: This raises such an important question, and it is the
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: critical blind spot in the timeline. If his primary motivation
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: for the first homicide was acquiring a vehicle, what happened
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: to the vehicle he used to travel the thousand miles
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: from Iowa?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Right. Did his car break down on the side of
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the highway? Did he run out of gas? Was he hitchhiking?
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: The police explicitly stated they are looking for an initial
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: abandoned vehicle. But at the time of the briefing, they
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: had no trace of one.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: He was literally a ghost who materialized on the side
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: of State Route 24, triggered a nightmare, and fled.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Which naturally transitions us from the mystery of the crime
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: to the mechanics of the capture.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Right, because they caught him fast.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: They did. Law enforcement now knows who they are hunting.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: And thanks to the husband's, They know exactly what he
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: is driving, the stolen 2022 white Subaru Outback.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: But knowing what a suspect is driving and actually finding
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: that needle in the sprawling haystack of the American West
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: are two entirely different logistical challenges.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Very different. You absolutely cannot rely on human eyes alone
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: for that.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And this brings us right back to the technology we
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: were discussing at the very beginning of the deep dive.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: The digital dragnet. Yep. How do you track one specific
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: car fleeing through the mountains at night across hundreds of
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: miles of open interstate?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Like I said, a patrol officer parked on the median
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: trying to spot a white Subaru in the dark going
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: 85 miles an hour is highly inefficient. You have to
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: rely on the surveillance infrastructure that permeates our highway systems.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: The escape route was massive. The sources say Miller fled
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: in the stolen Subaru from Utah, traveled south down through
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: northern Arizona, and then hooked eastbound into Colorado.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Right. So he was crossing state lines, jumping jurisdictions.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: This is a massive multi-state trajectory. To catch a suspect
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: moving that fast across boundaries, law enforcement utilized a combination
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: of automated license plate readers, ALPRs, and integrated vehicle telemetry.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: We really need to completely unpack how these systems actually
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: work because the mechanics of it are fascinating and, frankly,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: a little dystopian if you don't know what's happening.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. When the police say they utilized ALPRs,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: what exactly are they talking about?
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: ALPRs are essentially a vast network of high-speed infrared cameras.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: They're mounted on highway overpasses, on traffic lights at busy intersections,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: and heavily utilized on the dashboards of police cruisers themselves.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: And these cameras are not shooting video.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, they aren't?
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: No, they are taking rapid-fire still photographs of every single
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: license plate that passes through their field of view.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: So it's just a constant shutter snapping at every car
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: on the road.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Yes. And it uses a technology called Optical Character Recognition,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: or OCR, to instantly translate the image of your license
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: plate into text data. Wow. It takes that text, pairs
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: it with the precise GPS coordinates of the camera, a
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: time and date stamp, and logs it into a massive
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: centralized database. Companies like Vigilant Solutions manage databases containing billions
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: of these data points.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Wait, I need to jump in here and play devil's advocate.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Go for it.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: We just spent the first 20 minutes of this deep
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: dive condemning DoorDash for tracking our location without our consent. Right.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: How is the government constantly photographing and tracking the movement
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: of every citizen's vehicle not a massive violation of the
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Fourth Amendment? How is this legal?
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: It is a phenomenal question. And it's actually the subject
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: of ongoing constitutional debate.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I would imagine.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: But the current legal standing relies on the precedent that
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: you are operating a vehicle on a public roadway.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Because you're out in public.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Your license plate is, by law, required to be
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: publicly visible. Therefore, capturing a photograph of it in public
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: space is not considered a search under the Fourth Amendment.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: So because the road is public, the digital dragnet is
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: completely legal. Exactly.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So when the Wayne County dispatch generated the BOLO,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: the Be On The Lookout alert, for that specific white Subaru,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: they entered that license plate number into a national database system.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Like the NCIC.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Likely the NCIC or the NLES system, yeah, which bridges local, state,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: and federal agencies.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And the moment they punched that plate into the computer,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the physical highways basically transformed into a digital hallway lined
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: with tripwires.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The system creates a hot list. Every time Miller
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: drove past an active ALPR camera in Utah, then in Arizona,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: and finally in Colorado, the camera scanned the plate, recognized
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: a match on the hot list, and generated an invisible,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: near instantaneous alert.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: That's incredible.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: It pinged law enforcement with his precise location, his speed,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: and his direction to travel.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But the sources also mentioned integrated vehicle tracking services. That
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: sounds like more than just cameras on an overpass. What
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: does that mean for a 2022 Subaru?
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: This is where we get into vehicle telemetry.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Telemetry.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: OK. Modern cars, especially anything manufactured in the last five
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: to 10 years, are essentially smartphones on wheels.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: A 2022 Subaru is equipped with a telematics control unit,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: likely connected to their Starlink system. This system has its
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: own cellular modem and a dedicated GPS receiver.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Wait, so the car itself knows where it is at
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: all times, independent of the driver's cell phone?
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. It is constantly communicating with cell towers and satellites
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: to provide services like remote unlocking, crash notifications, and stolen
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: vehicle recovery. Wow. Okay. So law enforcement can contact the
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: vehicle manufacturer or the service provider, like Subaru Starlink, and
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: request that they activate real-time tracking on the vehicle.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: But surely they need a warrant for that, right? They
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: are actively pinging a private vehicle.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Usually, yes, they absolutely need a warrant. But in a
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: situation involving a fleeing triple homicide suspect, they utilize what
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: is called the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, because it's an emergency.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Right, because there is an immediate active threat to public safety.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the service provider will comply immediately and hand over the
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: live telemetry data.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: No waiting for a judge.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So between the ALPR cameras catching him at intersections
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: and the car itself broadcasting its GPS coordinates, Miller was
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: driving a massive digital beacon.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: It completely alters the geography of a manhunt. In the
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: 1980s or 90s, a thousand mile head start or even
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a seven hour head start provided a massive advantage. You
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: could literally disappear into the vastness of the country.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: But technology has collapsed that distance.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: It really has. The invisible net just stretches seamlessly across
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: state lines. And that net finally tightened around Miller in
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: a place called Pagosa Springs, Colorado.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Which is a long way from Wayne County.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Pagosa Springs is a resort town in southern Colorado,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: which is At least a seven-hour straight drive from the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: crime scenes in Utah.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: And the fact that he made it seven hours away,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: deep into another state, underscores exactly why the husband's quick
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: action was so vital. Right.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: If they hadn't checked the trailhead.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Had they waited until morning to report their wives missing,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Miller could have been halfway to Kansas, potentially abandoning the
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Subaru for a third vehicle before the first ALPR alert
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: was ever even triggered.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: But the system worked. Law enforcement tracked the Subaru directly
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: to Pagosa Springs. The capture itself was described in the
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: sources as a highly coordinated effort.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: They moved fast.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: They located the abandoned Subaru, conducted a brief search of
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the surrounding area, and apprehended him. And incredibly, despite the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: extreme lethal violence of the preceding hours, the source notes
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: he was taken into custody without any further incident.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: He just surrendered peacefully. Yeah.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: He was booked into a Colorado jail on an initial
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: charge of carrying a concealed weapon, specifically noted as a
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: knife or a gun, while he awaited the formal extradition
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: process to face the homicide charges back in Utah.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: If we look at the logistics of that capture, the
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: coordination required is staggering.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's massive.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: During the press conference, the police spokesperson read off a
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: list of agencies they were thanking, and it was a
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: huge list.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, the FBI, the Bureau
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: of Land Management, Pagosa Springs Police, and multiple sheriff's offices
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: from Archuleta, Sevier, and Keene County.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Getting that many disparate local, state, and federal agencies to
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: communicate seamlessly in real time is a monumental task.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine the radio chatter. Right.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: It requires interoperable radio systems, the willingness to share active
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: data feeds, and rapid deployment of tactical resources. The digital
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: dragnet is incredibly powerful, but it is entirely useless without
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: the human coordination and the physical officers ready to actually
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: execute the takedown.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: So, the suspect is in custody. The immediate threat of
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: an active killer roaming the highways is neutralized. But that
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: brings us to the final and honestly the most difficult
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: phase of our deep dive today.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Managing the aftermath. Exactly.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Because the killer is caught, but what happens to the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: town that is left behind?
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: The physical and psychological cleanup after an event of this
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: magnitude in a micro-community is a generational task. It doesn't
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: just go away when the suspect is in handcuffs.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: You could hear the sheer exhaustion in the voice of
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the police spokesperson during the press conference. They were managing
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: multiple active, horrific crime scenes simultaneously. You have the residents
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: in Lyman and the trailhead miles away on SR-12.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: And they were battling the environment itself. The spokesperson noted
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: that while the preliminary investigation began immediately, they were essentially
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: forced to wait for days daylight to fully process the
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: scenes with their technicians.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Why is that? If you have portable lights, why wait?
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Don't you want to collect evidence as fast as possible
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: before wind or weather ruins it?
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Because processing an outdoor, mountainous crime scene in the dark
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: is incredibly risky. You were dealing with Locard's exchange principle.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Locard's exchange principle?
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: What is that? It's the foundational concept of forensic science.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: It means that every contact leaves a trace.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: You were looking for microscopic fibers, trace DNA, exact blood
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: spatter patterns, and subtle tire tracks in the dirt. No
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: matter how many floodlights you bring in, artificial lighting creates
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: harsh shadows that can obscure critical evidence.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Or I guess you risk technicians accidentally stepping on things.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They could destroy evidence they simply couldn't see. Preserving
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: the integrity of the scene often requires waiting for the
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: ambient light of the sun.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: There was also a very practical, immediate impact on the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: town's infrastructure. The spokesperson had to warn residents about heavy
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: police activity, specifically near the residence on SR-24, which runs
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: right through the tiny town.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Right, in a town of 196 people, that's a lot
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: of traffic.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: He warned about potential traffic backups and collisions just from
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the sheer volume of official vehicles, command centers, forensic fans,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: patrol cars, converging on a road that usually sees almost
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: no traffic.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: It is a visual manifestation of the trauma. The entire
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: physical layout of the town is disrupted, and the residents
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: are forced to literally navigate around the epicenter of the
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: violence that shattered their peace.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: And the human toll was clearly the heaviest burden at
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the briefing. The police emphasized that their primary goal, alongside
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: the criminal investigation, was to help the community get back
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: to normal. But they openly acknowledged the deep psychological scars
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: left on that town.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when a reporter asked what the future looked like,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: the response was, really somber.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: It was. They recognized that normal is a completely relative turnout.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: An event like this irrevocably changes the narrative of a place.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: The innocence of the geography is permanently lost. Schools were closed,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: city offices were shut down, and the authorities acknowledged it
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: would take a significant amount of time for the residents
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: to ever recover their baseline sense of security.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: The drawbridge may be lowered again, but they will never
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: forget why they had to pull it up.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And part of that delicate recovery process
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: involves managing the information surrounding the victims.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Right. At the time of the press conference, the authorities
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: were actively withholding the specific causes of death and the
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: exact identities of the victims.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Which is standard protocol, but it serves two very vital purposes.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Right. They stated they were in the arduous process of
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: making next-of-kin notifications. They needed to ensure that family members
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: both locally and outside the area were notified privately and respectfully.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: before any names were broadcast to the media.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: It's the last small measure of dignity they can afford
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: the families amidst a highly public chaotic tragedy.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: But the second purpose is purely tactical, isn't it?
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is. They withhold the specific cause of death
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: as what is known as holdback evidence.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Holdback evidence.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: These are facts known only to the perpetrator, the medical examiner,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: and the lead detectives. If you release how the victims
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: were killed, you lose the ability to verify a true
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: confession or weed out false confessions later in the interrogation process.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense. You have to keep something secret
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: to test a suspect.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? As we look back
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: at the incredible sequence of events we've unpacked today, it
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: is honestly overwhelming.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: We are looking at a completely random collision of trajectories.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: A 22-year-old man from a tiny town in Iowa traveling
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: over a thousand miles for reasons we still don't fully
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: understand— intersects with three innocent women in the remote, rugged
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: mountains of Utah.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: And it culminates in a multi-agency arrest seven hours away
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: in Colorado.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: And all of these disparate locations, these isolated communities, and
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: these tragic lives were ultimately connected by a trail of
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: digital breadcrumbs.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: The resolution of this chaotic violence was achieved through the cold,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: calculated precision of modern technology.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: It asks us to deeply consider the fragility of safety.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: We started this deep dive talking about geography, about how
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: we assume that moving to the mountains, getting off the grid,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: provides an impenetrable sanctuary from the dangers of the world.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: But this case proves that sanctuary can be shattered in
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: an instant by a completely random variable.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: It underscores the vital importance of situational awareness, no matter
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: how isolated or inherently safe your environment feels. The mountains
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: do not protect you from human pathology.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: They don't. And if I may? I'd like to leave
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: you with a final paradox to mull over as you
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: go about your day.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Please do.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: We began today's deep dive by looking at the unsettling
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: reality of corporate applications tracking our every move. We felt
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: repulsed by the idea of our locations being mapped and
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: commodified by data brokers. It feels invasive.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: It feels terrible.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yet this entire tragedy was resolved and a violent
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: fleeing killer was apprehended in a matter of hours. Because
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: law enforcement utilized the exact same underlying concepts of automated
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: locational tracking.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: They used license plate scanners and vehicle telemetry to cast
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: an invisible net across multiple states. So the question we
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: must grapple with is this. In our modern quest to
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: disappear into the wilderness, to get off the grid and
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: escape the constant watchful eye of society, Are we actually
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: relying on the very surveillance web we are trying to
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: escape to keep us safe? Wow.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: It is a question without a simple answer, but it
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: is one we are all going to have to face
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: as technology continues to map the physical world. Thank you
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: so much for joining us on this incredibly heavy but
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: deeply important deep dive. Stay curious, stay aware of your surroundings,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and most importantly, stay safe out there.