Latest / Crime Night / The Cemetery Fire Mystery: The Death of Shad Gande Kadia

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The Cemetery Fire Mystery: The Death of Shad Gande Kadia · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine a really cold Wednesday night in New England. It's
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: March 20, 2013 in Cranston, Rhode Island.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Right. So it's freezing. Exactly.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: The wind is just biting. It's blowing through these old
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: weathered stone markers at Pocasset Cemetery. And there's this local
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: guy named Kevin. He's just standing in his driveway across
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the street, you know, zipping up his jacket, waiting for
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: some friends.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Just a totally normal night.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Completely mundane. But then he glances over at the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: graveyard and he spots flames. They're flickering low in the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: dry brush just inside the cemetery gates. And to him,
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  Speaker 1: it looks like a standard brush fire, like maybe someone
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: just tossed a cigarette, right? So he and his friend
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: pull out their phones and they call 911.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: And for the first responders, I mean, that call sounds
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  Speaker 2: like the easiest task of the shift. The firefighters roll
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  Speaker 2: up to this old cemetery, which is bordered by residential buildings,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: by the way. And they're fully expecting to just pull
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: out a hose, spray down some dead grass and, you know,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: head back to the station for coffee.
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  Speaker 1: But the moment those firefighters step off the truck and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: actually approach the tree line, the entire atmosphere just shatters.
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  Speaker 1: Because the fire isn't just brush.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Lying right there, completely engulfed in the flames, is a
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: human body. And instantly, that routine call just vanishes. They
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: lock down the scene, the crime tape goes up, and
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: homicide detectives are basically pulled right out of bed.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Which makes sense, because from an investigative standpoint, The introduction
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: of fire into a crime scene changes the entire, like,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: the gravitational pull of an investigation. I mean, fire acts
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: as this ultimate forensic eraser. It quite literally consumes the
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: physical truth.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It really does. And welcome to this deep dive, by
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the way. You sent us a massive stack of notes,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: police reports, and these really detailed investigative articles about this
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: specific 2013 cold case. And you asked us to basically
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: figure out why no one is behind bars.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the files you provided are incredibly dense. They really are.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: So our mission today is to put on our investigator
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: hats and unpack this just brutal unsolved murder. We're looking
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  Speaker 1: at a web of constantly changing stories, a highly suspicious
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: quarter million dollar secret, and these maddening legal walls that
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: have kept this case freezing cold for over a decade.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: And honestly, the notes you shared are a masterclass in
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the absolute limits of modern justice. Like, we rely so
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: heavily on physical transfer evidence these days. DNA, fibers, blood spatter.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: But when a killer uses an element like fire to
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: intentionally wipe the slate clean, the justice system just starts
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: to break down.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're left with almost nothing.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Investigators are left with no choice but to rely
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: on human behavior, digital breadcrumbs, and just purely circumstantial evidence.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Well, let's start with the crime scene itself, because reading
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: through those primary source documents you shared with us, the
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: details are just horrific. By the time Cranston detectives actually arrive,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the fire is completely out. But the victim is lying
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: mostly on his side, kind of leaning toward his back.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And the heat was so extreme that his sneakers had
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: literally melted into the earth.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: That is so grim. It is.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: His clothes were completely warped and just fused to his skin.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: The detectives on the scene actually described it as unprecedented
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  Speaker 1: in their careers. It was just this remarkably cruel way
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to dispose of a person.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: And connecting this back to the mechanics of crime scene analysis,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: what really stands out most heavily in the reports is
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: what investigators couldn't find.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Right. Because there was no ID, no wallet, no phone, nothing. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And beyond the personal effects, there's just a glaring absence
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: of forensic biology. Like there is no pool of blood.
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  Speaker 2: There's no massive disruption in the dirt or the surrounding
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: brush that would, you know, indicate some kind of life
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: or death struggle.
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  Speaker 1: Because a fight leaves a mark.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Think about the physical reality of a violent murder.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: A young man fighting for his life, he flails, he kicks,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: he grabs at his attacker. That leaves a chaotic footprint
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: on the environment. But the absolute pristine nature of the
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  Speaker 2: dirt underneath that fire tells investigators one indisputable fact. The
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: cemetery is... is purely a disposal site.
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  Speaker 1: The actual murder happened somewhere else.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. The killer or, you know, more likely killers transported
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  Speaker 2: the body there specifically to obscure the victim's identity and
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: burn away any of that microscopic evidence that might have
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  Speaker 2: transferred during the attack.
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  Speaker 1: But the fire didn't erase everything because investigators found this
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  Speaker 1: one massive clue that was somehow untouched by the flames
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: on the victim's chest. It was a large tattoo that read, R.I.P.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: David De La Cruz.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And reading through your notes, this is where police assumptions
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: immediately threatened to just derail the entire case.
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  Speaker 2: Because local law enforcement, they recognize that name instantly. David
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  Speaker 2: De La Cruz was this young man with alleged ties
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: to a local gang called C-Block. And he was shot
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  Speaker 2: and killed in 2009.
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  Speaker 1: Right. But there's a wild twist to that. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Adding this whole layer of bizarre coincidence, David De La
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  Speaker 2: Cruz was actually buried in Pocasset Cemetery. Literally the exact
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: same graveyard where this body was currently burning.
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  Speaker 1: Which is insane. So the immediate police theory becomes the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: most obvious one, right? And they're like, this is a
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: gang hit. They start running David's known associates through their
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: gang databases, fully anticipating some kind of turf war. But
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: then the medical examiner's office beats them to the punch.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Thank goodness they did.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. By the next morning, they actually managed to pull
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: usable fingerprints from the victim. And he is identified as
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: a 22-year-old named Shad Gandhi Qadiyah. Most people in his
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: neighborhood just called him Gandhi Shad.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: And identifying Shad completely upends that whole gang theory. Because
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: when you look closely at the background files you provided
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  Speaker 2: on Shad's life, the picture of this hardened street criminal
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  Speaker 2: just totally evaporates. It really does.
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  Speaker 1: And Shad's story, I mean, it just grabs you. He
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  Speaker 1: was a survivor literally from his very first breath. When
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: he was just a baby, his family fled the first
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Liberian civil war. His father was this prominent political ally
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of the former Liberian president. And his death was allegedly
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: a poisoning tied to all that violent political chaos of
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the era.
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  Speaker 2: And that kind of severe early trauma, I mean, that
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  Speaker 2: shaped his family's entire trajectory. His mother raised the kids
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  Speaker 2: mostly on her own as a refugee. They bounced from
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Rhode Island to Virginia, eventually trying to find some stability
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  Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania.
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  Speaker 1: But Shad was a teenager by then. You know, his roots,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: his friends, his sense of home, they were all tied
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: to Providence. So he was constantly drifting back, staying with
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: relatives and just crashing on.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Friends' couches. And he wanted to be a rapper, right? Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: he did.
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  Speaker 1: And looking at the interviews with his friends and the sources,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: they all described him as super straight-laced, almost a little nerdy.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: The gang association thing, I honestly view it a lot
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  Speaker 1: like a rapper's stage persona. You know, you put on
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  Speaker 1: this tough front, you hang around guys with reputations, basically
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: because you think it gives your music some street authenticity. Right.
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  Speaker 2: It's an image thing.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Because the reality of Shad's day-to-day life was that
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: he was literally taking GED classes at a local nonviolence institute.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: He was just a young dad desperately trying to figure
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: out a career path so he could provide for his
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: infant daughter, Milan.
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  Speaker 2: And Milan is really the anchor to everything that follows here.
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  Speaker 2: But before we get into the friction in his personal life,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: we have to look at the autopsy results. Because the
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: medical examiner revealed a really terrifying mechanism of death.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the fire didn't kill Shad. No.
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  Speaker 2: It didn't. He was strangled. God. The pathology report suggests
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  Speaker 2: it was ligature strangulation, likely with some type of cord,
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  Speaker 2: maybe even his own headphones. And it was only after
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  Speaker 2: his heart stopped beating that his body was loaded into
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  Speaker 2: a vehicle, driven to the cemetery, and set on fire.
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  Speaker 1: That is just such a calculated, cold-blooded sequence of events.
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  Speaker 2: It really is. It takes time and effort to do that.
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  Speaker 1: So to understand the why behind such a brutal act,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: We have to look at the people Shad was trying
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  Speaker 1: so desperately to stay connected to. Because Shad had split
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: from Milan's mother, this young woman named Maciel Ortiz, almost
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: a year prior. And when police first approached Maciel, they
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: haven't even told her that Shad is dead yet. They're
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: just casually asking about his whereabouts.
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  Speaker 2: And her reaction, according to the detectives, is shockingly indifferent.
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  Speaker 1: Completely cold. And the underlying family dynamics provided in the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: case files are just incredibly tense. Maciel's family, who are Dominican,
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  Speaker 1: they severely disapproved of Shad.
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  Speaker 2: The sources note some really heavy racial tension there, right?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they deeply opposed her dating a black man. And
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  Speaker 1: you combine that prejudice with their strict religious views against
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: having a child out of wedlock, plus the fact that
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  Speaker 1: Shad was this 22-year-old guy without a permanent address or
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: a steady income, and you just have this family unit
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  Speaker 1: that views him with deep systemic hostility.
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  Speaker 2: So he is essentially banished from their property. Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: So enter Ruben Ortiz. This is Maciel's 30-year-old uncle. And
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  Speaker 1: Ruben kind of steps into this dynamic as the so-called
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: mediator for Shad's visits with his baby daughter. But looking
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: at his rap sheet, Ruben is absolutely not a neutral peacekeeper.
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  Speaker 2: Not even close. Ruben carries a really dark and violent past.
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  Speaker 2: He actually has a felony assault conviction from 2007, which
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  Speaker 2: is alarming enough on its face. But the court records
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  Speaker 2: show that conviction was actually reduced from an original charge
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  Speaker 2: of attempted first degree sexual assault. Wow.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So the psychological profile that emerges here is of a
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  Speaker 2: man who just demands dominance and openly brags about his
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  Speaker 2: criminal history to intimidate people.
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  Speaker 1: Which brings us to Monday, March 18th. This is the
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  Speaker 1: boiling point. And it's just two days before Shad's body
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: is found burning in the brush. So try to put
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: yourself in Shad's shoes for this moment. He brings his
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: friends and family, including his 13-year-old cousin, to finally meet
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: baby Milan. It's supposed to be this huge milestone family moment.
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  Speaker 2: But when they arrive, Maciel isn't even home. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Shad discovers she's working at her family's restaurant nearby, so
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: he walks over to confront her about missing the visit.
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  Speaker 2: And Maciel immediately calls her mother. Her mother calls Ruben.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: And Ruben arrives at the restaurant completely primed for a
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: physical altercation.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: He gets right up in Shad's personal space. He berates
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: him super loudly in front of the entire restaurant staff
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and Shad's family. And then Ruben literally raises his hand
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: and physically mushes Shad's hat right off his head.
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  Speaker 2: Just utter disrespect.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Completely. Now, think about your natural instinct in that situation.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Shad is this big, young guy. The biological response is
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: to push back, to defend yourself, right?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, fight or flight.
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  Speaker 1: But Shad does nothing. He just stands there and absorbs
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  Speaker 1: the public humiliation.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Because he was walking on eggshells. The psychology of his
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: restraint there is just heartbreaking. Shed knew that if he
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: threw a punch or even just shoved Ruben away, Maciel's
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: family would use that physical altercation as the ultimate excuse
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: to cut off his access to his daughter forever. He
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: literally swallowed his pride for his child.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: And Ruben doesn't de-escalate at all, though. He suddenly switches
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: tactics and tells Shed, fine, I'll take you to see
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the baby. So they split into two cars and Ruben
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: insists on driving Shad's friends and his younger cousin.
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  Speaker 2: And the testimony from those passengers in Ruben's car is
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: just chilling. Ruben spends the entire drive delivering this aggressive,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: agitated monologue. He assumes Shad's cousins are just visiting from
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Philadelphia and that Shad has no local protection.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, he's testing the waters.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He begins listing off his criminal record, boasting about
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: violent acts he claims to have gotten away with. And
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: then he locks onto this ominous, repetitive threat. He keeps
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: telling Shad's family, your cousin fucked up for the last time.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: He fucked up for the last time.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: He just lets that threat hang in the small space
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: of the car. And the crazy thing is, when investigators
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: later go to that restaurant to pull the security camera footage,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: you know, hoping to see Ruben physically assault Shad by
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: mushing his hat, they hit a total brick wall. The
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: restaurant staff claims that the video files from that specific
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: day and only that day mysteriously vanish due to a, quote,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: system issue.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Right. A highly convenient technological failure at a restaurant owned
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: by Reuben's brother-in-law.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Super convenient.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This introduces a clear pattern of obstruction. It shows
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: this immediate effort to control the narrative and destroy physical
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: evidence before the murder even takes place.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: So let's track the timeline of Shad's final day, which
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: is Wednesday, March 20th. At 1226 p.m., Surveillance video catches
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Shad leaving his GED classes at the Nonviolence Institute. And
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: a close friend named Tony physically watches Shad leave the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: building accompanied by Ruben. The camera captures Shad opening the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: door and getting into a waiting white car.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And the digital footprint stops cold right there. Immediately after
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Shad gets into that white car, his cell phone goes
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: entirely dark. No incoming calls register. No texts go out.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: No background data pings a tower. It never turns back on.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Just dead. Yeah. And in digital forensics, a phone abruptly
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: dying in the middle of the day, immediately after entering
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: a vehicle with a hostile party, is a massive red
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: flag for foul play.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: So 10 hours later, we're back at the graveyard. Kevin,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the witness who spots the brush fire, happens to be
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a huge car enthusiast. And before he dialed 911 at
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: 1049 p.m., his attention was drawn to a four-door white
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: car idling near the cemetery entrance. Because he knows automotive
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: body styles, he doesn't just tell police he saw a
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: generic white car. He specifies it was a newer model,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: white Toyota Corolla, likely a 2011 or 2012.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: That is such a crucial detail. It's massive. Because witness
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: corroboration elevates this from just a random guess to a
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: very strong lead. A second, independent driver passing the cemetery
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: actually confirms seeing the exact same type of car idling
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: in the exact same spot.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Wait, there were cemetery cameras too, right?
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Well, the cemetery's own surveillance cameras turned out to be fake.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: They were just dummy boxes meant to deter vandals. But
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: investigators pulled street camera footage from the surrounding traffic lights,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: and those cameras catch a white car pulling into the
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: cemetery at 10.40 p.m., staying out of view for about
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: five minutes, and then speeding away.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: So, naturally, the detectives bring Rubin in for questioning, and
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the evolution of his story is just wild.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's classic. Investigators often refer to this interrogation tactic
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: as catching a suspect in two lies and a truth.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: During his initial interview on Friday, Rubin concedes the one
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: fact he knows police already have. He admits he saw
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Shad at the Institute on Wednesday.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: But then he drops the first lie. Rubin claims he
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: was driving his fiance's white Nissan Maxima because his own
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: SUV had been wrecked in an accident. Right.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And then comes the second lie. Rubin insists Shad never
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: actually got inside the vehicle. He claims they simply stood
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: on the sidewalk, arranged a future visit for the baby,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: and then Ruben just drove away alone.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: So detectives take all this in. Then Sunday rolls around.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Police pull up to Ruben's house, and sitting in the
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: driveway is the white Nissan Maxima. But parked directly next
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: to it is a rented 2012 white Toyota Corolla.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Boom.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: It is the exact make, model, year, and color that
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the car enthusiast spotted at the graveyard. And when police
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: pulled a rental agreement, they discovered the truth about the accident, right?
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Like Ruben's SUV was in a crash, but that happened
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: weeks prior. He didn't rent the Corolla until the morning
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of March 20th, the exact day Shad was murdered. Yeah.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: So Ruben realizes he's caught in the lie and immediately
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: lawyers up. Two whole months go by. When he finally
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: gives a new statement, he completely pivots. He says, OK, yes,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: I was driving the rented Corolla. And yes, Shad got in.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: But his new story is that they just drove around
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: the block and he safely dropped Shad off at a
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: local public library.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: So helpful of him. Right.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: And after that, Rubin claims he drove up to New Bedford,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Massachusetts to visit his brother and spent the entire night there.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Which is him obviously trying to establish an alibi that
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: places him across state lines during the time of the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: cemetery fire. But while Rubin is busy constructing this whole
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: alibi with his lawyer, Shad's family is running their own
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: parallel investigation.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: And Shad's sister, Julie... He is an absolute force of
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: nature in this story.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: She really is. Two days after learning her brother was murdered,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: she marches directly over to confront Masil's family, and Ruben
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: just happens to show up while she's there. Julie glances
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: into Ruben's car, and she spots her brother's highly distinctive
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: pink television sitting right in the backseat.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: And Ruben attempts to minimize it, of course. He claims
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Shad had suddenly decided to pack up his belongings and
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: move back to Pennsylvania. and that Ruben was supposed to
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: give him a ride to the bus station, but didn't.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Which is such a lie.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Julie knows this is a complete fabrication. Shad would
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: never voluntarily abandon his daughter.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So she refuses to back down. She demands her brother's
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: belongings right then and there. She actually takes the items
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: from Ruben's car. And while she's sorting through his stuff
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: back home, she finds a business card for a life
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: insurance company hidden inside.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: This is where things get really dark. Yeah.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: When I was reading through the files you sent us,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I literally had to read this next part three times.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Because Shad was 22 years old, he didn't have a
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: steady job, he didn't have a stable address. Yet at
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the time of his death, he had a brand new,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: fully active, quarter million dollar life insurance policy.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: $ 250, 000.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: And the paperwork lists only one sole beneficiary, which is
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: his ex-girlfriend, Maciel. The documentation fraudulently categorized her as his
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: intended spouse, even though their relationship had ended months before
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the policy was even drafted.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: And how does a 22-year-old with basically no money even
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: get a policy like that? This is where the mechanics
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: of life insurance fraud become incredibly sinister. Because when investigators
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: subpoena the insurance records, they find Rubin's influence everywhere.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: He was all over it.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Rubin orchestrated the initial introduction between Shad and the insurance agent.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: He manipulated the environment by forcing the meeting to take
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: place at the MMA gym where he trained. basically establishing
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: a physical dominance over the whole transaction. And since Shad
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: couldn't afford it, Rubin was the one physically handing over
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: the cash to pay the monthly premiums.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: He essentially purchased a $ 250, 000 bounty on Shad's life.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: That is terrifying. But the detail that makes my blood
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: run completely cold is the timeline of the payout claim.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Four days after Shad's murder, before the police had formally
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: released his name to the press, Before the general public
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: even knew Gandhi Shad was dead, the insurance agent contacted
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the company to report his death.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Which means someone intimately involved in the murder tipped off
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: that agent. And Masial fiercely denied knowing anything about the
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: policy's existence. Yet after years of grinding litigation in federal court,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: she did eventually receive the $ 250, 000 payout. It's just sickening.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: So we have a massive financial motive. We have the
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: exact rental car seen at the crime scene. But we
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: still need to dismantle Rubin's alibi because he swore he
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: dropped Shad off at a library and then went to Massachusetts.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: And digital forensics completely obliterate his narrative here. First, detectives
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: pull the security footage from the library for that entire afternoon.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Shad never appears on camera. He never walked through those doors. Next,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: they secure a warrant for Rubin's cell phone geodata.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And I want to make sure we're clear on this
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: for the listener. How precise is that geodata from back
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: in 2013?
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: It's actually highly precise. Because when your phone is on,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: it doesn't just, you know, float in a digital cloud.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: It constantly handshakes with physical cell towers to maintain a signal.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: By analyzing which towers the phone pings, and the signal
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: strength from multiple towers. Investigators can triangulate a phone's location
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: down to a very specific radius.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: So they could track him.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Rubin's phone records map his movements perfectly. He never
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: went to Massachusetts that night. His phone pinged continuously around
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: the Cranston and Providence area.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And the final nail in the coffin of his alibi
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: is a text message, right?
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. At 10.32 p.m., which is precisely 17 minutes
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: before Kevin called 911, about the graveyard fire. Rubin's phone
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: sent a text message to a friend asking to be
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: let inside a house. And that house was located less
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: than one mile from Pacasset Cemetery.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm looking at the mountain of evidence you sent us,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and I have to push back here. We have a $ 250, 000
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: fraudulent financial motive. We have a timeline that perfectly tracks
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: We have cell phone tower data putting him less than
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: a mile from a burning body. We have a provable
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: string of lies to the police. We have the exact
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: make and model of the suspect vehicle sitting right in
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: his driveway. How in the world is the attorney general
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: looking at this and saying, no, we aren't going to prosecute?
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, people are convicted on circumstantial evidence all the time.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: I know. And you're touching on the ultimate frustration of
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: the investigative process. Yes, people are convicted on circumstantial evidence.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: but it requires a narrative that a defense attorney cannot
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: easily punch holes into. The attorney general's office requires a
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: threshold of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Think of a circumstantial case like a complex jigsaw puzzle
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: where the border pieces have been intentionally destroyed. You can
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: look at the middle pieces and guess what the picture is,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: but a jury cannot legally convict a man on a
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: highly educated guess.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Because the fire destroyed the border pieces.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: The fire executed its purpose flawlessly. It eradicated the physical
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: transfer evidence. There is no DNA belonging to Ruben found
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: on Shad's body. There are no eyewitnesses who saw Ruben
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: wrap a cord around Shad's neck.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: And they never found the location where the actual murder
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: took place.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: And that is the most critical missing puzzle piece. Shad
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: was a large, healthy 22-year-old. The physical reality of strangling
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: someone of that size inside a compact, rented Corolla... would
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: be catastrophic to the car's interior. You would expect to
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: find ripped upholstery, cracked plastic paneling, blood from scratching, or
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: defensive DNA underneath fingernails. But the forensics team stripped that
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: rental car down to the frame and found it completely clean.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Which means they ambushed him in a completely different location,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and it almost certainly required multiple attackers to overpower him
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: without leaving a trace.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Without that primary crime scene, without the murder weapon,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: and without a confession... The prosecution feels they just cannot
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: win in front of a jury. They are waiting for
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: a smoking gun that the killer deliberately incinerated.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And the most agonizing part of this is that the
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: police know who did it. The family knows. And reading
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the detective interviews in your notes, the street knows exactly
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: what happened.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the community's silence is the final massive hurdle here.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Investigators have stated on the record that multiple people in
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: the neighborhood know the exact particulars of this crime. But
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: the sheer psychological terror of the act, murdering a young
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: father and turning his body into a brush fire in
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: a cemetery, it's paralyzed the community. One detective actually noted
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: that potential witnesses are terrified of ending up as a
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: brush fire themselves.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: And the ripple effects of that paralyzing fear have just
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: decimated Shad's family. His sister Julie fought through the courts
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: for years, desperately trying to keep that insurance money out
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: of Maciel's hands and put it into a trust for
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: little Milan. But the legal battle eventually just drained their
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: resources and wore them down. And then in 2019, the
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: trauma compounded when Shad's brother died of a sudden heart attack.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: The very next year, in 2020, his grieving mother passed away.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: She left this world never seeing anyone held accountable for
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the brutal murder of her son.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: It's tragic. And then there is Milan. She's a teenager now.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Shad's side of the family has managed to secure some
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: occasional visits with her, but it comes with a devastating caveat.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this part is awful.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: There's an unspoken rule during these visits. They cannot mention
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Shad's name. They are forced to stay entirely silent about
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: her father's existence and just to maintain a fragile relationship
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: with her because they're terrified that if they overstep, they'll
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: be cut off completely.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Have the police tried using newer tech to break the case,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: like anything recent?
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: They have. Investigators recently attempted to execute a Google geofence
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: warrant on the cemetery. Oh, how does that work? A
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: geofence warrant essentially draws a digital boundary around a physical
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: location on a map. Law enforcement then asked tech companies
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: for anonymized data of any mobile device that crossed into
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: that boundary during a specific time frame. Unfortunately, because the
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: crime occurred back in 2013, the historical data just wasn't
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: robust enough. It yielded absolutely nothing. So their core strategy
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: now relies entirely on the passage of time.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Hoping someone talks.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the danger from 2013 has faded. The people who
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: were terrified back then may not need to be afraid anymore.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: The police are just waiting for one person. to finally
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: find their courage and break the silence.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: It is an incredibly heavy burden for that family to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: carry for over a decade. And we really want to
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: thank you for sending us these sources and asking us
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to do this deep dive. It is so vital that
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: we keep asking questions and demanding answers for victims who
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: have been silenced.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: As we wrap up, I want to leave you with
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: a much darker concept to mull over. We live in
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: a society deeply obsessed with digital footprints, right? We naturally
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: assume that cell phone pings, GPS triangulation, and just ubiquitous
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: surveillance cameras will always guarantee a path to justice. But
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Shad's case forces us to confront a terrifying limitation of
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: our modern world. If a killer's methods are brutal enough
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: to instill paralyzing fear into an entire community, does it
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: even matter how loud the digital evidence is screaming?
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: That is a haunting question. And it brings us right
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: back to that freezing March night, standing on the edge
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of the graveyard, watching those flames flicker in the dry brush,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: knowing now that the fire didn't just burn away the DNA.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: It burned away the truth, leaving a family and justice
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: itself entirely in the dark.