Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / The Blackout Murder of Livye Lewis

Transcript

The Blackout Murder of Livye Lewis · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: So I want you to picture the piney woods of
0:03
East Texas for a second.
0:04
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, beautiful area, right.
0:07
Speaker 1: It is, And specifically picture the Toledo Ben Reservoir. It's
0:11
this massive, just beautiful body of water that stretches out
0:15
like a dark mirror under the sky.
0:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really striking.
0:18
Speaker 1: And right there is Hemp Hill, Texas. We are talking
0:22
about a tiny town like roughly a thousand.
0:25
Speaker 2: People that is incredibly small.
0:27
Speaker 1: Exactly. It's the kind of place where you know, you
0:31
don't just know your neighbors, you know their trucks, you
0:33
know their parents, you know the exact rhythm of their
0:35
daily lives.
0:36
Speaker 2: Right completely. Everyone is in everyone else's business, for better
0:39
or worse.
0:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And on October thirtieth, twenty twenty, a nineteen
0:43
year old high school valedictorian named Libby Lewis was basically
0:47
the absolute shining light of this community. I mean, she
0:51
was everything you would want a young person to be.
0:53
But by three point three four the following morning, her
0:56
boyfriend sent a text message to his ex wife and
1:00
contained just a single word. Yeah, the word was dead.
1:04
Speaker 2: It's just chilling it is.
1:05
Speaker 1: So today we are taking a massive stack of sources.
1:08
We've got investigative reports, court records, deeply moving family interviews,
1:13
and some amazing footage from forty.
1:15
Speaker 2: Eight hours, which is all super detailed.
1:17
Speaker 1: Super detailed, and we're using all of it for this
1:19
deep dive to figure out exactly how an entire town's
1:23
collective hope was just dismantled in a matter of hours.
1:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how they dealt with the aftermath.
1:28
Speaker 1: Too, right, because they had to grapple with a killer
1:30
who literally vanished into their own backyard. So okay, let's
1:34
unpack this because to grasp the sheer devastation of this crime,
1:38
we first have to look at the massive vacuum it
1:41
left behind. We really have to look at who Livy
1:44
Lewis was.
1:45
Speaker 2: You really do? I mean, you have to look at
1:47
her through the lens of what she represented to Hemphill. Right,
1:50
when you have a population of one thousand people, a
1:53
young person who excels the way Livy did isn't just
1:57
like a successful student. She actually becomes a piece of
2:00
civic pride, oh for sure.
2:01
Speaker 1: Like she was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in October two
2:05
thousand and one, but she was raised right there in
2:07
Hemphell and all the sources basically paint a picture of
2:11
someone who was operating on a completely different frequency than
2:14
most teenagers.
2:15
Speaker 2: She really was.
2:16
Speaker 1: I mean, she was a straighty student. She graduated at
2:20
the absolute top of her class as valedictorian, which is huge, huge,
2:24
But she wasn't just book smart, you know, she had
2:27
this relentless drive toward a very specific future, Like she
2:31
had already secured a scholarship to a local college.
2:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and her ultimate goal was to become a physician's assistant.
2:37
Speaker 1: Right exactly. And she wasn't even waiting around to start
2:40
that life at nineteen, she was already working as a
2:43
certified nursing assistant a CNA at a local nursing home.
2:46
Speaker 2: Which I have to say is an incredibly demanding job,
2:50
both physically and emotional.
2:51
Speaker 1: I can only imagine.
2:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, to understand, Livy, you really have to understand what
2:55
a CNA actually does on a daily basis.
2:58
Speaker 1: What does that look like.
2:59
Speaker 2: Well, you are the absolute front line of care for vulnerable,
3:05
often elderly populations. You are bathing people, you are feeding them,
3:10
you are holding their hands when they're frightened or confused.
3:13
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a lot for a teenager.
3:15
Speaker 2: Exactly, Yeah, it requires a well of empathy that most
3:19
people simply haven't developed. At nineteen years old. You are
3:22
essentially wiring your brain day in and day out to
3:26
prioritize the needs, the pain, and the comfort of other
3:29
people way above your own.
3:31
Speaker 1: That makes so much sense. And her mother, Darcy Bass,
3:34
she shared the cell phone video of Livy that is
3:36
just it's heartbreaking to watch now.
3:39
Speaker 2: Oh I saw that.
3:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, Livy's looking into the camera and she says, quote,
3:42
just imagining my future and the goals that I will
3:45
accomplish makes me excited.
3:47
Speaker 2: You can just hear the ambition in her.
3:50
Speaker 1: Voice, pure unadulterated ambition. And her friends saw the exact
3:53
same thing, Like Taylor Barnett, one of her closest friends, said,
3:56
if you've seen Livy, you see me. We just clicked right.
4:00
Ailey Williams, who had known her since kindergarten, told reporters
4:03
that Livy just desperately wanted stability. She actually said Livy
4:06
was ready to be grown up.
4:08
Speaker 2: See that phrase, ready to be grown up? That is
4:10
the critical psychological key here, really, how so, because when
4:14
you have a young person who is highly ambitious, deeply
4:18
empathetic and just rushing toward adulthood, you create a very
4:23
specific kind of vulnerability.
4:25
Speaker 1: Vulnerability, but she seems so strong.
4:27
Speaker 2: She is strong. But think about it. They are taking
4:29
on immense adult responsibilities, like end of life care in
4:34
a nursing home. But biologically there were still an adolescent.
4:38
Speaker 1: Oh right, her brain is still developing exactly.
4:42
Speaker 2: They just haven't had the time to develop the hardened
4:44
emotional boundaries that usually protect older adults from predatory behavior.
4:49
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes me think of an analogy. It's like
4:51
a lighthouse.
4:52
Speaker 2: A lighthouse.
4:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like when you're the valedictorian, you're this beacon in
4:56
a town of one thousand people. You're shining this incredibly
4:59
bright light of pent and stability.
5:01
Speaker 2: Right right.
5:02
Speaker 1: But if your entire identity is built around guiding people
5:05
and fixing things, that inherent goodness kind of makes you
5:09
a magnet for someone who's completely lost in the dark,
5:12
doesn't it.
5:12
Speaker 2: That is a perfect way to put it. Yeah, because
5:14
when you adopt that lighthouse mentality, chaos doesn't look like
5:17
a threat to you.
5:18
Speaker 1: What does it look like?
5:19
Speaker 2: It looks like a wound you are obligated to heal.
5:22
Oh wow, Yeah, a highly empathetic caretaker looks at a chaotic,
5:26
destructive person and just assumes that their behavior is merely
5:30
a symptom of.
5:31
Speaker 1: Pain, right, like I can fix them exactly.
5:34
Speaker 2: The vulnerability lies in projection. Empathetic people project their own
5:39
capacity for healing onto others. They assume if I just
5:43
pour enough love, enough patience, and enough stability into this person,
5:47
they will transform.
5:48
Speaker 1: But they don't always transform.
5:49
Speaker 2: No, they don't, because caretakers fail to recognize that some
5:52
people have zero interest in being healed. They just want
5:55
to consume the light.
5:56
Speaker 1: Man. That is heavy. But it perfectly explains how that
5:59
intense drive Livy had, that rush to be a grown
6:02
up and provides stability, actually created a very specific blind
6:06
spot for her.
6:06
Speaker 2: It really did.
6:08
Speaker 1: And the person who stepped perfectly into that blind spot
6:10
was a twenty three year old married man who knew
6:12
exactly how to weaponize his own instability.
6:15
Speaker 2: And that brings us to Matthew hoy Edgar.
6:17
Speaker 1: Yes, Matthew hoy Edgar, And this is where things get
6:20
so dark.
6:21
Speaker 2: The timeline of their intersection is really where the red
6:23
flags begin to multiply. Oh absolutely, It starts with a
6:27
profound asymmetry in power and life experience.
6:30
Speaker 1: Let's look at the investigative timeline from the sources. When
6:33
they meet, Libby is still a high school senior. She's eighteen.
6:37
Matthew Edgar is twenty three.
6:38
Speaker 2: Which is a huge gap at that age.
6:40
Speaker 1: Right, A five year age gap might not seem massive
6:43
later in life, like if you're thirty and thirty five, whatever,
6:46
but between eighteen and twenty three, it is a total chasm.
6:50
Speaker 2: Completely different life stages.
6:52
Speaker 1: And furthermore, he was married. His wife was Montana Backle,
6:55
and they actually had two young sons together.
6:57
Speaker 2: So he brings a lot of baggage right from the start.
6:59
Speaker 1: Tons ofage. And the court records show that Matthew and
7:02
Livy's relationship begin in absolute secrecy around November of twenty.
7:07
Speaker 2: Nineteen, and that secrecy is key.
7:09
Speaker 1: It is because the very foundation of this relationship was
7:12
built on isolation. We have phone records showing Edgar sending
7:15
texts like this one. He says, quote, you do realize
7:19
you cannot say a word to anybody that we are
7:21
even texting.
7:22
Speaker 2: Old Okay, we really need to isolate that specific text message.
7:26
Speaker 1: It's so manipulative.
7:27
Speaker 2: It is a textbook artifact of coercive control.
7:30
Speaker 1: Can you break down what coercive control means in this context.
7:34
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Coercive control is a strategy that some abusers use
7:38
to dominate their victims. It's not always physical initially, it's
7:42
really about stripping away a person's independence, right.
7:45
Speaker 1: By making her keep it a secret.
7:47
Speaker 2: Exactly, By commanding her to keep the relationship a secret,
7:50
he is systematically cutting off her support network before the
7:54
relationship even truly begins.
7:56
Speaker 1: And he throws that loll on the end, like, what
7:58
is up with that?
7:59
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a classic camouflage technique.
8:01
Speaker 1: Camouflage.
8:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. Adding lowl to a restrictive command softens the directive.
8:07
It frames the isolation as this thrilling, romantic secret between
8:11
just the two of them, like it's us against the
8:13
world law.
8:14
Speaker 1: Oh, I see, it makes it sound fun, as that
8:16
is scary.
8:16
Speaker 2: Exactly, But the core mechanism is absolute control. He is
8:20
establishing a perimeter. He knows that if Livy tells her mother,
8:24
Darcy or her friends, they're going to immediately point out
8:27
the danger.
8:28
Speaker 1: Right, they'd be like, why are you talking to a
8:29
twenty three year old married guy?
8:31
Speaker 2: Precisely, so he just removes their voices from the equation entirely.
8:35
Speaker 1: And the source of show. Livy actually tried to resist
8:38
this initially, She told him she did not want to
8:40
be a home wrecker.
8:41
Speaker 2: She had a good moral compass.
8:43
Speaker 1: She really did. She had this internal alarm going off.
8:46
But Edgar was relentless. He utilized that classic narrative of
8:50
the miserable husband, right playing the victim, always playing the victim.
8:54
He complained to her constantly about his wife Montana, talking
8:57
about how unhappy he was, how misunderstand.
9:00
Speaker 2: And that hook's right into her caretaker.
9:02
Speaker 1: Instincts exactly, And eventually he did divorce Montana and moved out.
9:07
So now you have an eighteen year old girl stepping
9:09
into her relationship with a man carrying the heavy, complicated
9:13
baggage of a recent divorce and two children.
9:16
Speaker 2: He used his damaged status to hook her. He essentially
9:20
presented himself as a project that needed her specific brand
9:23
of stability.
9:24
Speaker 1: But when she was hooked, things changed.
9:26
Speaker 2: Yes, once the relationship was established and out in the open,
9:29
the mask began to slip.
9:31
Speaker 1: And it slipped fast. Her friends started noticing a drastic,
9:35
terrifying shift in her life.
9:36
Speaker 2: What did they see?
9:37
Speaker 1: Well, Taylor Barnett reported that Edgar was drinking heavily. She
9:41
described him yelling, and she explicitly stated to investigators, quote,
9:46
he was pretty much abusive in more ways.
9:48
Speaker 2: Than one, which is terrifying.
9:50
Speaker 1: It is. And then Livy's cousin, Sidney Ebarb, received a
9:53
horrifying photo directly from Livy. It was a selfie showing
9:57
Livy with a busted, bleeding nose after an all time
10:00
hercation with Edgar.
10:01
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
10:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Livy was sending texts to her family saying
10:05
her body physically hurt because he had put his hands
10:07
on her.
10:07
Speaker 2: We are literally watching the escalation phase of the abuse
10:11
cycle play out in the records here. It happens so
10:14
fast it does. And because the relationship started in secrecy
10:17
and isolation, Livy now finds herself trapped right.
10:21
Speaker 1: Because she alienated people to be with him.
10:23
Speaker 2: Exactly, and abusers rely on the shame the victim feels
10:27
about that. They convince the victim that the violence is
10:30
a direct result of the victim's.
10:31
Speaker 1: Failure, like it's her fault he hit her.
10:34
Speaker 2: Yes, The narrative becomes, if you were just a better girlfriend,
10:38
if you were more understanding of my stress, I wouldn't
10:40
have to get physical.
10:41
Speaker 1: I want to stop right here, actually, because we see
10:43
this reaction all the time when covering these cases, and
10:46
it drives me absolutely crazy. What's that People hear the
10:49
word valedictorian, they hear college scholarship, and their immediate pushback is,
10:54
while she was brilliant, why didn't she just use that
10:57
big brain to walk away?
10:58
Speaker 2: Oh? I hate that's right.
11:00
Speaker 1: It's this pervasive myth that a high IQ is somehow
11:04
a shield against domestic violence.
11:07
Speaker 2: It is a profoundly dangerous myth, and all it does
11:10
is place the blame squarely on the victim's shoulders. Exactly,
11:13
Academic intelligence, like the ability to pass a biology exam
11:17
or write a stellar essay, operates in an entirely different
11:21
hemisphere of the brain than emotional attachment and trauma bonding.
11:24
Speaker 1: But I guess people wonder, like, if you're smart enough
11:27
to analyze complex medical data as a CNA, shouldn't you
11:31
be able to analyze a toxic relationship and deduce that
11:33
you need to leave?
11:34
Speaker 2: It seems logical, But actually highly intelligent people often fall
11:38
deeper into the trap. Really why because they attempt to
11:41
over intellectualize the abuse. They treat the abuser's behavior like
11:46
a complex equation that just needs to be solved.
11:49
Speaker 1: Oh, like a puzzle.
11:50
Speaker 2: Yes, an intelligent victim will think there has to be
11:53
a logical reason he is acting this way. If I
11:56
can just understand the rude cause of his anger, I
11:59
can adju us my behavior and fixed the equation.
12:02
Speaker 1: Wow, that makes so much sense.
12:04
Speaker 2: But domestic abuse is not a logic problem. It is
12:07
a power dynamic. The manipulator is systematically warping the victim's
12:12
reality testing reality testing, Yeah, basically your ability to judge
12:15
what is real and what is acceptable. Over time, the
12:19
abuser convinces the victim that their own perception of events
12:22
is flawed. Intelligence cannot protect you when your baseline reality
12:27
is being dismantled by the person you love and trust
12:29
the most.
12:30
Speaker 1: That completely reframes the idea of why people stay. It's
12:33
not a lack of intelligence, it's a hijacked reality exactly.
12:36
And while Edgar is hijacking Livy's reality, treating her terribly
12:40
and putting his hands on her, here's where it gets
12:42
really interesting, and by interesting, I mean incredibly twisted. What
12:46
happens Edgar is cheating on Livy? Oh wow, Yeah, but
12:50
he isn't cheating with some random person in town. He
12:53
is cheating on his new younger girlfriend with his ex
12:56
wife Montana.
12:57
Speaker 2: You have got to be kidding me.
12:59
Speaker 1: I wish I was hmm. On October fourth, twenty twenty, which,
13:02
by the way, was Livy's nineteenth birthday, Edgar sends a
13:06
text message to his ex wife. He writes, quote, I
13:09
didn't cheat on Livy with multiple women, just you Lol.
13:13
Speaker 2: There is that lull again used to minimize profoundly destructive behavior.
13:17
Speaker 1: Yeah's sick.
13:18
Speaker 2: And this specific dynamic is a textbook execution of narcissistic triangulation.
13:23
Speaker 1: Okay, breakdown triangulation for me. What does that actually look
13:25
like in practice?
13:27
Speaker 2: So, triangulation is a manipulation tactic where a person refuses
13:30
to communicate directly and honestly with one person. Instead, they
13:33
bring a third person into the dynamic to create rivalry, jealousy,
13:37
and chaos.
13:38
Speaker 1: Okay, can you give me like an everyday example.
13:40
Speaker 2: Sure, In a low stakes environment like an office, it
13:43
might look like a manager telling employee A that employee
13:46
B is gunning for their job, and then telling employee
13:49
B that employee A is.
13:50
Speaker 1: Incompetent, and then they just watch them fight exactly.
13:53
Speaker 2: The manager sits back and watches them fight, securing their
13:57
own position of power as the only arbiter of truth.
14:00
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, so apply that to Edgar, Livy, and Montana.
14:04
Speaker 2: Well, in this lethal high stake scenario, Edgar is the manager.
14:08
He wants both of these women completely focused on him.
14:11
Speaker 1: He he pits them against each other.
14:13
Speaker 2: Right by cheating on Livy with Montana and then bragging
14:17
about it to Montana. He is actively trying to create
14:20
a war. He wants them vying for his attention, fighting over.
14:23
Speaker 1: Him because it feeds his ego.
14:25
Speaker 2: It completely feeds his ego to know he can control
14:28
the emotional state of two different women simultaneously. He becomes
14:32
the puppet master because if they are fighting each other,
14:34
they aren't looking at him and realizing he is the
14:37
actual source of the destruction.
14:38
Speaker 1: The sheer psychological toll that must have taken on Livy
14:41
is just staggered.
14:42
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine.
14:43
Speaker 1: I mean, she is nineteen, she is trying to work
14:45
at a nursing home, navigate physical abuse, and incredibly, she
14:49
is actually trying to be amicable with Montana through all
14:52
of this. Really, yes, according to the family interviews and
14:55
the sources, Livy wanted to be friendly with the ex
14:58
wife for the sake of Edgar's two young sons.
15:01
Speaker 2: She was still trying to be the adult in the
15:02
room she really.
15:03
Speaker 1: Was, and her mother, Darcy, noted that Livy had actually
15:08
tried to break things off with Edgar weeks before her death.
15:11
She was actively trying to extract herself from this chaotic
15:14
love triangle.
15:15
Speaker 2: But extracting yourself from a coercive controller is the most
15:18
dangerous phase of the entire relationship.
15:21
Speaker 1: Because they lose control.
15:22
Speaker 2: Yes, the abuser senses the loss of control and their
15:26
behavior becomes exponentially more volatile.
15:29
Speaker 1: Which brings us to Halloween.
15:30
Speaker 2: Weekend, the boiling point exactly.
15:33
Speaker 1: You have intense jealousy, you have a history of physical abuse,
15:37
you have a twisted triangulation dynamic, and you have a
15:39
nineteen year old girl trying to pull away. All of
15:43
this has been simmering for a year.
15:44
Speaker 2: And then it all blows up.
15:45
Speaker 1: It does on October thirtieth, twenty twenty. It hits a
15:48
boiling point at a pre Halloween party at a house
15:51
belonging to a man named Bobby Ozan, and.
15:53
Speaker 2: The environment of that party is really the catalyst for
15:56
everything that follows.
15:57
Speaker 1: Let's look at the guest list. It's a small town gathering, right,
16:00
maybe twenty people. Livvy is there, Matthew Edgar is there,
16:04
and Montana Bockle, the ex wife, is there with the kids.
16:08
Which is a recipe for disaster, you would think, so,
16:12
if you understand Edgar's triangulation strategy, you would expect this
16:15
party to be a war zone between the two women.
16:18
But according to the homeowner Bobby Ozan and multiple other witnesses,
16:22
the exact opposite happens. What happened, Livy and Montana are
16:25
getting along. No way, Yes, they are socializing, they are
16:29
partying together.
16:30
Speaker 2: Oh wow, And for Matthew Edgar, that is a catastrophic
16:33
psychological event.
16:34
Speaker 1: Witness statements say Edgar spent the night basically isolating himself.
16:38
He was just sitting there glaring at the two women interacting,
16:41
and he was becoming visibly intensely.
16:44
Speaker 2: Infuriated because his plan failed.
16:46
Speaker 1: Right, and he was also self medicating his rage. He
16:49
later admitted to investigators that he drank a full bottle
16:52
of jim Bean whiskey on top of several beers that night.
16:56
Speaker 2: Okay, we need to dissect exactly why seeing them get
16:59
alongung triggered such an extreme reaction, it's a concept known
17:03
as a narcissistic injury.
17:05
Speaker 1: Narcissistic injury.
17:06
Speaker 2: Yes, we established that Edgar's power relied entirely on keeping
17:12
Liviyan Montana at odds right.
17:14
Speaker 1: Right, the puppet master thing.
17:15
Speaker 2: Exactly so when they bonded, when they were able to
17:19
have a good time together without his interference, his entire
17:22
architecture of control just collapsed in an instant.
17:26
Speaker 1: She was irrelevant.
17:27
Speaker 2: Yes, he was no longer the center of their universe.
17:30
To a highly controlling, narcissistic individual, seeing your victims unite
17:35
isn't just an annoyance. It is a profound threat to
17:38
your ego. It is an injury to his self image
17:42
as the omnipotent puppet master.
17:44
Speaker 1: It's basically the difference between a controlled burn and a wildfire.
17:47
Speaker 2: That's a great analogy, right.
17:49
Speaker 1: Edgar loved to controlled burn. He likes setting the little
17:52
fires of jealousy and watching the women react while he
17:54
safely held the hose. But seeing them unite meant the
17:57
wind completely changed direction.
17:59
Speaker 2: He lost of the narrative exactly.
18:01
Speaker 1: And that control burne instantly leaped the fire lines and
18:04
became a raging wildfire.
18:05
Speaker 2: And you throw a massive accelert on that wildfire in
18:08
the form of a bottle of gym.
18:09
Speaker 1: Being Oh yeah, the alcohol.
18:11
Speaker 2: But we have to be incredibly precise about how we
18:14
talk about alcohol in these cases, because alcohol does not
18:18
implant the desire to commit violence into a peaceful person's brain.
18:21
Speaker 1: Right, It's not a magic potion that turns you evil.
18:24
Speaker 2: Exactly what heavy alcohol consumption does is biologically suppressed the
18:29
prefrontal cortex, and.
18:31
Speaker 1: That's the part that controls impulses.
18:33
Speaker 2: Yes, it is the part of your brain responsible for
18:35
regulating impulses, assessing future consequences, and keeping rage in check.
18:40
The possessiveness, the violent tendencies, the absolute fury over his
18:45
loss of control, all of that was already deeply ingrained
18:49
in Matthew Edgar.
18:50
Speaker 1: The alcohol just let it out.
18:51
Speaker 2: The alcohol simply dismantled the brakes.
18:53
Speaker 1: And without the brakes we see the escalation really begin.
18:57
It is two point thirty in the morning, the party
18:59
has most cleared out. Livy and Montana are still at
19:02
Ozan's house. Okay, Edgar, who had actually left the property
19:05
at some point, comes back. He reportedly overhears someone mentioned
19:09
that Livy might just stay overnight at Ozan's house instead
19:12
of going home with him, And that's it. That's it.
19:14
The wildfire breaches the final line of defense. Edgar goes
19:18
outside and violently attacks Montana Bockle's car. He is kicking
19:22
the doors, he is punching the windows. He confronts his
19:25
ex wife in an absolute blind rage.
19:28
Speaker 2: See the transition from simmering anger to the physical destruction
19:32
of property is a massive blaring siren in domestic abuse.
19:36
Speaker 1: Why is that stuff so significant?
19:38
Speaker 2: Because destroying property in the presence of a partner or
19:42
ex partner is a direct intimidation tactic. It is a
19:46
physical demonstration of raw power. It's meant to send a
19:49
very clear message, which is, look what I can do
19:51
to metal in glass. Imagine what I can do to you.
19:53
Speaker 1: God. That's terrifying. And it gets so out of hand
19:56
that Bobby Ozen, the homeowner, has to physically step in. Yeah,
19:58
he intervenes and mana just to create enough space for
20:01
Montana and Livy to get into their respective vehicles and
20:04
leave safely.
20:05
Speaker 2: Thank goodness he was there right.
20:06
Speaker 1: Montana is absolutely terrified. She drives straight to Edgar's grandparents'
20:12
house to seek refuge, which is actually located on the
20:14
same large piece of family land as Edgar's own home.
20:18
Once she's there, her heart is racing. She's trying to
20:20
figure out the fallout of this explosion, so she starts
20:23
texting Edgar. She wants to know what is going on,
20:26
and this leads to a timestamp that changes Hemphill forever.
20:29
At three point thirty four am Montana sends a text
20:32
to Edgar asking about Livy. She wants to know where
20:35
Livy is and what does he say? Matthew Edgar replies
20:38
one word.
20:40
Speaker 2: Did just think about the psychological impact of receiving that text?
20:44
Speaker 1: That can't even fathom it?
20:46
Speaker 2: In four letters, the entire reality of the situation fractures.
20:50
It shifts from a chaotic alcohol fuel domestic dispute, which
20:53
you know, unfortunately happens quite frequently, into an irreversible, horrifying
20:58
absolute That.
20:59
Speaker 1: Text at three three four is the demarcation line, because
21:02
a few hours later, the sun comes up on Halloween morning,
21:05
October thirty first, and the theoretical horror of that text
21:08
message becomes physical evidence.
21:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, the transition from the chaos of the party to
21:12
the cold, clinical reality of the morning discovery is where
21:15
forensic science really begins to speak for Livy.
21:18
Speaker 1: Let's walk through exactly what investigators found. It's five five,
21:21
five am. A passerby is driving down a rural, quiet
21:25
road in hemph Hell. They spot Livy's car pulled over
21:28
on the shoulder Oha. Something looks wrong, so they call
21:31
nine one one. First responders arrive on the scene and
21:34
it is a complete nightmare. Nineteen year old Livy Lewis
21:38
is unresponsive in the driver's seat of her own car.
21:41
She has suffered a single fatal rifle wound to the neck.
21:46
Speaker 2: It's just so sad, but.
21:47
Speaker 1: The immediate surroundings of the car present investigators with a
21:50
deeply bizarre tableau.
21:51
Speaker 2: Because the staging of the scene outside the vehicle is
21:54
almost as telling as the evidence inside it.
21:56
Speaker 1: Right so, right outside Livy's car, lying in the dirt
21:58
in a fetal position, is Matthew Edgar.
22:00
Speaker 2: He's just lying there, just lying there.
22:02
Speaker 1: He is covered in blood. He is positioned in this
22:04
strange gap between Livy's car and a black pickup truck,
22:07
which investigators quickly determined belongs to Edgar's cousin.
22:10
Speaker 2: Okay, so a lot of evidence right.
22:11
Speaker 1: There, overwhelming amounts lying in the grass nearby is the
22:16
murder weapon, a rifle that is explicitly linked to Matthew Edgar.
22:20
Forensics later recovers a bullet fragment that matches that specific rifle,
22:25
and critically, they find Livy's blood soaked into Matthew Edgar's pants.
22:30
Speaker 2: It's pretty damning, But amidst all that overt bloody evidence,
22:35
there is a much quieter, more subtle forensic detail regarding
22:39
Livy's body positioning that tells a devastating story.
22:42
Speaker 1: Yes, the initial reports take specific note of how she
22:46
was sitting when they found her dead in the driver's seat.
22:48
Her legs were crossed comfortably.
22:50
Speaker 2: Now to a civilian that might just seem like a
22:52
tragic minor.
22:53
Speaker 1: Detail, feel like she was just sitting right, But.
22:56
Speaker 2: To a forensic investigator or crime scene reconstructionist, body language
23:00
in death is paramount. It tells us about the victim's
23:03
state of mind in the exact milliseconds before the lethal event.
23:07
Speaker 1: Because if she was terrified, she wouldn't be sitting like
23:09
that right.
23:09
Speaker 2: Exactly when a human being recognizes an immediate mortal threat,
23:14
the autonomic nervous system triggers the fight or flight.
23:16
Speaker 1: Response, so what does that look like?
23:18
Speaker 2: Physically, Muscles clench, adrenaline floods the system, and limbs instinctively
23:23
positioned themselves for leverage. So feet planted flat to stomp
23:27
on the gas pedal arms raised to fend off a blow.
23:30
The torso twisted to try and escape.
23:32
Speaker 1: Right, you get ready to move exactly so.
23:35
Speaker 2: The fact that Livy's legs were crossed comfortably tells investigators
23:38
that she was not in a state of terror. She
23:41
didn't pull her car over in a frantic panic to
23:44
escape someone pursuing her.
23:45
Speaker 1: She pulled over voluntarily.
23:47
Speaker 2: It highly suggests she pulled over voluntarily, perhaps expected to
23:51
just have a conversation, or completely unaware that the man
23:54
approaching her car was carrying a rifle. Oh man, she
23:57
did not perceive the mortal danger until it was far
24:00
too late to uncross her legs and react. It points
24:03
to a sudden, unexpected execution rather than a prolonged, terrifying
24:07
physical struggle inside the cabin of the vehicle.
24:10
Speaker 1: It just completely shatters your heart to thinks she felt
24:12
safe enough in that specific moment to just sit there
24:14
like that.
24:15
Speaker 2: It really does so.
24:16
Speaker 1: Investigator JP McDonagh is one of the first on the scene,
24:19
and he ends up interviewing Edgar at the hospital. Shortly after.
24:22
Based on the overwhelming scene, McDonough arrests Edgar for homicide
24:26
right there.
24:27
Speaker 2: And how does Edgar react?
24:29
Speaker 1: His demeanor is chilling. He shows almost zero emotion. He
24:33
doesn't ask how she is, he doesn't break down in tears. Instead,
24:36
he immediately deploys his primary defense, Matthew Edgar claims he
24:41
is the victim of an alcohol blackout.
24:43
Speaker 2: Ah the blackout defense.
24:44
Speaker 1: Yes, he tells investigators, quote, look, I remember being at
24:48
the party, I remember leaving and going home to sleep
24:50
on my front porch, and the very next thing I
24:52
remember is waking up in the back of an ambulance.
24:55
He claims complete and total amnesia regarding the murder, and.
24:58
Speaker 2: With that statement, he introduces one of the most complex,
25:02
debated and often deeply misunderstood legal strategies in the criminal
25:05
justice system.
25:06
Speaker 1: When you hear about a blackout defense, your first instinct
25:09
is probably to just roll your eyes like it is
25:11
just incredibly convenient. His defense attorney, Rob Hughes pushed this
25:16
narrative incredibly hard in court.
25:18
Speaker 2: I'm sure he did, but.
25:19
Speaker 1: I have to ask you from a psychological and investigative standpoint,
25:23
How is it that the human brain supposedly forgets the
25:26
exact ten minute window where a murder occurs, but can
25:30
perfectly recall the mundane details of walking home and choosing
25:34
to sleep on a porch right before it. That's a
25:36
great question, like, how do we differentiate between a genuine
25:41
alcohol induced memory lapse and a guide just lying to
25:45
save his own life.
25:46
Speaker 2: Well, it requires a deep dive into the actual biology
25:49
of memory. We have to clearly define what an alcohol
25:52
and induced blackout actually is because people often confuse it
25:55
with just passing out.
25:56
Speaker 1: What's the difference.
25:57
Speaker 2: When you pass out, you lose consciousness, The brain shut
26:00
down the body entirely. A blackout is an entirely different mechanism.
26:03
It is a physiological disruption localized specifically in the hippocampus.
26:08
Speaker 1: The hippocampus is the memory center.
26:09
Speaker 2: Yes, think of the hippocampus as a filing clerk in
26:12
your brain. Its job is to take the short term
26:14
experiences you are having right now and file them away
26:18
into long term storage so you can retrieve them tomorrow.
26:20
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm with you.
26:21
Speaker 2: When a person consumes a massive amount of alcohol rapidly,
26:26
like a whole bottle of jim bean. The alcohol essentially
26:29
paralyzes that filing clerk. The brain just stops hitting the
26:33
record button.
26:34
Speaker 1: But wait, if the brain stops recording, how are they
26:37
still functioning like walking.
26:39
Speaker 2: Around Because the rest of the brain is still awake.
26:42
They are totally conscious. They can walk, they can talk,
26:44
they can drive a car, they can hold a conversation. Seriously, yes,
26:48
they are experiencing the present moment, but because the filing
26:51
clerk is paralyzed, none of those experiences are being saved
26:54
for tomorrow. That is a genuine blackout.
26:57
Speaker 1: Okay, So if the blackout is a real biologue phenomenon,
27:01
why doesn't it work as a get out of jail
27:03
free card for murder? I mean, if you really doesn't remember.
27:06
Speaker 2: Because the legal standard for criminal guilt relies on intent
27:10
at the exact time the crime was committed, in the moment. Yes,
27:14
even if a person genuinely does not remember an event
27:16
the next day, it does not mean they lack the
27:18
physical coordination, the agency, or the intent to commit the
27:22
act in the moment.
27:22
Speaker 1: Give me an example.
27:24
Speaker 2: Let's use a low stakes example. If you get blackout
27:27
drunk and use your phone to order a large pizza.
27:30
You wake up the next morning with zero memory.
27:32
Speaker 1: Of doing it right. You're just surprised by the pizza
27:34
boxes exactly.
27:36
Speaker 2: But in the moment you ordered it, you successfully navigated
27:39
an app, you chose your toppings, and you paid for it.
27:42
You fully intended to order a pizza.
27:44
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
27:46
Speaker 2: In Edgar's case, he physically retrieved a rifle, aimed it,
27:50
pulled the trigger, and then possessed the coggative coherence to
27:54
type the word dead into his phone and send it
27:57
to the correct contact. Those are highly coordinated, intentional actions, so.
28:02
Speaker 1: The law doesn't care if you forgot it later.
28:04
Speaker 2: Exactly. The law generally dictates that voluntary intoxication, meaning choosing
28:09
to drink the gym beam in the first place, does
28:11
not negate your criminal intent in the moment, regardless of
28:13
what your hippocamp has failed to record for the next day.
28:16
Speaker 1: That is fascinating, and what makes his specific defense even
28:19
weaker is that while his lawyers are in court arguing
28:22
this blackout theory, Edgar and his family are operating a
28:25
completely different pr campaign behind the scenes. Oh really, yeah,
28:30
we have sources showing his friend Sean Dunn out in
28:33
the community actively suggesting Edgar was framed, and worse, investigator's
28:38
pull recorded jail house phone calls between Edgar and his mother,
28:41
Cindy Hogan.
28:42
Speaker 2: Jailhouse calls are always revealing.
28:44
Speaker 1: Always, and on these calls, they aren't talking about a blackout.
28:48
They are heavily implying that Montana, the ex wife, was
28:52
somehow involved in Livy's death. They are pointing fingers and shifting.
28:55
Speaker 2: Blame, which completely vaporizes the credibility of the blackout. Defense
29:00
is a fatal inconsistency. Ye, you cannot stand before a
29:03
judge and claim I have absolutely zero memory of the timeline,
29:06
My mind is a blank slate and simultaneously claim, but
29:10
I know for an absolute fact that my ex wife
29:13
was involved.
29:13
Speaker 1: You can't have it both ways.
29:14
Speaker 2: You really can't. Investigators and prosecutors look for exactly this
29:18
kind of discrepancy. Fabricated amnesia almost always presents as highly selective,
29:22
selective how the suspect conveniently forgets every single detail that
29:27
makes them look guilty, the gunshot, that text messages the blood,
29:30
but miraculously retains crystal clear recall of anything that makes
29:34
them look innocent, or points the finger elsewhere, right.
29:37
Speaker 1: Like remembering falling asleep on the porch exactly.
29:40
Speaker 2: Genuine biological amnesia does not possess that kind of self
29:43
serving narrative neatness. It's just a blank spot.
29:47
Speaker 1: So look at what the prosecution's holding here. They have
29:50
overwhelming physical evidence, the gun, the blood, the location. They
29:54
have the three point three four am text message spelling
29:57
out the crime. They have a clear motive rooted in
29:59
his rage over the party, and they have a flimsy,
30:02
totally contradictory defense strategy.
30:05
Speaker 2: Looks like an open and shut case, right if you.
30:07
Speaker 1: Are sitting in the gallery, you would think this trial
30:09
is going to be a straightforward, open and shut path
30:12
to justice for Livy's family. But despite all of this,
30:15
the legal nightmare in hemp Hill was actually just getting started.
30:19
Speaker 2: And this is where it gets crazy.
30:20
Speaker 1: Absolutely no one was prepared for the surreal twist that
30:23
occurred on day three of the murder trial.
30:26
Speaker 2: It really takes the profound tragedy of Livy's death and
30:30
just layers an almost unbelievable spectacle of systemic evasion on
30:35
top of it.
30:35
Speaker 1: Okay, so we are jumping forward in the timeline to
30:38
January fourth, twenty twenty two. The murder trial of Matthew
30:41
Hoy Edgar officially begins, but Edgar is not sitting in
30:45
a jail cell during these proceedings. He had previously been
30:48
granted bond and released back into the community, outfitted with
30:51
a GPS ankle.
30:52
Speaker 2: Monitor, which is somewhat standard but risky, very risky.
30:57
Speaker 1: For two days, he sits in the court room. He
30:59
listens as the prosecution methodically lays out their devastating case.
31:03
They show the blood evidence, they read the text messages,
31:06
they outline his extreme jealousy. The walls are rapidly, rapidly
31:10
closing in.
31:10
Speaker 2: He knows he's going down.
31:11
Speaker 1: He does, and then the court convenes for day three
31:14
and Matthew Edgar's chair is empty.
31:17
Speaker 2: He makes a calculated, desperate assessment of his odds, and
31:19
he just opts for flight.
31:21
Speaker 1: His mother, Cindy Hogan, contacts authorities to report him missing.
31:24
Law enforcement quickly discovers that Edgar has completely disabled his
31:28
GPS ankle monitor, left it behind and vanished into the wind.
31:31
Speaker 2: We should pause and address the mechanics of that, because
31:34
people often wonder how someone just disables a court ordered
31:37
tracking device.
31:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, aren't they supposed to be tamper proof ankle.
31:40
Speaker 2: Monitors are robust, but they are not magical. They typically
31:45
use a combination of GPS tracking and cellular networks to
31:49
ping a location back to a monitoring center. Okay, the
31:52
band itself often contains fiber optic cables. If the band
31:56
is stretched too far or cut or tampered with, immediately
32:00
breaks the fibro octic circuit, which sends a tamper alerte
32:03
to law enforcement.
32:04
Speaker 1: So they know instantly they do.
32:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, Edgar didn't hack the mainframe. You know, he'd likely
32:09
just physically destroyed or cut the band, excepting that it
32:12
would trigger an alarm, but banking on the fact that
32:14
it would buy him enough a head start to disappear
32:17
before deputies arrived at his last known ping.
32:19
Speaker 1: And he was right. He was completely gone. So the
32:22
judge in Hemphill is faced with a massive dilemma. You
32:25
have a jury impaneled, you have witnesses who have testified,
32:28
and the defendant has pulled a disappearing act. It's a
32:31
huge mess, and the judge makes a fascinating legal ruling here.
32:35
He declares that the trial will continue in absentia, meaning
32:39
without Matthew Edgar physically present. In the room, the jury
32:42
listens to the remainder of the evidence, staring at an
32:45
empty chair. They deliberate for a mirror ninety minutes and
32:49
they find the ghost of Matthew Edgar guilty of murder.
32:53
Speaker 2: Trying a defendant in absentia is a highly significant and
32:56
relatively rare legal mechanism.
32:58
Speaker 1: Really, why is it rare?
33:00
Speaker 2: Well, if you look at the US Constitution, the sixth
33:03
Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to be present at
33:06
their own trial and to confront their accusers. It is
33:10
a foundational pillar of a fair justice system.
33:13
Speaker 1: But they just did it anyway, because.
33:15
Speaker 2: The courts have long established that you cannot allow a
33:17
defendant to weaponize that right to hold the justice system hostage.
33:21
I see, if a defendant is present when the trial
33:23
begins and then voluntarily absents themselves, meaning they actively choose
33:27
to flee, the court views that as a voluntary waiver
33:30
of their sixth Amendment right. It was they forfeit the
33:32
right exactly. The judge essentially says, we afforded you the
33:37
right to be here, you threw it away. The wheels
33:39
of justice will not stop turning just because you ran.
33:42
Speaker 1: Let's put ourselves in the shoes of the jury for
33:44
a second. What is the psychological impact of staring at
33:47
an empty chair while deciding a man's fate.
33:51
Speaker 2: It is overwhelmingly detrimental to the defense.
33:53
Speaker 1: Because he's not there to look sympathetic.
33:55
Speaker 2: Yes, a defense attorney's primary job during a trial is
33:59
to humanize their client to the jury. They want the
34:03
jurors to look at the defendant and see a human being,
34:06
a flawed person, perhaps, but someone capable of remorse, or
34:10
someone whose actions carry a shadow of reasonable doubt.
34:13
Speaker 1: But an empty chair doesn't have any of that.
34:14
Speaker 2: An empty chair cannot take the stand to explain itself,
34:17
It cannot weep or show remorse. That empty space just
34:20
screams of guilt. It explicitly tells the jury even the
34:24
defendant looked at the prosecution's evidence and realized he had
34:26
absolutely no chance.
34:28
Speaker 1: Wow.
34:28
Speaker 2: Flight is universally interpreted by juries as the ultimate consciousness
34:32
of guilt. That is exactly why it only took them
34:35
ninety minutes to return a conviction.
34:37
Speaker 1: But of course, a piece of people declaring him guilty
34:39
doesn't put him behind bars. He is still out there,
34:42
and this sparks a manhunt that drags the town of
34:45
Hemphill through hell.
34:46
Speaker 2: I can only imagine what the family is going through.
34:48
Speaker 1: It was awful. Livy's mother, Darcy Bass, is left to
34:52
champion her daughter's cause while the killer is literally on
34:55
the loose. She is physically printing out wanted posters around town,
35:00
taping them to windows, making sure Livy's face and Edgar's
35:04
face remain in the public consciousness.
35:06
Speaker 2: She had to be her own advocate, she really did.
35:08
Speaker 1: And Matthew Edgar manages to evade capture not for a week,
35:12
not for a month, but for nearly an entire year.
35:15
Speaker 2: And this is where the specific sociology and geography of
35:18
Hemphill becomes central characters in the story. You have to
35:21
understand how someone vanishes for a year in an area
35:25
where everyone knows everyone right.
35:27
Speaker 1: Because when the law finally kicks down a door and
35:29
captures him on December twenty ninth, twenty twenty two, the
35:32
details are just infuriating.
35:34
Speaker 2: Where was he?
35:35
Speaker 1: This massive operation involves the US Marshals, local sheriffs, and
35:40
even Texas game wardens who know the backwards and where
35:43
do they find this fugitive mastermind? He isn't hiding out
35:47
in a cartel safe house in Mexico. He hadn't assumed
35:51
a new identity in New York City. No, they find
35:54
him hiding at a family friend's house near yards away
35:57
from his own grandparents' property. He is literally hiding in
36:01
his own backyard. It's unbelievable, and his mother, Cindy Hogan,
36:04
is present when they take him down. She later faces
36:08
felony charges for hindering the apprehension of a known fugitive.
36:12
It is like playing hide and seek in a glasshouse.
36:14
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is in a town of one.
36:15
Speaker 1: Thousand people, where everyone knows everyone's vehicle and routine. He
36:19
wasn't hiding in the dense wilderness. He was hiding in
36:22
plain sight, behind a solid wall of family silence.
36:25
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, we are
36:27
forced to look at the dark underbelly of local loyalty
36:30
in deeply rural, tight knit communities.
36:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk about that, because tight knit usually sounds like
36:35
a good thing.
36:36
Speaker 2: It is a wonderful trait when a community is rallying
36:39
to rebuild a barn, or support a sick neighbor, or
36:43
raise funds for a school. But when a crime occurs,
36:47
that exact same tribalism can curdle into.
36:50
Speaker 1: Obstruction because they close ranks.
36:52
Speaker 2: Precisely, hiding a grown man for a year in a
36:54
town of one thousand people is logistically impossible to do
36:57
entirely alone. Has to eat, he needs applies. Someone has
37:01
to keep watch, so people had to know. It requires
37:04
a network of complicity, requires multiple people actively deciding to
37:07
look the other way. It requires a mother willing to
37:10
risk serious felony charges to protect a son she knows
37:13
has been convicted of a brutal murder.
37:15
Speaker 1: It's just wild to me.
37:16
Speaker 2: It demonstrates how familial loyalty can completely override objective morality
37:21
in the law, allowing a toxic secret to fester right
37:24
under the nose of law enforcement.
37:26
Speaker 1: It is just staggering to conceptualize. You think about Darcy
37:29
Bass walking through the local grocery store buying groceries, putting
37:32
up wanted posters, and knowing that the person in the
37:34
checkout line next to her might know exactly which couch
37:37
Matthew Edgar is sleeping on that night.
37:39
Speaker 2: The betrayal of the community is profound, But.
37:42
Speaker 1: After three hundred and sixty days of this agonizing evasion,
37:45
the network finally failed, The marshals dragged Matthew Edgar out
37:49
of the shadows, and that finally brought Livy's family back
37:52
to the courthouse for the last incredibly heavy chapter of closure.
37:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, the sentencing phase, and the sentencing phase is distinct
37:59
from the trial. How so, the trial is about proving facts.
38:03
The sentencing phase is where the raw human cost of
38:06
those facts is laid bare on the official record.
38:09
Speaker 1: On January third, twenty twenty three, Matthew Edgar stands before
38:12
the judge and is formally sentenced to ninety nine years
38:15
in prison. He will be eligible for parole after serving
38:18
thirty years. Okay, but the numbers, the ninety nine years,
38:21
they don't capture the actual weight of the air in
38:24
that courtroom. During the victim impacts statements, Livy's grandmother, Janis Lewis,
38:29
stood up and spoke directly about a family that had
38:31
been fundamentally broken.
38:32
Speaker 2: That was so hard.
38:33
Speaker 1: And then Darcy Vassil, Livy's mother, did something that I
38:36
find incredibly powerful and honestly haunting. She didn't just read
38:39
a statement. She brought the video of Livy delivering her
38:42
high school valedictorian speech and she played it right there
38:45
in the courtroom.
38:46
Speaker 2: Wow, that is a devastatingly effective way to reclaim the narrative.
38:50
Why do you say that, because in crudal proceedings, the
38:54
gravity of the room is almost always warped around the perpetrator.
38:58
Speaker 1: Right, everyone's looking at the killer exactly.
39:00
Speaker 2: The defense, the prosecution, the judge. Everyone is focused on
39:04
the defendant state of mind, the defendant's actions, the defendants rights.
39:08
The victim is often inadvertently reduced to a series of
39:11
forensic photographs or a name printed on a legal docket.
39:14
Speaker 1: They lose their voice.
39:16
Speaker 2: They do by playing that valedictorian speech. Jarcy Bass forced
39:20
the judge, the gallery, and Matthew Egger himself to hear
39:24
Livy's actual voice. She forced them to see her ambition,
39:28
her intelligence, and the immense radiating potential that was violently silenced.
39:33
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate reminder that this wasn't just a crime
39:35
scene to be cleaned up. This is an entire future
39:38
that was erased from the timeline. And as we pull
39:40
back and look at the entirety of this deep dive,
39:43
the broader implications of the Livy Lewis case are just stark.
39:47
Speaker 2: They really are.
39:48
Speaker 1: From a legal standpoint, we watched the blackout defense completely
39:51
collapse when forced to stand up against the sheer weight
39:54
of physical evidence and common sense.
39:57
Speaker 2: And it serves as a vital legal precedent. Juries are
40:00
becoming increasingly sophisticated. They are no longer easily swayed by
40:04
claims of selective memory loss, especially when the circumstantial evidence
40:08
surrounding the crime points so unequivocally to a consciousness of guilt,
40:13
like the fleeing, like the immediate decision to flee, or
40:15
the highly specific recall of how much Jim Beam was consumed,
40:19
coupled with a miraculous memory gap for the murder itself.
40:23
You cannot selectively edit your memory and expect the justice
40:26
system to accept the blank spaces as innocence.
40:29
Speaker 1: But the implications go so far beyond what happens in
40:32
a courtroom. This entire story operates as a glaring, blaring
40:36
warning siren about the anatomy of domestic abuse.
40:39
Speaker 2: It really does.
40:40
Speaker 1: We saw the isolation tactics disguised as romantic secrets. We
40:43
saw the rapid shift from a needy partner to physical violence.
40:47
We saw the extreme volatility amplified by alcohol. So what
40:52
does this all mean for you? Listening to this right now,
40:55
How do you, as a friend, a neighbor, a co worker,
40:58
or a family memberognize these red flags before a situation
41:02
escalates to a nine to one one call.
41:04
Speaker 2: That is the most vital takeaway we can offer here.
41:07
We have to train ourselves to recognize the scaffolding of control.
41:11
What should people look for when you see a friend
41:14
suddenly withdrawing from their usual social circles. That is a
41:17
red flag. When their new partner insists on constant communication
41:21
or demands extreme privacy regarding their texts, Thats a red flag.
41:25
When you hear about a partner punching a wall or
41:27
kicking a car during an argument, that is not a
41:30
fine of a passionate relationship. It is an intimidation tactic. Absolutely,
41:34
and most importantly, we have to entirely dismantle the myth
41:37
that someone's intelligence, their academic success, or their strong caretaking
41:41
nature makes them immune to manipulation. As a community, our
41:45
intervention has to happen at the isolation phase. We can't wait, No,
41:49
we cannot wait until the physical bruises appear. We have
41:52
to be willing to ask the uncomfortable questions and provide
41:56
a judgment free exit ramp for victims who feel trapped
41:59
by shame or a misplaced sense of responsibility.
42:02
Speaker 1: It is entirely about changing how we view our responsibility
42:06
to one another. We started this deep dive exploring a
42:09
young woman's bright aspirations, her desire to heal people, to
42:13
be a professional, to build a stable life for herself,
42:17
and we had to dissect the systemic failures, the manipulative behaviors,
42:21
and the communal blind spots that allowed that bright light
42:24
to be snuffed out.
42:25
Speaker 2: It's a tragedy on every level.
42:27
Speaker 1: It is a heavy, difficult journey, but understanding the precise
42:30
mechanics of how this happens is the only way we
42:33
stand a chance of preventing it from happening again.
42:35
Speaker 2: I completely agree, which brings me.
42:36
Speaker 1: To a final thought I want to leave you with.
42:38
Speaker 2: Today.
42:39
Speaker 1: We talked at length about how Matthew Edgar managed to
42:41
hide in his own backyard for nearly a year.
42:43
Speaker 2: Yes, surrounded by people he knew.
42:45
Speaker 1: We talked about how multiple friends knew he was abusive
42:48
long before the murder. They saw the busted lip in
42:51
the photo, they heard the yelling, They knew about the
42:53
heavy drinking and the volatile behavior and so the question
42:56
that lingers long after the gavel comes down is this,
43:00
the use is an open secret in a tight knit community.
43:02
At what point does the silence of the bystanders cross
43:05
the line from simply minding their own business to actual complicity.
43:09
Speaker 2: Wow, it is a profound and deeply unsettling question, one
43:13
that challenges the very foundation of what it means to
43:16
be part of a community.
43:17
Speaker 1: It really does. It challenges all of us to look
43:19
at what we are willing to tolerate in our own towns.
43:22
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into
43:25
these sources, navigating these dark waters to find the complex
43:28
truths and the lessons hidden within the timeline. That is
43:31
exactly why we do this. We will see you next time.