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Lansing River Trail Deaths Investigation Criminologist Reviews · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to just picture something for a moment,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: like picture that local park or maybe a walking trail
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: in your own neighborhood.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody has one of those nearby. Right.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: You know the exact one. It's the place where people
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: walk their dogs on a Sunday morning or maybe where
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: you go for a quick jog to clear your head
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: after work.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Or where you might like teach your kid how to
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: ride a bike. It's very familiar. Exactly.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: It feels inherently safe. You know, it's basically a piece
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of your community shared backyard. But now I want you
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to imagine how that exact same space transforms when the
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: sun goes down.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. It's a completely different world at night.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: It really is. The temperature drops and the parameters of
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: safety just, well, they fundamentally change.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Right. The shadows lengthen. The tree lines become these opaque walls. Yeah.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: A place of daytime recreation very quickly becomes this environment
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: defined by complete isolation. Yeah.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: And for most of us, we simply leave when it
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: gets dark, right? We just pack up and go.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We do. We lock our doors and we retreat to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the safety of our homes. But for a highly vulnerable
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: segment of the population, leaving is just, it's not an option.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: The park, the trail, the underpass, that becomes the bedroom.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: And that isolation we just talked about, it becomes absolute.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Which creates a really profound vulnerability. I mean, when you
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: think about it.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's unpack that a bit.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Well, when we strip away the daylight and, you know,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: the ambient foot traffic of the general public, we are
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: forced to confront the hidden realities of how the unhoused
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: survive in these environments.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Right, because they're out there entirely exposed.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And more critically, we see how that specific survival strategy,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: like seeking darkness and isolation to avoid harassment or encampment sweeps,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: can be tragically weaponized against them.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Weaponized by someone who knows how to operate in those shadows.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly that.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: And that weaponization of isolation, that's really the anchor for
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: our discussion today. We're doing a deep dive into a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: deeply chilling, honestly heartbreaking reality that is unfolding right now.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Unfolding right now in Lansing, Michigan, right?
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Lansing. And this is all based on some really
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: thorough reporting from Fox 2 Detroit, which came out on
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: October 5th, 2026.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Right, alongside some crucial details from the Lansing State Journal
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and WILX from around early October.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: So relying on those sources, the community there is grappling
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: with this horrifying pattern. Over the course of the past year,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: five men, all of whom were experiencing homelessness, all living
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: out in the elements, they've been found dead.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Found dead from apparent violence, which is just, it's a
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: heavy thing to process. It is.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: But the detail that really elevates this from, you know,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: a tragic statistic to an active localized terror is the geography.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: The geography is the key to this whole thing.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: It really is. Because all five of these deaths occurred
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: along a single one-mile stretch of the Lansing River Trail.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: A single mile. I mean, in the context of urban
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: geography or even just a single police precinct's jurisdiction, that
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: is an incredibly confined footprint.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: It's tiny.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: It's a highly localized cluster of violence.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So when law enforcement encounters a cluster this dense, what
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: are they looking at right off the bat?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Well, the immediate analytical burden is determining whether the physical
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: location itself is the primary linking factor. Like, is this
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: a designated hunting ground, so to speak?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Or is it something else?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Right. Or is the location incidental? Like, is it merely
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: the habitat of a specific vulnerable demographic that a perpetrator
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: has chosen to target?
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So they're targeting the people, not necessarily the place, but
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the places where the people are?
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That's the core question they have to answer.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So in this deep dive, our mission is to unpack
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the investigative mechanisms behind those exact questions.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: We really need to examine the confirmed timelines and decode
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the criminology.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how law enforcement categorizes this level of repeated violence.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And we'll also look closely at the systemic hurdles of
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: investigating crimes committed, well, completely off the digital grid.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge challenge in modern policing. Huge.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: But before we get into the behavioral analysis or the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: forensic roadblocks, I mean, we really have to center this
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: on the individuals who lost their lives.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. We have to remember the human element here.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: We are talking about five human beings whose lives ended
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: brutally in the dark. Let's name them based on the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: police and local reports.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: We have Geno Shannon, who was 54 years old.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And Donnie Dunbar, who was 70.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: And then Robert Smith, who was 57.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Daniel Lusk, who's only 22 years old. That one really
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: sticks out. It does. And finally, Louis Woodruff, 57.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: So looking at that list, it establishes a pretty clear
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: demographic baseline the police are working from.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: It does. All five victims were white men and all
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: were unhoused. That socioeconomic status is really the most glaring commonality.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were all living incredibly vulnerable lives.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: But the timeline provides the structural framework for the investigation.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Right. So let's walk through that timeline. The first known incident,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: which was the death of Gino Chouinard, that occurred on
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: October 14th, 2025. And the most.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Recent death, Louis Woodruff, that happened on August 30, 2026.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So that gives us a window of roughly, what, 10
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and a half months from the first victim.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: To the fifth? 10 and a half months, yeah.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: 10 and a half months, five men, all within a
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: space you could walk across in like about 20 minutes.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, when you put it like that, 20 minutes,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: it really emphasizes how tight that area is. The timeframe
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: and the geography are essentially the two most solid pillars
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: of this investigation right now.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're the anchor points.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: But from an analytical standpoint, one of the most striking
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: deviations within this cluster is the age disparity you just
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: read off.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. The ages are all over the place. Right.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: We have a victimology ranging from Daniel Lusk at 22
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: years old, all the way up to Dennis Dunband at
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: 70 years old.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And that age gap, I mean, that completely shatters the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: usual profile we think of when we hear about targeted violence.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: How so?
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Well, just think about it. A 22-year-old is going to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: have vastly different physical capabilities than a 70-year-old.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely. Completely different reaction times, strength.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Different situational awareness, a totally different daily routine.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: So if the attacker isn't filtering by age or physical capability,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: it feels like they are purely hunting based on opportunity and,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the state of being unhoused.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: That is a crucial deduction to make because in many
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: serial offenses, the perpetrator has a highly specific, quote unquote,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: ideal victim in mind.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Right. Like maybe a certain age bracket or physical appearance.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Or a specific gender. But when we see an
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: age range spanning nearly half a century, it strongly suggests
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: the target criteria are based entirely on environmental accessibility.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: And extreme defenselessness.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Yes. The unifying factor in the perpetrator's mind isn't the
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: victim's ages at all.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: That's the fact that they are unprotected.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Unprotected, isolated, and residing within that specific one-mile bottleneck of
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: the Lansing River Trail.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: A one-mile stretch is tiny. For the listener, if you
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: walk at a normal pace, that's barely a 20-minute walk.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: It's practically no distance at all.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Having five separate fatal incidents in such a confined space
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: over a year, it's like lightning striking the exact same
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: patch of ground five times. It's impossible to ignore.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: It really is. It isn't random urban crime. It's methodical.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: It's like setting a trap in a highly specific bottleneck
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: in the woods, you know? The location essentially functions as
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the weapon.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: That's a really good way to put it. The perpetrator
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: knows the topography intimately.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: They know the lighting, or, well, the lack thereof.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Right. They know exactly where the blind spots are, where
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: the cameras just don't reach.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Which implies a terrifying level of comfort and familiarity with
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that specific mile of the city.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates what we call environmental mastery.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Environmental mastery. I like that term. What does that mean
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: in practice?
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: It means the offender feels ownership over that space when
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: the sun goes down. They dictate the terms of whatever
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: happens there.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: And that environmental mastery leads directly to the mechanism of
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the attacks, doesn't it?
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, it does. And this is exactly why Lansing Police
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Chief Rob Back has held a press conference on October 3rd.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Right. He needed to detail the specific patterns they were
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: actually observing on the ground.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Because once you establish who is being targeted and where
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: they are being targeted, the analysis has to shift to
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: the modus operandi, the MO.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: The how.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The how.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And the how in this case is particularly harrowing.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: According to Chief Backus, the attacks occurred overnight, and, God, tragically,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the victims were lying down.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, the police believe they were likely sleeping when the
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: attacks were initiated.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Just sleeping. I mean, the behavioral implications of attacking a
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: sleeping victim are immense, right?
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Very much so. From a criminological perspective, it tells us
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: a great deal about the psychology and the risk tolerance
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: of the attacker.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: They're taking virtually no risk at all. Right.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: When a perpetrator specifically targets a sleeping individual, they are
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: actively constructing a scenario with zero immediate resistance.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: It's an act of extreme cowardice.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Certainly it is. But analytically, it indicates an offender who
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: demands total control.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: They want to completely avoid the unpredictability of a conscious
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: waking confrontation. They want the outcome guaranteed before the victim
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: even knows they are in danger.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. They are stripping away even the fundamental human right
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: to a fight-or-flight response.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: That's incredibly dark.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: They don't even get a chance to run.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: No chance at all.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: They are negating the victim's agency entirely.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: And when you combine that psychological need for total control
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: with the physical reality of the violence, the profile becomes
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: even darker. It does.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the specific cause of death for four
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: of these five men.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the police are reporting it as blunt force traumatic
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: injuries specifically directed at the facial area.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: And furthermore, the authorities noted that there was no weapon
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: found or currently known to be associated with these four scenes.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: The specificity of blunt force trauma to the face is
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: deeply disturbing.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: It's very brutal.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: It's not just about ending a life. It feels highly personal,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: almost rage-driven.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, the face is our identity. Attacking it requires a
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: specific mindset.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: And the lack of a known weapon found at the scene,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that means the attacker isn't just picking up a rock
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: or a branch in a crime of sudden passion and
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: leaving it there.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: No, it suggests preparation. Right.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: They are either bringing a specific tool with them and
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: taking it away, or they are utilizing elements of the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: environment and then purposefully disposing of them.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Perhaps throwing them into the river to cover their tracks. Exactly.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Both of those scenarios require a chilling level of forethought.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Forethought and proximity. Blunt force trauma to the facial area
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: is a highly intimate, physically exhausting form of violence.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: It's not like shooting someone from a distance.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Not at all. It requires the attacker to be standing
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: or kneeling directly over the victim within mere inches.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: It is not a clinical distanced attack. It is brutal
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: close quarters violence.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And if they are taking the weapon with them, it
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: demonstrates a clear preservation instinct.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're thinking about the forensic footprint they might leave behind,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: even while they're committing this incredibly vicious act.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But just as investigators were building a profile around
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: this specific type of violence, you know, blunt force trauma,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: sleeping victims, no weapons left behind, the reality on the
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: ground sort of fractured.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: The pattern hit a massive discrepancy.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: A huge one.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: The fifth case wasn't blunt force trauma at all. It
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: was a fatal stabbing.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Right. And the reporting notes that there is currently one
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: person in custody specifically in connection with that stabbing case.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Which makes things so.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: complicated. That discrepancy is the epicenter of the current investigative dilemma.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: It forces law enforcement to ask incredibly difficult questions about
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: the integrity of the cluster.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Are they actually all connected or is this something else?
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And this is exactly why Chief Backus utilized such measured,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: cautious language during his press conference.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was very careful with his words.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: He was. When directly asked if the suspect in custody
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: for the stabbing is the suspect, For the other four
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: blunt force homicides, he stated, and I'm quoting here, the
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: question that's been posed to us is, is this a
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: suspect for all the instances? I want to be very
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: clear that is a challenging question to answer and one
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: that I have to be very cautious on.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I can completely understand the caution.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Because jumping to conclusions here could jeopardize multiple cases. Right.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: But looking at the text and looking at the data...
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I really have to push back and question the unified
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: theory here.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Go ahead. What's your thought?
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Well, wait. If we have four distinct instances of blunt
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: force trauma to the face requiring a very specific type
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: of physical engagement, and then suddenly we have a fatal stabbing,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: isn't it a massive leap to assume they are all connected?
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: It is a significant leap, yes.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, in behavioral analysis, does a perpetrator typically change
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: their MO so drastically?
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: It's rare.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: To go from a blunt object to a blade? That
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: completely changes the mechanics of the crime, doesn't it?
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: It completely alters the physical dynamic, the required force, and
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: the sensory experience of the offender. It is a highly
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: valid challenge to the unified theory.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So they don't usually switch it up like that?
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Well, an offender's MO is dynamic. It can evolve. A
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: perpetrator might refine their methods if they find a more
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: efficient way to commit the crime, or if their previous
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: method failed to yield the desired result.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: But a sudden shift to a knife.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Right, a sudden stark shift. from severe blunt force trauma
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: to a stabbing is a major deviation. It is not
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: a subtle refinement. It is a change in the primary
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: mechanism of injury.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: So investigators are essentially staring down three different avenues right now.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Let's hear them.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: First, it could be the same individual who, for whatever
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: psychological or practical reason, changed their weapon of choice on
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that specific night.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe they lost their primary weapon, or maybe their underlying
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: pathology shifted in some way.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: That's the first avenue.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: That is the first avenue. The second avenue, is the
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: phenomenon of a copycat or a parallel offender.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a terrifying thought.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: It is. It is entirely possible that another individual, aware
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: of the vulnerability of the unhoused population along the trail.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: May be aware of the ongoing police investigation from the news?
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. They could have utilized the existing climate of
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: fear to commit their own act of violence, but just
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: happened to utilize a knife instead of a blood object. Wow.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: And the third avenue, which might actually be the most
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: difficult for the community to process, is that this stabbing
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: is an entirely unconnected, distinct incident of violence.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: An incident that just happened to occur within the same
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: vulnerable demographic and the same geographic one-mile radius.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: A tragic parallel tragedy.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Which underscores a horrifying reality, you know, that this one-mile
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: stretch of the trail is simply that inherently dangerous for
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: the unhoused.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that it's just a danger zone regardless of who
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: is doing it.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: But because of the dense timeline and the extreme geographic concentration,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: law enforcement really does not have the luxury of assuming coincidence.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: No, they can't afford to.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: They must aggressively investigate the possibility that these events are linked.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: And this inevitably leads to the terminology that the media,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the public, and the community are utilizing right now. People
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: are asking point blank, is there a serial killer operating
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: in Lansing?
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: And that specific phrase, serial killer, it carries so much
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: cultural weight.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: It Instantly evokes decades of true crime media, movies, and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: just ingrained panic.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: But it also has a very rigid scientific definition in
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the realm of criminology.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: It's not just a catch-all term for multiple murders.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. That's why the Fox 2 reporting
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: brought in the expertise of criminologist Dr. David Hayes.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Right. To clarify exactly what kind of threat profile the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: police are actually evaluating.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Dr. Hayes' contribution is vital because words dictate resource allocation
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: in law enforcement.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, I hadn't thought about that.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. How a crime is classified determines whether local police
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: handle it alone or if federal behavioral analysis units are
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: brought in.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: So Dr. Hayes broke down the FBI's strict criteria for
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a serial killer.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: He did. The baseline requirement is multiple victims. Specifically, the
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: offender must have killed at least three people.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: OK, three people. But that's not the only requirement, right?
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: The defining mandatory element that separates a serial killer from
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: other types of multiple murderers is the presence of a
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: cooling-off period between the events.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: That cooling-off period is the absolute crux of the definition.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: It isn't just a pause in the violence, it's a
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: complete psychological reset.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Yes. According to Dr. Hayes, the length of that period
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: can vary wildly.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: It could be a few days, several weeks, or even
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: many months.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: But during that time, the offender emotionally de-escalates. They return
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: to their baseline state and blend back into their normal life,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: whatever that might look like for them.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: They go to work, they interact with family, they just
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: exist in society.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: The urge to commit violence subsides. It lies dormant, slowly
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: builds pressure again, and then eventually the cycle resets and
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: they hunt once more.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: The psychological toll that specific rhythm takes on a community
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: is immense.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: It's devastating. Because during that cooling off period, a false
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: sense of security inevitably returns to the city. Right.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: The police patrols might lessen. The community lets its guard down.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: The unhoused population might slowly return to their previous routines
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: just out of necessity.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: The killer is basically weaponizing time just as much as
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: they are weaponizing geography.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: That's a very acute observation. Dr.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Hayes also provided some excellent contrast by defining two other
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: terms that are frequently conflated in public discourse. Right.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Mass murderer and spree killer.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: He explained that a mass murderer is an offender who
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: kills three or more people in one single concentrated location
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: all at once.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: A singular catastrophic event with absolute spatial and temporal confinement.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: So there is no cooling off period during the commission
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: of a mass murder.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: No, it is a continuous act of violence until it
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: is stopped by law enforcement, the offender's suicide, or the
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: exhaustion of their resources.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And then you have a spree killer.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Which is different again. Yeah.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: A spree killer also claims three or more victims, but
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: they do it in a rapid, highly mobile succession across
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: different locations.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: They are moving constantly. And critically, there is no cooling
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: off period between the murders there either.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: It is an unbroken, escalating chain of violence that spans
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: multiple crime scenes over a very short duration.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Usually ending in apprehension or death.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: The momentum of a spree killer is entirely different from
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: a serial killer.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A spree killer is operating in a sustained state
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: of hyper-arousal and crisis.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: There is no attempt to blend back into society or
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: hide their ongoing actions. The violence itself is the continuous objective.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: So to really solidify these criminological definitions for you listening,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: let's visualize them through their environmental impact.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I like that approach.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Based on Dr. Hayes' analysis, a mass murderer is basically
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: akin to an explosion.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: It is devastating, the damage is localized to a single epicenter,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and it happens.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: All at once. A sudden, massive impact.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: A spree killer, on the other hand, is like a wildfire.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: It is rapid, highly unpredictable, fueled by its own momentum.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And it jumps from location to location without ever fully
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: extinguishing until it is forcibly put out.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Those analogies capture the kinetic energy of those crimes perfectly.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: But a serial killer.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: That operates on a completely different biological and psychological rhythm.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: A serial killer is much more like an apex predator
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: in the wild.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: They study their environment.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: They hunt. They strike with sudden violence. And then they
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: retreat deep into hiding to digest the experience.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: To cool off and metabolize the act. The environment just
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: goes quiet.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: And then months later, when the predatory hunger returns, they
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: emerge and hunt again.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: And this brings us back to the stark reality of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the Lansing Timeline.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: When we apply Dr. Hayes' definitions to the facts on
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: the ground, the analytical picture becomes very clear.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: The deaths of Gino Chouinard, Dennis Dunback, Robert Smith, Daniel Lusk,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and Louis Woodruff span from October 14, 2025 to August 30, 2026.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: That is nearly 11 months.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: So the cooling-off periods, the weeks and months of silence
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: between the bodies being found on the trail, are explicitly present.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Which means if these blunt force trauma cases are indeed linked...
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: We are not dealing with an explosion.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: And we are not dealing with a wildfire.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: We are dealing with a methodical, punctuated series of attacks
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: with significant emotional compartmentalization happening in between.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: That is why the Lansing authorities have to look at
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: this through the lens of serial violence. The data fits
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the FBI's strict criteria.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: But recognizing the pattern leads us to the most frustrating
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and terrifying question of all.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Which is?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: If law enforcement believes there is a localized, methodical killer
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: operating in a single one-mile stretch of a public trail,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: why is it so incredibly difficult to catch them?
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Answering that question requires us to examine what I call
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the investigative void.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: The investigative void.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Let's dig into that. The systemic challenges of investigating crimes
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: against the unhoused population are fundamentally different and drastically more
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: complex than investigating crimes against individuals who are housed.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: People who are fully integrated into the traditional socioeconomic system.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The safety nets we rely on for justice simply
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: do not exist in this context.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Chief Backus was remarkably transparent about the sheer scale of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the roadblocks they are facing.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: He laid it all out.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: First, he noted that the medical examiner results are still
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: pending for some of the cases.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Which is a significant delay. This means they don't even
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: have the official scientific determination of the exact cause of
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: death for everyone yet.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Or the specific pathology of the injuries.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Right. In cases of severe blunt force trauma, forensic pathology
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: takes significant time to differentiate between a weapon strike, a fall,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: or even environmental factors.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: But beyond the forensic delays, Chief Backus stated that investigators
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: have zero eyewitnesses.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Zero.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: And they are getting absolutely zero help from surveillance footage.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: We really need to pause and truly consider the weight
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: of that statement. Zero surveillance footage.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: In the landscape of modern 21st century policing, that's almost
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: unheard of.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Video surveillance is the bedrock of almost every major investigation today.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: We live in a society saturated by lenses.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are ring cameras on front porches, traffic cameras
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: at every major intersection.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Security cameras monitoring every single storefront and ATM.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: If a violent crime occurs in a typical residential neighborhood
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: or a commercial district, Investigators almost invariably have a visual record.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: They know who entered the area, who left and when.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: It provides an immediate timeline.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: But these attacks didn't happen in a commercial district. No.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: They happened on the river trail overnight.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: This is a natural, likely unlit or very poorly lit
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: area where unhoused individuals specifically go to seek shelter.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Because it is out of the line of sight of
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the general public and law enforcement.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: They are seeking invisibility.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Because visibility often brings harassment, right?
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Harassment, citations, or the destruction of their property during an
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: encampment sweep.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: So they find the blind spots.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: They find the thick brush, the dark underpasses, the areas
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: where the city's surveillance grid fails.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Tragically, the very invisibility they seek for their own day-to-day
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: survival provides the perfect unmonitored cover for a predator.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: The environment works against the victim and in favor of
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: the attacker. And this environmental blind spot feeds directly into
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: the larger issue Dr. Hayes brought up.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: The missing digital footprint.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. He astutely pointed out that an unhoused person doesn't
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: generate the continuous digital trail that the rest of society
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: leaves behind without even thinking about it.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: The digital footprint is basically the invisible architecture of modern life.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: And when a victim doesn't have one, investigators are effectively blinded.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: They cannot trace the victim's final days, hours, or even
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: minutes using the standard tools of contemporary detective work. To
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: put this in perspective for you listening, think about the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: digital wake you have created just since you woke up
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: this morning.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: It's probably massive. It is.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: You probably unlocked your phone with facial recognition. You swiped
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a debit or credit card to buy a coffee.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Which instantly logged a timestamp, a geographic location, and a vendor.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Your cell phone has been constantly pinging cell towers,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: creating a precise GPS map of your commute.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: You drove past automated license plate readers, logged into your
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: work computer.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And walked past three security cameras just entering your building.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: You have a set, heavily documented physical routine.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: If something happened to you, police could easily build a
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: minute-by-minute timeline of your final hours.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: But when someone exists entirely outside that web of surveillance,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: how do police even begin to reconstruct their movements?
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: The grim reality is that often they can't.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: When a crime occurs entirely off the digital grid, modern
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: investigative techniques are paralyzed.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Detectives cannot subpoena cell phone records if the victim didn't
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: own a phone.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Or couldn't afford to keep it charged.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: They cannot track financial transactions if the victim operates entirely
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: in a cash or barter economy.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: In the absence of technology, investigators are forced to regress.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: They have to rely on rudimentary, old-fashioned physical sleuthing.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: The shoe-leather detective work of canvassing an area and talking
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: to people.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the human element, and perhaps the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: most difficult hurdle of all in this Lansing case. Community reluctance. Yes.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: The reporting explicitly points out that knocking on doors, or
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: in this case, unzipping tents, isn't yielding results.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Dr. Hayes stated plainly that the people living alongside the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: victims in that specific area are going to be, quote,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: pretty reluctant to talk to the police.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: We have to critically examine the mechanics of that distrust.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: It's not just apathy, is it?
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Not at all. It is born out of self-preservation.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: The unhoused community has a historically complex and frequently adversarial
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: relationship with law enforcement.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Police are often the instrument of their displacement.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Furthermore, consider the immediate danger. If you are sleeping outside,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: in that exact one-mile stretch of the trail, and you
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: know there is a potential killer hunting people exactly like you.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: The terror is absolute.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: If you come forward as a witness, you can't just
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: go home and lock a deadbolt. No.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: You have to go right back to sleep on the
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: exact same trail where the killer operates.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: The fear of retaliation is not abstract. It is a
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: literal matter of life and death.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Survival instinct dictates staying quiet, staying hidden, and drawing as
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: little attention to yourself as possible.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Precisely.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Dr.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Hayes summarized this entire systemic failure by pointing to a
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: lack of connective tissue.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: The connective tissue of an investigation. Right.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: It lacks the digital tissue of cell records and bank statements.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: It lacks the physical tissue of a documented daily routine.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And the human tissue, the eyewitness accounts from the community,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: is paralyzed by a very rational fear and institutional distrust.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: This absence of connective tissue creates a complete investigative vacuum.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Dr. Hayes concluded his analysis with a chilling assessment. If
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: this is a series of connected deaths, we are looking
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: at an offender who is purposefully preying on incredibly vulnerable people.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate predatory exploitation of marginalization.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: If this is the work of a single serial offender,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: they are not just weaponizing a blunt object or a knife.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: They are weaponizing the victim's poverty.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: They are weaponizing their lack of secure shelter, their lack
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: of a digital footprint.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: And the societal wedge between the unhoused and the police.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: They are selecting these men precisely because they know the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: police will face a mountain of of systemic hurdles and
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: trying to find justice for them.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: It is a stark, devastating reminder of the hidden vulnerabilities
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: that exist in every single city.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: The safety nets that many of us view as standard
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: features of society, the locked doors, the neighborhood watch, the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: ring cameras.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: The GPS tracking.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all of it. These are not universal rights.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: They are privileges of the housed.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: When those privileges are stripped away, the consequences can be fatal.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: The darkness on the trail isn't just an absence of light.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It's an absence of societal protection.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: We are looking at a profound tragedy in Lansing. Five men,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Gino Chouinard, Dennis Dunbake, Robert Smith, Daniel Lusk, and Louis
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Woodruff have had their lives taken in the most brutal,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: intimate way imaginable.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: A terrifying pattern of violence has haunted a one-mile stretch
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: of a community trail.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: And an ongoing tragedy. desperate police effort is struggling to
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: find traction against a total void of digital data, physical evidence,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: and eyewitness testimony.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: The reality is that technology will not solve this case.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: It just won't.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Digital forensics cannot fill the void left by a population
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: forced to live off the grid.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: The only way this investigation moves forward is through human intervention.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: And that is exactly why the Lansing police are practically
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: begging for the public's help.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And it's why this story matters to you, even if
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: you are thousands of miles away from Michigan.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: It challenges us to look at the unhoused populations in
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: our own cities differently.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Not as a political talking point, not as a nuisance,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: but as our most acutely vulnerable neighbors.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: In cases where the digital footprint has vanished, human observation
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: and fundamental community care are the only avenues for justice.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: The Lansing police provided a direct tip line in the reporting,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and it's important to share. 517-483-6023.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: They need human eyes and ears to fill the void
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: that technology cannot.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Because without that community input, without someone stepping forward and
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: breaking the silence, the investigators are left searching in the dark.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Hoping the perpetrator makes a mistake before another life is lost.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: As we conclude this deep dive into the source material,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I want to leave you with one final detail. deeply
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: unsettling thought to consider.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: It's something that really lingers.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: We spent a significant amount of time discussing Dr. Hayes'
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: definition of a serial killer and the absolute necessity of
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: that cooling-off period.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: The psychological reset between attacks. Right.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Between the first death in October 2025 and the fifth
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: in August 2026, there were long stretches of silence.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Weeks and months where the violence stopped and the killer
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: returned to their baseline state.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: If that cooling off period allowed this perpetrator to seamlessly
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: blend back into normal society, wash their hands and go
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: about their day, who is interacting with them right now?
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Who is standing behind them in line at the grocery store?
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Or pumping gas next to them or passing them on
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the sidewalk, completely unaware of the brutality they are capable
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: of inflicting.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: In the dark. It's a terrifying reality.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Think about that the next time you walk your local
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: trail at dusk.