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Gifted Teen Strangled By Friend Who Wanted To Become A Serial Killer · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to take a second and imagine someone
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: you trust implicitly.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like a really close friend.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Right. Not just an acquaintance or, you know, a coworker
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: you grab coffee with. I mean, someone you grew up alongside.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Someone who really knows you.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Imagine the person you sat next to in school,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: like every single day. The person you made art with.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: The one you wrote music with.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The one who knows your family, your daily habits,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: your deepest secrets.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: That kind of bond is so rare.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It is. It is. Now, I want you to look
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: at that perfectly familiar, comforting face in your mind's eye,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and I want you to imagine that they are harboring
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a lethal agenda.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. That is just, that's terrifying to even think about.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Right. It completely upends your sense of reality. The idea
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: that the ultimate betrayal, like the most profound violence imaginable,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: could come wearing the face of a trusted friend.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, that kind of betrayal, it shatters the foundational
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: trust we all need just to function in society.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we rely on that.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: We do. We all operate on this basic assumption that
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: we can accurately read the people closest to us.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Right. For our own survival.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So when that proximity, you know, when that intimacy
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: is weaponized against us, it doesn't just create fear. It
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: creates a complete psychological freefall.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: You start questioning everything.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: You have to. You're forced to question every interaction, every smile,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: every shared memory you ever had with that person.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Which really brings us to the core of today's deep dive.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: We are looking at this staggering investigation out of Wisconsin today. Yeah.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Drawing from some incredible extensive reporting by True Crime News
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: and Crime Watch Daily.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: We really are. Our mission for this deep dive is
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to deconstruct a real-life thriller. We want to understand the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: terrifying psychology of a true chameleon.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Someone who weaponized that exact kind of familiarity we were
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: just talking about.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So for a quick roadmap of where we're headed,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: we are going to be tracking two seemingly unconnected crimes
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: that happen just days apart.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Right, in neighboring towns.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We're going to dissect the psychological warfare of a
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: police interrogation room, too.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, that slip up in the interrogation room is unbelievable.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And ultimately, we are going to examine... A response to
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: pure evil that is so profound, it just, well, it
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: forces you to rethink the entire capacity of the human heart.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: It really does. But to truly grasp how devastating this
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: case is, we have to understand the environment it happened in.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Right. The setting is so important.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: It's crucial. So we are looking at Hartford, Wisconsin. This
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: is a very tight-knit community.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the kind of town where standing out is
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: actually pretty difficult.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: But if you do stand out, you become a fixture
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: in the town. And Jessie Blahat was absolutely a fixture.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: She really was. So Jessie was 19 years old. She
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: was an aspiring actress, a singer-songwriter, and just, you know,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: someone who seemed to vibrate on a completely higher frequency
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: than everyone else around her.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: She was remarkable. And she wasn't just locally talented. She was, like,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: quantifiably brilliant from a very young age.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to bring that up. There is a
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: specific detail from the source material. that really anchors who
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Jessie was.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: The first grade story.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yes. So when she was in the first grade, the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: standard curriculum completely failed her. Yeah. Because she was just
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: so far ahead of the other kids.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: They didn't know what to do with her. Right.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Her teacher actually had to create a custom curriculum just
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to keep her engaged.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Which is wild to think about.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: It is. So, I mean, picture a classroom of six-year-olds, right?
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: And they are learning to spell basic words like and
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: or the.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Normal first grade stuff. Exactly.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But then there's Jesse sitting at her little desk
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and she is spelling words like metamorphosis and anesthesiologist.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Six years old.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's just staggering.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: But the crucial element here, I think, is what she
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: actually did with that intellectual capacity as she matured.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Right. Because that can go a lot of different ways.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: It really can. Often, you know, highly gifted children can
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: turn inward. They can become isolated or just purely focused
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: on academics.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: But Jesse didn't do that.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: No, she took the exact opposite route. She externalized that
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: brilliance into empathy.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Which is so rare. It is.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: She used her intelligence to identify the vulnerabilities in the
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: world around her, and she used her voice to advocate
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: for those who couldn't speak for themselves.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Right, like her animal rights advocacy.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She was a fierce advocate for animal rights, and
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: she was deeply, deeply passionate about ending violence against women.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And she didn't just, like, post about these things online,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and call it a day. She was out there actively
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: trying to change her corner of the world.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Through her music and everything?
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, through her art. And she was even tutoring local kids.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: She was actively building a community in Hartford.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: But she wasn't the only prodigy in town.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: No, she wasn't. And that brings us to Dan Bartelt. Right.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Dan is 20 years old, and his life is just
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: inextricably braided with Jessie's life.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: They were always together.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they sat next to each other all through high school.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Dan was a highly gifted musician in his own right.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: He was the first chair violinist in the school orchestra,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: wasn't he?
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: He was. And Jesse was the second chair. So they
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: were literally sitting side by side making music.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: They were like parallel rising stars in this small town.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And Dan, he had this persona of the charismatic
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: golden boy.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: He was very outgoing.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Outgoing, hilarious, whip smart. On paper... They just looked like
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: this idyllic, small-town, artistic powerhouse duo.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: And they actually did date for a brief period, right?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: They did, yeah. It was about three or four months
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: during their freshman year of high school.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: But Dan was the one who initiated the breakup.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Right. Which, as Jesse's parents pointed out in the sources,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: isn't exactly front-page news when you were 14 years old.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: No. Freshman relationships end all the time.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You don't need some complex philosophical thesis to end
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: a high school romance. The important part here is really
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the aftermath of that breakup.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Right, because they didn't fracture.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Not at all. They stayed incredibly close friends. They continued
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: to collaborate on their art.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: They even wrote a song together recently.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they wrote and recorded a song together and posted
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: it on YouTube just weeks before the events we are
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: unpacking today.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Wow. So the trajectory for both of them just seemed
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: completely limitless.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: It did. They graduate. They go off to different colleges.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: But then the summer of this deep dive, the narrative...
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: just violently splinters.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Right, when Dan comes back to Hartford.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Dan comes home, and that golden boy facade we
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: talked about begins to show these massive, unexplainable cracks.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Because he drops out of college.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Right. And for a straight-A student who had so much
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: going for him, that is a really jarring pivot.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: It's a huge red flag.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: But dropping out isn't even the most alarming part. It's
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: what he decides to do next.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: This is where things get really dark.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Dan doesn't come home, sit on the couch... and
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: try to figure out his next move like a normal
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: college dropout would.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: No, he constructs this elaborate, exhausting lie.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: It's wild. Every single morning, he wakes up, puts on
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: his work clothes, packs a lunch, gets into his parents' van,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and drives off to a job that does not exist.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, just think about the psychological mechanics required to
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: maintain that specific type of deception. It is incredibly taxing.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Think about the cognitive load. You aren't just telling a single,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: isolated lie. You are embodying a total fiction for eight
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: hours a day.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a passive secret at all. It's highly,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: highly active.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: You see this kind of deception described sometimes as, like,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: someone gliding smoothly on the surface of the water while
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: paddling furiously underneath.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Right, the duck analogy. But I actually think it was
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: much more violent than that.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: How do you mean?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it's more like trying to hold a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: fully inflated beach ball underwater in a crowded swimming pool.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Because it requires this constant draining physical and mental tension
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to keep it hidden. Every single muscle is engaged in
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: maintaining that illusion.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: And you can't ever let your guard down.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Because what do you even do for those eight hours?
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: He's just sitting in a van in a parking lot
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: entirely alone with his own mind.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Just reinforcing the fact that his entire outward existence is
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: a complete fabrication.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Right. And the second his focus slips, that beach ball
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: is going to violently breach the surface for everyone to see.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: That kind of isolation is just the perfect incubator for
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: dark ideation.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Because when someone severs their tether to reality to that degree,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: you know, when their primary daily objective is to lie
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: to the people they love without flinching, they are rehearsing
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: a kind of sociopathic detachment.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They are basically proving to themselves that they can
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: manipulate reality and get away with it on a daily basis.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: And that rehearsed detachment... ends up colliding with the absolute
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: peak of their artistic lives on the weekend of July 15th.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: The theater weekend.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Right. So Dan had just landed the lead role in
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the local production of Bye Bye Birdie.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: And Jessie was in a play, too.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Jessie had just finished starring as the Fiddler in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Fiddler on the Roof. She played to a packed, sold-out
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: house that entire opening weekend.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Such a high point for her.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: It was. So following the final curtain call on Sunday night,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Jessie attends a cast party.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Which is pretty standard.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very normal. She goes home in the early hours
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: of Monday morning where she runs into her mother, Joy.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: But Jessie is visibly unsettled when she gets home.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Very much so. She confides in her mom that two
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: older men at the party had been acting really inappropriately.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Just aggressively flirting with her.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of her friends even noted that one
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: of these older men had actually pulled Jessie onto his lap.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Ugh, that is so uncomfortable.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: It's awful. But Jessie's response to this isn't just, you know, discomfort.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: It is this profound analytical disgust.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Because she was so smart.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And we know exactly what was going through her
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: mind that night because she immediately went to her diary.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: And what she wrote is incredibly revealing.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: It really is. She wrote, I think I'm being corrupted.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I think certain men are taking what should be platonic
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: love and perverting it into a competition.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: The emotional intelligence in that single sentence is just staggering.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: It's beyond her years. Truly.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: She isn't just complaining about a creepy encounter at a party.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: She is diagnosing the toxic psychology of the men involved.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: She recognizes that they are weaponizing a safe space, you know,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: the theater community, platonic love, and turning it into an
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: arena for their own dominance.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: But the thing I love about Jessie is that she
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: refuses to just be a passive observer of her own victimization.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: She fights back in her own way.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: She does. She follows that brilliant analysis with a declaration.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: She writes in the diary, I am not helpless. I
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: will recognize problems and confront them without fear. God be
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: with me.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She writes those words, closes the diary, and goes
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to sleep.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: And that brings us to the morning. Fast forward just
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: a few hours to 8 a.m. on Monday.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Jesse's mom, Joy, pops into Jesse's bedroom to drop off
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: some laundry before heading to work.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And Jesse's dad, Buck, had already left for the day, right?
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So Joy sees Jesse asleep in bed. Everything looks
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: completely peaceful, entirely undisturbed. So Joy leaves for the office.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: But then Joy comes back home for her lunch break
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: around noon. And the house is completely quiet.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Which, I mean, if you are the parent of a
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: teenager on summer break, a quiet house at noon isn't
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: necessarily a huge red flag.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: No, you just assume they are sleeping in after a
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: late gas party. Right. So Joy walks into the bedroom
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to wake her up, probably feeling a bit frustrated that
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Jesse is still in bed at noon. Joy reaches out
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and touches her daughter.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And Jesse is cold to the touch.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The 911 call from this exact moment is one
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: of the most harrowing things you can ever listen to.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: It's brutal because you are hearing a human brain violently
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: rejecting reality in real time.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Joy is just in a state of absolute cognitive dissonance.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: She is. She's frantically telling the dispatcher, my daughter is blue.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: She's cold, she's cold, she's cold.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: And the dispatcher, you know, they're just following protocol, so
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: they ask if she knows CPR.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Right. But you can hear the realization crushing this mother.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: It is far, far too late for CPR.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: And the scene becomes even more horrific when Joy actually
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: rolls Jesse over.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She notices that Jesse's pants are wet. And then
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: she sees the unmistakable deep ligature marks around her daughter's neck.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: So she had been strangled.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: The police are dispatched immediately, of course. Detective Richard Thickens
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: from the Hartford Police Department arrives and begins assessing the room.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And he immediately notes those ligature marks on the neck.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: He does.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: But he also spots something else. Faint binding marks on
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Jesse's wrists. She had been tied up.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Yet the most critical piece of evidence at this initial
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: stage is actually a negative one.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Well, it's the total absence of forced entry into the home.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Ah, right. Meaning the doors weren't kicked in.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The windows weren't smashed. The killer didn't pry their
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: way into this house.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Which eliminates the whole random home invasion gone wrong theory
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: almost entirely.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: It does. It points the investigation towards someone who either
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: had a key, was let in by Jessie herself, or
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: knew the family schedule so intimately that they knew exactly
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: when the house would be vulnerable. Right.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Because they knew Buck left early for work.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: They knew Joy would be at the office.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: And they knew Jessie would be alone, asleep, and probably
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: exhausted from the cast party the night before.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: But the detail that elevates this from a tragic murder
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: to something deeply psychologically disturbing... is what the killer did
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: after the murder.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this part is chilling. They didn't just flee.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: No, they stayed. Detective Thickens observes that Jesse's hair and
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: clothing are actually damp.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Which means what?
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: The evidence indicates the killer actually took the time to
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: wash her body, dress her, place her back into her bed,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: and pull the covers up over her.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: They recreated the scene.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They recreated the exact peaceful scene her mother had witnessed.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: At 8 a.m., Let's pause and really unpack the mechanics
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: of that decision.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Because from a behavioral analysis standpoint, why on earth would
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: you take that risk? You have just committed a loud, violent,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: messy crime.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Your adrenaline has to be pumping.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The natural human instinct, even for a hardened criminal,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: is self-preservation, which means running away as fast as possible.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: To stay, to draw a bath or use a shower,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to handle the body, dress it, and carefully tuck it in.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: That requires a terrifying amount of time and comfort in
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a crime scene.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: It speaks volumes about the offender's state of mind. You
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: are absolutely right about the instinct for flight.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: It's primal.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Right. A burglar who gets surprised and strikes out in
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: a panic, they just drop the weapon and sprint out
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: the back door. Yeah. Staging a body in this manner...
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you know, washing and tucking it in is often a
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: signature of a highly organized offender who is acting out
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: a specific premeditated fantasy.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't a panic move?
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Not at all. The washing act can actually serve a
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: dual purpose. Yes, it can be a forensic countermeasure, like
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: a crude attempt to wash away DNA or trace evidence.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Sure, that makes sense.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: But placing the victim back in bed, covering them up,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: that is an act of what profilers call Undoing.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Undoing, like they try and pretend it just didn't happen.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Now, it can stem from remorse in some
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: cases where the killer just can't stand to look at
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: the violence they've wrought.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: But in this case?
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: In organized predatory killers, it is almost always about total
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: psychological control.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: They want to control the aftermath.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Yes. They want to leave the scene exactly as they
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: envision it in their minds. They are treating the victim
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: not as a human being, but as a prop in
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: their own personal theater.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: That is sickening.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: It is. They want the final image to reflect their
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: absolute dominance over the entire situation.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: So Hartford PD knows immediately that they're dealing with an organized, comfortable,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: highly dangerous predator. Right. And right there, sitting in the bedroom,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: they find the diary.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: The one Jesse wrote in just hours earlier.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Yes. They open it up and they read an entry
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: detailing aggressive, inappropriate behavior by specific older men at a party.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is the brightest, loudest red flag imaginable
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: in a homicide investigation.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: It really is. Now, I want to explore how the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: police handle this, because the temptation for tunnel vision here
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: must be absolutely astronomical. Oh, definitely. If you watch any
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: procedural drama on TV, a victim documenting a confrontation with
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: a creepy guy hours before her death is the ultimate
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: smoking gun.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: The episode would be over right there.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The police go arrest the guy. And to compound
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the suspicion in this real-life case... The primary man mentioned
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: in the diary didn't even show up for work that
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Monday morning.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Wow. That looks incredibly suspicious.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: He is a total ghost on the exact morning she
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: is killed. So how does a detective look at that
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and not immediately decide they had their killer?
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It requires immense investigative discipline. I mean, confirmation bias is
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: the deadliest enemy of a detective.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Because you want the pieces to fit.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When you have a piece of evidence that perfectly
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: fits a narrative you're building... Your brain naturally wants to
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: ignore anything that contradicts it.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: The Hartford police absolutely focus on this older man at first.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: They bring him in for questioning. But the mechanics of
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: clearing a suspect are just as rigorous as the mechanics
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: of building a case against one.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: So what does that clearing process actually look like in practice?
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Well, it starts with the suspect's demeanor. This older man,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: he doesn't lawyer up. He doesn't deflect. He fully on
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: 100 percent cooperates.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Which is a good sign. It is.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: And the police don't just ask him where he was
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: and take his word for it. They demand verifiable corroborating proof.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Right. They need facts.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: They check his phone records for cell tower pings to
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: establish his physical location. They interview the people he claims
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: to have been with.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And they keep them separated, right?
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Yes. Keeping them separated so they can't coordinate their stories.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: They check receipt timestamps. Surveillance cameras on the routes he
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: claimed to travel.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Every single detail.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Every single alibi point is heavily stress tested.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: And he actually passes the stress test.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: He does.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: He skipped work, which looked terrible on paper, but his
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: alibi for the actual window of the murder is completely airtight.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: The police verify his whereabouts and they clear him.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: They clear the second man mentioned in the diary as well.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Which is really a testament to the Hartford PD's restraint.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: They didn't try to force a puzzle piece into the
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: wrong spot just to close a high-profile case quickly? No.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: They did the real work. But that restraint comes with
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: a heavy cost.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Because now they have nothing.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It leaves them at a total, agonizing dead end.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: They have a staged, horrific crime scene. They know the
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: killer likely had intimate knowledge of Jesse's routine.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: But their only tangible leads have just evaporated.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: They are completely stalled. But what Hartford PD doesn't realize
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: at this exact moment is that the killer had actually
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: made a massive, sloppy mistake just three days prior.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Not in Hartford, though.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Right, not in Hartford, but 12 miles away in the
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: neighboring town of Richfield.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: This is where the scope of the investigation fractures and
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: widens significantly.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Let's look at July 12th, which is three days before
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Jesse's final curtain call in the play. Okay. A young
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: woman named Melissa Etzler is out walking her dog in
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: a local Richfield park. It's just a beautiful, normal morning.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Nothing seems out of place.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: No. She is wrapping up her walk, heading back toward
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the parking lot, when she hears heavy footsteps accelerating behind her.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: But she doesn't assume she's being hunted, right?
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: No, because our brains just aren't wired to anticipate random
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: lethal violence on a sunny morning in a public park. Right.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: You think it's a jogger.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Exactly. She turns around completely relaxed and actually laughs. She says, oh,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: you scared me. Assuming it's just a friendly guy running past.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: But then she turns back around.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: She turns back around and the reality of the situation
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: just violently snaps into focus. The man isn't a jogger.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: He's armed.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: He is holding a fish fillet knife in his right hand. Yeah.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: And he lunges, tackling Melissa from behind.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: She hits the ground, stomach down, with this armed man
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: on top of her. But Melissa does not freeze.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: She fights back.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: She does not succumb to panic. Yes. She engages in
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: an absolute fight for her life. She is wrestling this man,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: reaching back, grabbing the blade of the Foley knife with
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: her bare hands.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: She grabs the blade.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, slicing her own fingers open in the process. But
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: she actually manages to wrench the weapon out of his grip.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: She disarms him.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: She does.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: And this is the moment where the interaction shifts from
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: a brutal physical assault to a deeply bizarre, chilling psychological exchange.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this part is so strange.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: The attacker, realizing the knife has been taken from him,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: doesn't panic. He just looks down at Melissa and says, nice.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Nice. Like she just sank a difficult putt on a
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: golf course or something.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: It's so casual.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Who reacts to a life or death struggle by complementing
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the victim's defensive technique?
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Someone who is completely, entirely detached from the gravity of
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: their own violence.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: He isn't viewing this as a human being fighting for survival.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: He is viewing it as a simulation, like a game
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: where he is just keeping score.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: He is emotionally insulated from it.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He's insulated from the reality of the terror he
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: is causing.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: But the simulation is breaking down for him. He tries
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: to wrestle the knife back. But Melissa is holding on tight.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: She tells him, No, you're going to go. I'm taking
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: this with me.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Good for her.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: And then the attacker says something even more absurd than nice.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: He literally asks her, can I just go?
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: He is asking for permission to flee the crime scene
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: he created. It's wild.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: It really is. And Melissa, who possesses just an incredible
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: presence of mind, despite bleeding and being pinned to the dirt,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: points out the ridiculousness of the question.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: What does she say?
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: She says, well, you're the one on top of me.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: What are you doing exactly?
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: The power dynamic has entirely inverted at this point. He
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: realizes his script has failed. He cannot regain control of
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the weapon, so he simply gets off of her and
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: runs away.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Melissa goes straight to the hospital to have the lacerations
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: on her hands treated. And this is where Washington County
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Detective Joel Clausing enters the narrative.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: He comes to the hospital.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he arrives to interview her while the adrenaline is
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: still coursing through her system. And he quickly realizes he
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: isn't just dealing with a brave survivor. He is dealing
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: with a once-in-a-career star witness.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: And to understand why Melissa's testimony was so extraordinary, we
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: have to look at the neurological phenomenon of what we
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: call weapon focus.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Weapon focus. What is that?
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Well, in highly traumatic, life-threatening situations, the human brain is
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: hijacked by the amygdala, which is our threat processing center.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: The brain literally narrows its processing power to focus entirely
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: on the source of the danger, the gun, the knife,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: whatever it is.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Because it wants you to survive.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So it sacrifices peripheral details like the attacker's facial features,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: eye color, or clothing pattern in order to survive the
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: immediate threat.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: That makes biological sense.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: It does. Most victims of armed assault struggle to provide
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: anything more than a vague description of the perpetrator.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: But Melissa somehow completely bypassed that neurological hijack.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: She did.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: She gives Detective Clausing a description that is surgical in
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: its precision. She tells him the attacker is a white male,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: 18 to 20 years old, 6 foot 2, roughly 210 pounds,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: with light blonde hair, very fair skin, and wearing checkered
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: or plaid shorts.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: That is an unbelievable level of detail.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: And she doesn't even stop at physical attributes. She mentally
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: mapped the environment during the attack.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: While fighting for her life. Yes.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: She tells Clausing exactly where the attacker was parked in
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the lot, and describes the vehicle perfectly. An older model,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: dark blue Dodge Caravan.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Wow. Clausing later said she was the absolute best witness
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: he had encountered in his entire career in law enforcement.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I can see why.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: And beyond the description, what Detective Clausing is looking at
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: here is a classic dry run.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Walk us through what a dry run actually entails in
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: criminal profiling, because we hear that term a lot. Right.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: A dry run is a major escalation point. When an
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: offender is moving from dark fantasies into reality, they rarely
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: start with a flawless, complex murder.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: They have to practice.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They test their boundaries. They test their methodology. This
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: attacker chose a specific secluded environment. He brought a specific weapon.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: The Philadelphia. Yes. Yeah.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: He practiced his approach, which was attacking from behind, to
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: rely on the element of surprise.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: But it didn't work.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Because it was a dry run, he lacked the operational
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: experience to adapt when things went wrong. When Melissa fought back,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: his fantasy script shattered and he aborted.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: But that's incredibly dangerous for the future.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Very. The chilling takeaway for law enforcement is that an
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: offender who attempts a dry run is almost guaranteed to
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: strike again.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Right, because they learn from their mistakes.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: They will learn from their failure, they will refine their approach,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: and the next time, they will not let the victim
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: gain the upper hand.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Which makes that Dodge Caravan description an absolute ticking clock.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: They have to find him fast.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: The Richfield police blast this composite sketch and the Eagle
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: description out to the media and to all surrounding law
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: enforcement agencies, just praying for a hit.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: And they get one, thanks to some incredible police work.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: They really do, through an amazing display of memory. By
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: a local deputy named Muir.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Deputy Muir sees the bulletin and he recalls a highly
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: specific memory from months prior.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Just from routine patrol.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He remembers being on patrol, driving through that exact
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: same park and spotting a dark blue minivan parked in
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: the exact spot Melissa described.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: He had found it slightly suspicious at the time, so
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: he had actually run the license plate.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: The mechanics of retrieving that information are just old school,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: gritty police work. He doesn't just punch a name into
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: a magical computer database.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: He has to dig for it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: He physically digs back through his own patrol logs, sifting
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: through hundreds of plates he had run over the past
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: few months, cross-referencing dates and vehicle types.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: That takes dedication.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: It does. And he finds the match. He hands Detective
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Clausing the license plate of the dark blue Dodge Caravan.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: So Clausing runs the plate through the DMV database. But initially,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: it feels like a dead end.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Because the vehicle isn't registered to a towering, blonde, 20-year-old kid.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: It has registered to a middle-aged married couple.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: But Clausing knows young men often drive their parents' cars.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: So they do the legwork, they contact the couple, and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the puzzle pieces just violently snap together.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: They finally find him.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: The couple confirms they have a 20-year-old son who drives
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: that van. He is roughly 6'1, 200 pounds, fair skin,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: blonde hair. His name is Dan Bartelt.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: The golden boy.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: The actor who has been faking his daily commute.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: It all connects.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: It does. So the parents give Detective Clausing Dan's cell
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: phone number. And as Clausing is driving away from the
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: parents' house, he decides to dial the number right then
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and there.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Now, to grasp the sheer psychopathic audacity of what happens next,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: we really have to put ourselves in the room where
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Dana's phone begins to ring.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Right. This is unfolding shortly after Jesse's murder. Her family
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: has organized a vigil.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Picture the Blafahet family living room. It is packed with mourners.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: You have Justy's parents, Buck and Joy, absolutely shattered by grief.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: You have her theater friends, her classmates.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: They are sitting in a circle, crying, holding on to
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: each other, sharing these beautiful, heartbreaking memories of this 19-year-old
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: girl whose future was just erased.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: And sitting right in the middle of this circle of grief,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: actively consoling the parents... is Dan Bartelt.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: It makes you sick to your stomach.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: He is physically absorbing the devastation he caused. He is
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: performing empathy on a microscopic level.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: It's an acting job.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: It is a terrifying display of his ability to detach
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: his actions from his emotions.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: So Dan phone rings. He sees it's a number he
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't recognize. He answers. It's Detective Clausing identifying himself as
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: law enforcement, saying they need to speak with him down
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: at the station.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Now, Monitor Dan's reaction here. Because he doesn't start sweating.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: He doesn't stammer. No. He doesn't frantically excuse himself to
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: take the call in private.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: She just casually says into the phone, oh, okay, I'll
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: be right over there.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Just like that.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Just like that. He hangs up, turns to the grieving
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: parents of the girl he just slaughtered, and calmly explains
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: that he has to go down to the police station
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: for a bit.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: But Detective Clausing, sitting in his car, immediately recognizes a
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: glaring anomaly in that phone call.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: What did he notice?
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: He turns to his partner, Detective Walsh, and points out
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: a massive red flag. Dan never asked what the phone
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: call was about.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Yeah. If a homicide detective calls you out
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: of nowhere and says, come to the station, we need
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: to talk, your blood pressure spikes.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Your immediate involuntary response is, am I in trouble? Did
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: something happen to my family? What is this regarding?
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. An innocent person demands context because unexpected police intervention
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: is inherently threatening.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: But a guilty person already knows the context. Yes.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Their entire cognitive focus is devoted to not appearing canicked.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Dan thought he was playing the role of the helpful,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: unbothered citizen perfectly.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: But he overplayed it.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: He didn't realize that his lack of curiosity was the
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: loudest admission of guilt.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: So Dan leaves the vigil, leaving Jesse's weeping parents behind,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and drives to the police station, fully believing... he is
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: going to out-act these detectives.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: But he is walking right into a trap.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Because he doesn't realize the detectives are operating on a
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: completely separate track.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Right. And this brings us to the interrogation room, which
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: just serves as a master class in psychological leverage.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Dan sits down with Detective Clausing and Detective Walsh. And
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: the detectives are playing their cards incredibly close.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: To the vest. They don't show their hand.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Not at all. They are only there to question him
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: about the park assault on Melissa. They have not mentioned
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Jesse Blahat at all.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: They don't even know officially that Dan is connected to
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: her murder yet.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Clausing starts with standard rapport building. He keeps his
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: tone conversational, unthreatening. He asks Dan casually where he was
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: when they called him on a cell phone.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: And Dan answers truthfully about his location. But he spins
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: it to show his proximity to the tragedy.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: To play the sympathetic friend.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Right. He says, I was at a house in Hartford.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: The girl that just passed. Yeah, we were visiting her.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: And Clausing leans into this perfectly. He acts like a
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: curious local just gossiping about a town tragedy.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: He plays along.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He says, oh man, that's terrible. Whatever happened with her?
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: And right there, less than two minutes into the interview,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Dan Bartelt makes a fatal, unforced error.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: He completely slips up.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: He looks at the detectives playing the role of the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: sympathetic friend and says, I think she was raped and murdered.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: That single sentence irrevocably changed the trajectory of both of
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: these investigations.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Wait, let's look at the timeline of evidence here. If
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: he says raped and murdered. Hmm. He just put himself
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: in that bedroom.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: He did.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: He just confessed without realizing it.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Precisely. At that exact moment in time, the Hartford police
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: had absolutely zero indication of a sexual assault.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: The public didn't know.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Nobody knew. The preliminary crime scene analysis only showed ligature
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: marks and faint binding on the wrists. The medical examiner
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: had not completed the autopsy yet.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't public knowledge at all.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: The concept of sexual assault wasn't even police knowledge. There
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: was only one human being on the planet who knew
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: that Jesse Blahat had been sexually assaulted before she was strangled.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: The man who did it.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: The M thought he was tossing out a sympathetic theory,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: maybe trying to fan the flames of the creepy older
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: men at the party, rumor to deflect suspicion off himself.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: But instead, he handed the detectives the murder weapon on
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: a silver platter.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: But the brilliance of Clausing and Walsh is that they
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: don't react.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: You don't flinch.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: They don't slam their hands on the table and yell, gotcha.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: They just let the comment evaporate into the air, and
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: they calmly pivot back to the reason they brought him in.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: The Richfield Park assault.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And as they are talking, Clausing hones in on Dan's hands.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: What does he see?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: He notices a fresh puncture wound on Dan's thumb, a
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: cut that perfectly aligns with Melissa's account of a man
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: wrestling for a fish fillet knife and having it ripped
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: from his grip.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: And Clausing asks him about the cut. Right.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: And this is where the beach ball slips out from
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: under the water.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: The facade crumbles.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: The intricate web of lies Dan has been living starts
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: to collapse in real time. Dan first claims he cut
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: his thumb on a stray screw while at work.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: But the detectives, they've already done their homework.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: They know he dropped out of college. They know he
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: doesn't have a job.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: So Clausing calls his bluff very calmly. He asks, if
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: we call your employer right now, are they going to
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: confirm that you were at work and cut your hand
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: on a screw?
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Dan's brain just misfires. He realizes the lie is verifiable
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: and false, so he immediately pivots to a new one.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: What does he say?
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: He stammers and says, oh, actually, I was cooking at
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: home and I slipped and cut my finger on a knife.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: And clausing seizes the opening. He uses a classic interrogation technique.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: He doesn't yell. He actually lowers his voice.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: He leans in.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: He leans in and says, let's talk. He points out
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the absurdity of the pivot. He tells Dan that nobody
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: in their right mind lies to the police about cutting
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: themselves on a kitchen knife if it was truly an
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: innocent accident.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: He corners him with his own deception.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And Dan breaks. He puts his head down, he starts
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: making the sounds of crying, and he confesses to attacking
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Melissa in the park.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: But we really have to analyze the specific motive he
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: offers for this attack because it is deeply revealing of
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: his pathology.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Right, because he doesn't say he did it for money
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: or because he was angry.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: No, he offers this bizarre, pseudo-philosophical justification.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: He tells the detectives that ever since he dropped out
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: of college, he felt frightened of life. He felt this
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: deep existential dread. And he says, I just wanted someone
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: else to feel the same. I scared someone.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: It is entirely theatrical. It is.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: This is a common tactic in the Reed technique of interrogation,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: offering the suspect a socially acceptable or sympathetic excuse for
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: their crime to lower the barrier to a confession.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: So Dan is trying to manipulate him, even while confessing. Yes.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Dan thinks he is generating this narrative himself.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: He is attempting to control the damage. He is confessing
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: to a lesser crime aggravated assault using an excuse of
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: existential angst, hoping the police will view him as a
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: troubled lost kid rather than a predator.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: He thinks that by giving them this confession, they will
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: close the book, stop digging and let him go back
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: to his life.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: But he has no idea that he just permanently locked
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: himself in the crosshairs of a homicide investigation.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: He is booked into jail for the assault on Melissa. Meanwhile,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: The Hartford police, armed with that devastating slip-up about the
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: sexual assault, turn their full, undivided attention to Dan Bartelt.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: And when they start tearing into his life, they uncover
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: a mountain of evidence that completely obliterates that golden boy
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: persona forever.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: They execute a search warrant on his home and his electronics.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: They start by pulling his digital footprint.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Which is always revealing.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. Forensic data recovery is incredibly thorough. Deleting your
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: browser history does nothing. They pull the cash, and what
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: they find is a terrifying descent into his psychological preparations.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: He wasn't just casually browsing the internet. He was conducting
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: deep systemic searches on Wikipedia and search engines for spree
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: killers and serial killers.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: He was studying them?
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: He was actively studying their methodologies.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: But the digital forensics reveal something much darker than that.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Investigators uncover a vast cache of bondage pornography, and specifically,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: targeted searches for pornographic snuff films.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: And the content of those searches is the crucial link.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: It connects the digital ether to the physical reality of
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Jesse's bedroom.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Because of the staging. Yes.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: The specific parameters of his searches perfectly mirrored the staging
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: of Jesse's body. He was actively seeking out material that
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: depicted a victim being strangled and then explicitly being washed
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: by the perpetrator afterward.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: It's sickening.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: This proves that the washing of Jesse's body wasn't a
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: panicked afterthought or a clumsy attempt to hide evidence. It
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: was the physical enactment of a highly specific, cultivated dark fantasy.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: When detectives confront Dan with this digital evidence, his narcissism
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: flares up again. He tries to intellectualize his way out
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: He tries to explain it away.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he tells him, oh, I was just doing research.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I'm writing a story.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: And the detail that turns your stomach is what he
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: names the character.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Right. He claims the story is about a young girl
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: who gets murdered. And he literally named the fictional main
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: character Jessica.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate sociopathic arrogance. He believes he is
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: so much smarter than the detectives that he can explain
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: away forensic-level digital premeditation by claiming it is character research,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: mocking them by using his actual victim's name.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: But the digital trail is just the preamble. Dan had
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: attempted to build an alibi for the morning of Jesse's murder.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Right, his fake job routine.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He told the police that during the time Jesse
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: was killed, he was doing his usual routine, driving around
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: in his parents' van, pretending to be at work. He
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: claimed he spent the entire morning parked at Woodland Park.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: And this is where physical surveillance comes into play. The
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: police don't just take his word for it.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: They pull the tape.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: They pull the CCTV footage from Woodland Park. And sure enough,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: there is Dan on tape wearing red shorts, proving he
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: was physically at the park that morning.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Dan probably thought this footage was his airtight salvation.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: But the police don't just verify the tape and walk away.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: They go to Woodland Park. They walk the grounds. They
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: meticulously search the public trash bins.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And buried in one of those bins, they find an
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: empty cereal box.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: And inside that mundane cereal box is a fully assembled
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: murder kit.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: They pull out a ball gag, they pull out alcohol wipes,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: they pull out ligatures, and a very specific type of rope.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: And the Chimelab analyzes the rope found in the trash bin,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: and it is a perfect forensic match to the distinct
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: ligature marks left on Jesse's neck.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: And the physical links just keep multiplying. Police execute a
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: search warrant on Dan's house, and in his garage, they
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: find a spool of that exact same rope.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: But the piece of evidence that truly seals the timeline
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: of horror involves a roll of heating duct tape.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Explain the duct tape.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: During the dry run assault on Melissa Etzler when Dan
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: was wrestling for the knife, a roll of silver heating
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: duct tape fell out of his pocket and was left
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: at the scene. When police searched Dan's house, they found
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: tape matching that exact roll.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Which links him firmly to the park assault. But a
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: full week after Jesse's murder, the Hartford investigators go back
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: to Jesse's bedroom for a secondary exhaustive sweep.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: They are looking for anything they might have missed in
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: the initial chaos.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Right. And shoved deep under Jesse's bed, they find that
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: exact same type of heating duct tape.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: And the crime lab lifts latent fingerprints off the sticky
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: side of that tape found under Jesse's bed.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: And they match.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: The prints are a perfect match to Dan Bartelt.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: When you combine the tape, the faint binding marks on
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: her wrists, and the ball gag from the murder kit,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: it paints a devastating picture of her final moments.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: It destroys any narrative of a quick, impulsive crime of passion.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: It reveals a prolonged, methodical act of torture and absolute control.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: It's horrific.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: He hogtied her. He forced the ball gag into her
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: mouth to silence her screams. And he used that heating
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: duct tape to wrap around her head to secure the
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: gag so she couldn't push it out. He wanted her
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: completely helpless, terrified, and entirely at his mercy.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: And then the undeniable science of DNA arrives to completely
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: close the trap.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: The final nail in the coffin.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: The crime lab confirms Dan's blood and DNA are on
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: the ligatures. Most powerfully, his DNA is found under Jesse's fingernails.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: She fought him.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: She did. Just like she promised herself in her diary
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: hours earlier, she confronted the threat without fear.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: She fought back as hard as she could.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: And tragically, the DNA analysis confirmed the sexual assault, proving
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: that his sympathetic guest in the interrogation room was actually
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: a confession of his own actions.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: The evidence is just a sheer cliff face at this point.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Dan the chameleon had completely run out of colors to
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: hide behind.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: He is charged with first-degree intentional homicide. And this brings
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: us to the final, most profound segment of this deep dive,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the trial.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: The courtroom is where everything comes to a head.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: We move from the sterile analysis of a crime scene
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: to a courtroom where we are going to witness the
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: absolute starkest contrast of human nature you can possibly imagine.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Given the overwhelming convergence of digital forensics, physical evidence, CCTV footage,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: and DNA, the trial's outcome is a foregone conclusion.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Dan Bartelt is found guilty and is sentenced to life
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: in prison with absolutely no chance of parole.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: But before the gavel falls, the judge offers Dan the
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: standard opportunity to address the court.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: This is the moment where the killer usually turns to
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: the gallery, right?
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. It's all's the moment to look at Buck and Joy,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: the parents who welcomed him into their home, the parents
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: he hugged at the vigil, and offer some shred of humanity.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: An apology, a plea for forgiveness, or even just an
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: acknowledgement of the reality of what he did.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: But Dan refuses to break character. Instead of humanity, he
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: delivers a bizarre, deeply narcissistic monologue. That attempts to rewrite
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: reality one last time.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: He stands up in his prison uniform, looks around the
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: courtroom and says, these shackles that I'm put in don't
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: make me guilty. I can't prove that I'm innocent to anyone,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: not even myself. I can't prove that son that I
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: haven't seen for over 400 days still even rises and sets.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: And then he addresses the judge directly.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: He looks directly at the judge who just handed down
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: his life sentence and says, I pity you.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: If you deconstruct the verdiage of that speech, you see
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: the absolute pinnacle of malignant narcissism.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: He sounds completely unhinged.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: He is speaking in philosophical whittles, questioning if the sun
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: even exists because he hasn't seen it. He is centering
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: the entire universe on his own perception.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: He's not talking to the victims at all.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: No, he isn't speaking to the grieving parents. He is
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: delivering a soliloquy for an audience of one himself.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: He's still performing.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: He is desperately trying to maintain his theatrical dominance, asserting
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: that his internal reality is superior to the physical evidence
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: and the court's judgment. He wants to leave the room confused, defiant,
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: and shrouded in his own manufactured mystery.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: He wants to retain control. But he doesn't get the
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: last word. Because Jesse's father, Buck Blahat, stands up to
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: give his victim impact statement.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: This part is so powerful.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Put yourself in Buck's shoes for a second. The man
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: standing across from you is the monster who brutally tortured
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and murdered your only child and then had the gall
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: to come to your living room and hold you while
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: you cried.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: The human expectation here is visceral rage.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: It is. You expect a father to unleash every ounce
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: of fury, hatred, and venom he possesses.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: And it would be entirely justified. Society expects and understands
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: that rage. It is the natural neurological response to having
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: your world violently destroyed.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: But Buck doesn't do that. Buck looks directly at Dan
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Bartelt and he speaks with a quiet, unimaginable strength.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: What does he say?
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: He says, I forgive you as I have every single
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: day since we found out it was you. I believe
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: there's good and bad in every one of us, so
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I don't demonize or vilify you.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: It is a breathtaking choice.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: And Buck is careful to explain that he isn't living
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: in denial. He acknowledges the crushing weight of the pain
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: and the anger. But he says that stronger than all
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: of that darkness is an unexplainable, resolute peace And a
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: conscious choice to forgive.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Look at the mechanics of what Buck achieves in that moment, too.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: It's incredible.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Dan's entire goal from the murder to the staging to
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: the narcissistic speech was to inject fear, darkness, and chaos
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: into the world. He wanted to be the architect of
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: a nightmare.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: He wanted to own the Blah family's trauma forever.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And with a single sentence, Buck completely severs Dan's control.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: By weaponizing radical love, Buck... neutralizes the sociopath.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: He takes away his power entirely.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: He looks at Dan and essentially says, you took my daughter,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: but you do not get to dictate the architecture of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: my soul. You do not get to turn me into
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: a monster too.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: And Buck doesn't just leave that forgiveness in the courtroom
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: as an abstract concept. He operationalizes it.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: He turns it into action.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. To honor Jesse's vibrant spirit, her intelligence, and her
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: fierce activism, Buck founds a nonprofit organization called the Love
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: is Greater Than Hate Project.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: What a beautiful legacy.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: The dual mission is to actively work to end violence
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: against women and girls and to inspire people in their
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: daily lives to consciously choose love, empathy, and community over
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: hatred and isolation.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: It is the ultimate tangible triumph over evil. Dan is
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: locked away in a concrete box pretending the sun doesn't
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: exist while Jessie's family is out in the world literally
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: generating light in her name.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Which brings up a final provocative thought that I think
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: we all need to mull over as we wrap up.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: In the true crime space, in psychology, and in the media,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: we spend an inordinate amount of time fascinated by the
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: dark pathology of people like Dan Bartelt.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: We really do.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: We endlessly study the chameleons who can hide in plain sight,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: dissecting their sociopathy and their deceit. But perhaps we are
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: looking in the wrong direction.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Perhaps the true anomaly... The real profound mystery of the
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: human mind that we should be dedicating our time to
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: studying is Buckbladet.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: How does the human heart generate that level of grace
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: in the face of absolute unadulterated evil?
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly that. We can map out the cognitive failures that
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: create a killer. We understand narcissism. We understand compartmentalization.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: The psychology is pretty well documented.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: But mapping out the architecture of radical forgiveness, understanding how
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: a grieving father can look at his daughter's killer and
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: choose grace over vengeance... That is a profound, miraculous mystery
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: that defies standard psychology.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: It truly does. At the start of this deep dive,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: we asked you to imagine the sheer terror of a
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: trusted friend hiding a lethal agenda.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: And that darkness is very real and terrifying.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: But the response from Buck Blackhead and his family proves
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: that an even more powerful, enduring force exists in the
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: human spirit. Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Stay curious, stay aware, and remember that even when confronted
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: with the unthinkable, sometimes love truly is greater than hate.