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Teacher Brutally Murdered After Partying at Florida Bar · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know, if a stranger were to like attack you
• 0:03
  on the street tonight, the legal system would basically hunt
• 0:05
  them to the ends of the year. Oh.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, we have an entire societal framework built around that.
• 0:11
  You know, that terrifying concept of the boogeyman in the dark.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Alley, right, exactly. But statistically, the most dangerous place for
• 0:17
  a woman isn't a dark alley at all. I mean
• 0:20
  it's her own living.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Room, yeah, which is a horrific reality. And the most
• 0:24
  dangerous person is often the one claiming.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: To protect her, Which brings us to today. We are
• 0:29
  looking at a case where a man's alibi was built
• 0:33
  almost entirely on our society's like blind spots regarding domestic violence, right, and.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: How the justice system really struggles to define the difference
• 0:41
  between just a tragedy and a calculated execution. Yeah.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: So I want to put you right in the scene.
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  It is a warm, incredibly quiet night in May. You
• 0:52
  are in Lithia, Florida, just.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: A classic quiet suburb exactly.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: This is the kind of manicured neighborhood where the loudest
• 0:58
  thing usually hear is like pool pump or maybe some
• 1:01
  sprinklers kicking on at midnight.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: But on this particular night, that piece is absolutely shattered
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  by a frantic nine to one one call.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, a neighbor is on the line, and they're just terrified.
• 1:12
  They are struggling to even articulate what they are looking
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  at in their yard.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Because they found someone bleeding, heavily, suffering from a massive
• 1:21
  catastrophic laceration to the neck.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It's awful, and in the sheer chaos and the darkness,
• 1:27
  the neighbor initially tells dispatch they think it's a teenager.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Right, which is a detail that tells us so much
• 1:33
  about the psychological impact of violent crime scenes on the
• 1:36
  human brain.
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  Speaker 1: Wait, really, how so well, when.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: A civilian encounters a trauma of that magnitude right in
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  their own sideyard, the brain just struggles to process the
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  visual information like it just short circuits, exactly. It attempts
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  to categorize the horror into something anything that makes narrative sense.
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  The disorientation is absolute.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So they're trying to make sense of the senseless.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the neighbor's brain couldn't reconcile the brutality of the
• 2:01
  wound with the peaceful suburban setting, leading to that initial misidentification.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't a teenager. When first responders arrive an
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  attempt emergency aid, the reality sets in.
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  Speaker 2: It was Kaker.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was a third grade teacher. She was a
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  mother of two young boys.
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  Speaker 2: And the wound was so brutal, so severe that the
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  first responding officers noted it was in near decapitation.
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  Speaker 1: It's just staggering. She is pronounced deceased right there on
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  the grass under the Florida night sky. So welcome to
• 2:30
  the deep dive.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Glad to be here.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Our mission today is to deconstruct this harrowing case of
• 2:36
  domestic violence and murder.
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  Speaker 2: We are pulling from a massive stack of sources for
• 2:39
  this one, right.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Court transcripts, investigative reports from the law crime network,
• 2:44
  forensic analyzes.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: All to understand how investigators used everything from ancient biological
• 2:51
  tracking to cutting edge thermal technology to unravel a killer's alibix.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because to understand how we eventually
• 2:59
  arrive at a we have to start in the absolute
• 3:02
  adrenaline fueled chaos of that quiet Florida yard.
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  Speaker 2: And we need to look at this not just as
• 3:07
  a procedural crime scene, but as a behavioral blueprint.
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  Speaker 1: Right, because there's a lot of physical evidence, but there's
• 3:13
  more to it exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we are going to explore incredible forensic tracking in
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  the pitch black, and we will get into the intricate
• 3:23
  courtroom strategy.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: The legal chess game.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but the core of this deep dies is the
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  psychology of violence. We have to examine the tragedy of
• 3:30
  ignored red.
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  Speaker 1: Flags and the deeply cyclical nature.
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  Speaker 2: Of abuse, absolutely, and the terrifying reality of how seemingly
• 3:40
  minor controlling behaviors can escalate into fatal encounters.
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  Speaker 1: Because if we just focus on the police work and
• 3:47
  ignore the psychological mechanisms, we miss the human tragedy that
• 3:51
  could have been prevented. So I want to put you
• 3:54
  in the boots of those first responding deputies for a moment.
• 3:57
  You arrive at this nice, quiet neighborhood with your life flashing, and.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: You find a deceased female with extreme deliberate trauma in
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  a side.
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  Speaker 1: Yard, and initially you don't know who she is, You
• 4:08
  don't know who did this.
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  Speaker 2: You have no idea if the killer is currently hiding
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  in the bushes ten feet away, or if.
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  Speaker 1: They've moved on to another house to continue a rampage,
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  you know.
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  Speaker 2: Right, So the immediate priority before you even think about
• 4:19
  pulling out yellow crime scene tape or taking photos is
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  a protective sweep.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they track the initial signs of a disturbance to
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  the house one door down, which turns out to be
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  k Baker's home.
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  Speaker 2: Let's break down the mechanics of a protective sweep because
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  it is a highly specialized, incredibly dangerous tactical maneuver.
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  Speaker 1: Right, It's not just walking in and looking around.
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  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that law enforcement protocol dictates that
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  when you have an unknown, highly lethal threat, you prioritize
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  life's safety over evidence preservation.
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  Speaker 1: Because they realize the violence likely originated from this specific house.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, they don't know if there are other victims inside
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  bleeding out, or if the suspect is barricaded in a
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  back bedroom with a.
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  Speaker 1: Firearm waiting to ambush anyone who walks through the door.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Right, the officers have to transition instantly from providing medical
• 5:08
  aid in the yard to conducting close quarters battle or
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  CQB clearing tactics.
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  Speaker 1: And the scene they find when they approach her house
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  is just baffling. I was reading the reports and I
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  kept thinking of it as a locked room mystery turned
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  completely inside out.
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  Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy.
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  Speaker 1: Because usually, you know, a crime happens in a room,
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  the door is locked and the perpetrator vantages. But here
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  the violence clearly started inside but violently spilled out of the.
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  Speaker 2: House, leaving behind this incredibly confusing contradictory trail of physical evidence.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they find the front door partially cracked open, but
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  then they go around the side of the house to
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  check the perimeter before entering.
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  Speaker 2: And an exterior window is left wide open.
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  Speaker 1: Right, and the window screen has been physically pushed out
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  onto the ground from the inside.
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  Speaker 2: Which completely scrambles the spatial logic of the scene for
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  the officers. I mean, they're looking at multiple points of.
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  Speaker 1: Entry and exit, and they have to go in.
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  Speaker 2: When they make entry to clear that house. They are
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  dealing with fatal funnels.
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  Speaker 1: Fatal funnels, what exactly is that?
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  Speaker 2: A fatal funnel is any narrow space like a doorway
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  or a hallway, where an officer has no cover and
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  is perfectly silhouetted to anyone waiting in the dark.
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  Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's terrifying.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they are clearing the house room by room, master, bedroom, clear,
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  master bath clear. The tension in those moments is indescribable.
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  Speaker 1: Because every single shadow is a potential fight for your
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  life exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Then they move deeper into the home, toward the hallway
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  where the children's bedrooms are located.
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  Speaker 1: And I want to note right here, thank god the
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  kids were not in the house.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, thankfully, we.
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  Speaker 1: Find out later they were safely located twenty miles away
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  in Apollo Beach with K's estranged husband, Kevin.
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  Speaker 2: And just to close that loop, police woke them up
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  in the middle of the night, checked his alibi and
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  he was completely cleared as a suspect almost immediately.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. But the police standing in that dark hallway,
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  they don't know any of that yet. They look at
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  the bathroom door in that kid's hallway and the doorframe
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  is completely kicked.
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  Speaker 2: In, the wood is splintered, and the forensic pathology of
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  a damaged door tells a very specific, terrifying story about
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  the kinetics of the attack.
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  Speaker 1: Like, how, so, what does a kicked in door actually
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  tell them?
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  Speaker 2: Well, in a domestic violence homicide, a kicked in doorframe
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  generally points to one of two distinct behavioral scenarios. Okay,
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  the first and most common is that the victim was
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  fleeing in sheer terror, attempted to barricade themselves in a
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  confined space like a bathroom.
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  Speaker 1: And the attacker just smashed through it exactly.
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  Speaker 2: The attacker utilized blunt force kicking or shouldering the door
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  to breach the barricade and continue the assault.
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  Speaker 1: God, that's horrific. And the second scenario, the.
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  Speaker 2: Second scenario, which is less common but highly relevant in
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  chaotic struggles, is that the attacker themselves became lockdown. Wait
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  really yeah, or they were trying to force their way
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  through a secondary barrier to cut off an escape route.
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  Speaker 1: And it gets even more complex. They move past that
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  broken bathroom door down the hall to the second kid's bedroom,
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  and they find that door is locked.
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  Speaker 2: From the inside, so they can't get in, right, So.
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  Speaker 1: The police have to physically kick that bedroom door open
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  to ensure no one is bleeding out inside.
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  Speaker 2: And when they breach the room.
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  Speaker 1: That bedroom is the exact room where the window is
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  open and the screen was pushed out onto the lawn.
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  Speaker 2: It's total chaos.
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  Speaker 1: I look at all this and I have to ask you,
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  how do investigators even prioritize their focus when a scene
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  is this chaotic and widespread? You have drying women in
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  the yard, a cracked front door, a kicked in bathroom door,
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  and a pushed out screen and a locked bedroom.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you don't try to construct the narrative yet. That
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  is the crucial discipline of crime scene management.
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  Speaker 1: You just deal with the immediate threat exactly.
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  Speaker 2: You rely on extreme compartmentalization. You divine the chaos into rigid,
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  actionable categories. The absolute primary focus is life.
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  Speaker 1: Safety, which is the only reason they kicked that bedroom
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  door in.
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  Speaker 2: Right, they're operating on the Odier loop. Observe, orient, decide act.
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  Once they swept every corner and confirmed the house was
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  a cold.
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  Speaker 1: Zone, meaning no other victims requiring triage and no suspect
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  waiting in ambers.
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  Speaker 2: Correct, then the operational priority shifts entirely. The interior scene
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  is secured. It will be frozen and processed by forensic technicians.
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  Speaker 1: For days, But the priority for the patrolled deputies pivots
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  to apprehension.
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  Speaker 2: Because the killer is mobile, and that brings us to
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  the blood trail.
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  Speaker 1: Right, whoever committed this murder didn't walk away clean. I
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  mean the sheer brutality of the attack meant there was
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  arterial spray and cast off blood.
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  Speaker 2: The perpetrator was leaving fresh drops of blood, moving through the.
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  Speaker 1: Backyards, heading away from the manicured lawns and toward a dense,
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  brushy wooded area behind the neighborhood. And it is pitch
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  black out there.
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  Speaker 2: The police are out there with their flashlights, sweeping the
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  beams across the grass and the dirt illuminating these fresh
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  crimson and drops.
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  Speaker 1: They realize they have a hot trail, and this is
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  where the investigation transitions from a static crime scene to
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  an active hunt in the woods.
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  Speaker 2: And if you want to conduct an active hunt in
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  heavy brush in the pitch black, you have to immediately
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  strip away the human reliance on.
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  Speaker 1: Vision because it's useless.
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  Speaker 2: Human eyes are virtually useless in that environment. The suspect
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  could be lying entirely still under a bush two feet
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  away and a flashlight beam might sweep right past them.
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  Speaker 1: So you have to bring in the specialists who interpret
• 10:30
  the world through entirely different sensory inputs. I want to
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  really dig into how they track him here, because it
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  is fascinating. They bring in the canine unit. Specifically, they
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  deploy a bloodhound named Champ, a very.
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  Speaker 2: Good boy with a very specific job.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And the moment they bring Champ to the edge
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  of the road where the blood trail leads into the
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  tree line, he picks up the scent immediately.
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  Speaker 2: In the bodycam footage, you hear the handlers calling out,
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  you know, whoa, whoa right here, a lot of blood
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  right here on the side of the tree.
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  Speaker 1: I've read a bit about this, and it seems like
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  canin olfaction isn't just about smelling blood. It's about picking
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  up the microscopic skin cells, the skin rafts that we
• 11:12
  shed thousands of times a minute.
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  Speaker 2: Right, That is a great way to put it. We
• 11:15
  drastically underestimate the mechanics of canon olfaction. A bloodhound like
• 11:19
  Champ is a macrosmatic mammal.
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  Speaker 1: Meaning his brain is highly specialized for smelling.
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  Speaker 2: Highly specialized for processing olfactory data. He has roughly three
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  hundred million olfactory receptors compared to our six million. When
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  he is tracking in those dark woods, he isn't hunting
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  by sight at all. The anatomical structure of his head,
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  the long drooping ears, literally sweeps the ground like a
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  broom kinda. Yeah, it kicks up those microscopic skin rafts
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  and volatile organic compounds into his nasal cavity. Furthermore, a
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  dog's nose has a distinct feature called an olfactory cleft.
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  Speaker 1: What does that do?
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  Speaker 2: When they exhale, the air goes out the side slits
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  of their nose, which actually helps pull more new scent
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  into the front of the nose.
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  Speaker 1: That's incredible. So Champ is pulling in the specific chemical
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  signature of evaporating blood and human stress hormones.
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  Speaker 2: And because it is the middle of the night, the
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  air is cooling, which means the scent isn't evaporating up
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  into the sun. It's sinking exactly. It is sinking and
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  pooling in the depressions of the earth. Champ is painting
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  a vivid, three dimensional topographical map of those woods entirely
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  through scent. The darkness is completely irrelevant to him.
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  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, while Champ is working the ground game, the Sheriff's
• 12:32
  Office aviation unit is working the sky. You have helicopters
• 12:35
  circling overhead.
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  Speaker 2: And they aren't just relying on those massive searchlights to
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  penetrate the tree canopy.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Right, they are utilizing FLR forward looking infrared. They're looking
• 12:45
  for a thermal signature. Now I understand the basic concept
• 12:48
  of thermal cameras, But how does that actually work through
• 12:52
  a dense Florida forest canopy? A good question because leaves
• 12:56
  and branches block light, so wouldn't they block thermal radiation too.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: That is an excellent point regarding the limitations of the technology.
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  FIR doesn't magically see through solid objects like X ray vision.
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  It detects the emission of infrared energy, which we perceive
• 13:12
  as heat. Every object has a property called immissivity, how
• 13:16
  effectively it emits thermal energy.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so trees and dirt emit heat differently than a
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  person exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Trees, dirt, and rocks absorb ambient heat during the day
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  and slowly release it at night. But a human body
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  is a biological furnace, constantly regulating itself to ninety eight
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  point six degrees fahrenheit.
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  Speaker 1: Ah. So there's a contrast, a massive one.
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  Speaker 2: In the middle of the night, the ground and the
• 13:39
  vegetation drop in temperature, creating a high thermal contrast. The
• 13:44
  FIR camera detects those exact temperature differences.
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  Speaker 1: But what about the trees blocking the view?
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  Speaker 2: Well, if thick canopy does block the infrared radiation, a
• 13:53
  forest is rarely a solid, unbroken roof. There are gaps
• 13:57
  between the branches. The helicopter pilot is gorbiting, constantly changing
• 14:01
  the angle of observation, looking down through those tiny gaps. Oh,
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  I see what they are looking for. Is called thermal bleed,
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  a stark, white hot glow of human body heat shining
• 14:12
  through the cool, dark gray background of the vegetation, and.
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  Speaker 1: That technique works perfectly here. The helicopter pilot radios down
• 14:19
  to the deputies on the ground and says, I've definitely
• 14:21
  got a little hot spot down in there. I just
• 14:23
  can't tell what it is.
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  Speaker 2: The brush is so thick he can't get a clear outline,
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  but the thermal contract is undeniable.
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  Speaker 1: He directs the deputies, telling them the hot spot is
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  roughly ten feet in front of them. It's now around
• 14:34
  five or six in the morning, and this is where
• 14:36
  the police tactics undergo a sudden dramatic shift.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Because Champ the bloodhound is a tracking dog. He is
• 14:44
  designed to follow a scent and locate the source. He's
• 14:47
  not designed to fight.
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  Speaker 1: So once the aviation unit confirms there's a thermal hot
• 14:51
  spot right in front of the deputies, they pull Champ
• 14:54
  off the.
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  Speaker 2: Line and they bring in a completely different asset. They
• 14:57
  bring in the apprehension trained canines. Wow, okay, this is
• 15:00
  a massive escalation on the force continuum. Apprehension canines typically
• 15:05
  build in Melanoy or German shepherds are trained in specific
• 15:09
  bite mechanics and suspect control.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: So these dogs are basically there to take someone down.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, they're deployed when a suspect is deemed a high
• 15:17
  level threat who may fight or flee. The deputies are
• 15:20
  screaming into the dark woods, shareffs soft as if you're
• 15:23
  in the woods, make yourself known. Dog's going to bite you.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: They have to give that warning legally, right, correct.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: They are providing the legally required warning before deploying a
• 15:31
  potentially lethal biological weapon. The tension is at an absolute.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Maximum because these deputies know the person hiding in that
• 15:38
  brush just committed a near decapitation.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: They must operate under the assumption that he is still
• 15:43
  armed with the murder weapon and that he is fully
• 15:46
  prepared to ambush them to escape.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So they push through the brush and they finally close
• 15:50
  in on the hot spot. They find a white male
• 15:52
  lying down in the thick vegetation. It is Matthew Terry,
• 15:56
  kay Baker's live in boyfriend.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: But when they get to him, the situation takes a bizarre,
• 16:02
  unexpected turn.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he isn't fighting, he's blinking slowly. He is lethargic
• 16:08
  and slow to respond to commands.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: And when they manage to turn him over to secure
• 16:12
  his hands in cuffs, they realize he is bleeding heavily.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: The deputies start calling out injuries to each other in
• 16:18
  the chaotic lighting. They initially think he has a massive
• 16:21
  laceration on his back.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: But when they get a focused flashlight beam on him,
• 16:25
  the reality is much more disturbing.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Matthew Terry has two massive lacerations to his neck, one
• 16:30
  on the left jugular area and one on the right, which.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Instantly forces the officers to execute a massive cognitive pivot.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: That is exactly what I wanted to ask you about.
• 16:39
  I watched the bodycam video and it is jarring. You
• 16:41
  have these officers who's adrenaline is maxed out.
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  Speaker 2: They are hunting a brutal killer in the dark, weapons drawn, anticipating.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: A life or death struggle, and when they suddenly find
• 16:52
  the primary suspect leading out from double jugular wounds, how
• 16:56
  do they mentally switch gears from we need to apprehend
• 17:00
  a murderer to we need to save this man's life.
• 17:04
  How does that duty of care actually function in the field.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: It requires an intense level of psychological discipline, which is
• 17:10
  drilled into them during trauma training. The moment a suspect
• 17:14
  is placed in handcuffs, the legal doctrine.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Changes, meaning they're responsible for him now exactly.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: The suspect is now in the custody of the state,
• 17:22
  and the state assumes the absolute duty of care for
• 17:25
  their well being. The threat level has been neutralized by
• 17:28
  the restraints.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: You can actually hear the precise moment that pivot happens
• 17:31
  in the bodycam audio.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: They transition instantly from screaming tactical commands with firearms leveled
• 17:38
  to a totally different tone of voice.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: An officer says, buddy, what's your name? Listen, we got
• 17:41
  ems coming, but we got to get you a little
• 17:43
  bit closer to the ambulance.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: It's a remarkable display of compartmentalization. Even if every instinct
• 17:49
  tells them this man just slaughtered an innocent mother, their
• 17:53
  legal and ethical mandate in that specific second is medical preservation.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: But shifting to the investment gateive side, finding him with
• 18:01
  those specific severe neck injuries. Introduces a massive complication, doesn't it.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, It hands Matthew Terry an immediate narrative. He
• 18:10
  is going to claim self defense. He's going to assert
• 18:12
  that he was attacked, that he is a victim who
• 18:14
  barely survived.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Right, And to understand how Matthew Terry ended up bleeding
• 18:18
  out in the woods claiming he was the victim of
• 18:21
  a brutal assault, we have to pause this timeline in
• 18:23
  the woods and rewind the clock.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: We need to go back just a few hours.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, to Friday evening, May twenty eighth. We need to
• 18:30
  look at a place called the Landing Bar and Grill,
• 18:32
  where this entire tragedy was set into motion over an
• 18:35
  interaction so trivial it defies logical comprehension.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: This is where we examine the mechanics of course of
• 18:41
  control and the concept of the trigger event.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Friday night, it is the last day of
• 18:47
  the school year. Kay Baker is a third grade teacher,
• 18:50
  and she is naturally thrilled. She wants to decompress and
• 18:53
  celebrate the start of summer break. Totally understandable, she heads
• 18:56
  out to the Landing Bar and grill with a group
• 18:58
  of friends, most notably her best friend Kelly Andrews, Matthew
• 19:02
  Terry goes.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: With them, and, by all outward appearances, for several hours,
• 19:07
  they are sitting on the outdoor patio, having drinks, eating food,
• 19:11
  and having a completely normal, enjoyable time.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Right, There's no screaming, no fighting.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: And we need to understand that domestic violence, specifically the
• 19:18
  type defined by extreme coercive control, rarely operates on a
• 19:22
  baseline of constant visible rage.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: It's not just yelling twenty four to seven.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: No, the abuser doesn't spend twenty four hours a day screaming.
• 19:30
  Evan Stark, a forensic social worker who pioneered the concept
• 19:33
  of coercive control, describes it as a systemic deprivation of liberty,
• 19:38
  a micromanagement of daily life.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: So the physical violence is just a tool.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, the physical violence is just the enforcement mechanism for
• 19:46
  the control, and the transition from the normal, enjoyable time
• 19:50
  to lethal violence almost always hinges on a specific.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Trigger, and to a normal person that trigger makes zero sense.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: To a healthy observer, the trigger is completely invisible or
• 20:02
  wildly disproportionate. But to the abuser, the trigger represents a
• 20:07
  critical threat to their dominion, and in.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: This case, the investigation was handed a crucial piece of
• 20:13
  evidence because the bar surveillance system captured the exact anatomy.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Of the trigger right they have it on video.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Around ten thirty or eleven PM, Kay gets up from
• 20:21
  the patio table to go to the restroom inside the bar.
• 20:24
  Matthew Terry actually gets up and follows closely behind her.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Her friend Kelly also decides to use the restroom around
• 20:30
  the same time.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: The interior surveillance video shows Kay coming out of the
• 20:34
  bathroom just as Kelly is heading in. They cross pats
• 20:37
  in the hallway. They smile, and they start doing this playful,
• 20:40
  goofy little dance with each other, just two best friends
• 20:43
  having a laugh exactly, But by pure unfortunate coincidence, there
• 20:49
  is a random, unknown male patron walking down the hall
• 20:53
  at that exact second.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: He sees these two women goofing around, and for literally
• 20:58
  two seconds, he throws his hands up in the air,
• 21:01
  wriggles his hips, and does a little dance move near
• 21:03
  them as he walks past.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: It is an entirely benign passing bar interaction. They don't
• 21:08
  speak to him, they don't touch him.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: But Matthew Terry is standing right there in the hallway.
• 21:13
  The camera captures him watching this two second interaction.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And he just stews on it.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: The behavioral analysis of Terry's reaction is vital here. He
• 21:21
  doesn't start throwing punches in the hallway that would draw
• 21:24
  unwanted attention and intervention. He waits.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: They all go back outside and sit down at the
• 21:28
  patio table. Several minutes pass then the video catches Terry
• 21:32
  leaning over into Kay's ear.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: He whispers something to her.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: We don't have audio, but you don't need it. You
• 21:36
  can physically see her entire demeanor collapse. The joy, the
• 21:40
  relief of the school you're ending, it just evaporates from
• 21:43
  her face.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Her posture stiffens.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: That is the exact moment that fuses lit.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question about how perpetrators weaponize mundane
• 21:52
  interactions to a person who doesn't operate under the pathological
• 21:56
  need for control. That two second dance was a mildly amusing,
• 22:01
  forgettable moment, right But to Matthew Terry, it was a
• 22:04
  profound insult. It was a challenge to his ownership. It
• 22:08
  was a public display of his partner existing in a
• 22:10
  space having an interaction with another male that he did
• 22:14
  not authorize or control.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: So the whisper isn't just him being annoyed.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: No, the whisper at the table isn't him losing his temper.
• 22:21
  It's a calculated reinstatement of authority. He is letting her
• 22:25
  know that she has violated the rules of the relationship
• 22:27
  and that punishment is pending.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And he doesn't just whisper to Kay. Terry then leans
• 22:31
  across the table and confronts her friend Kelly. He aggressively
• 22:35
  demands to know who Kay was dancing with in the hallway.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: And Kelly is completely baffled by the question.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she tells him she wasn't dancing with anyone, We
• 22:43
  were dancing with each other. She realizes he is spiraling
• 22:46
  into jealousy and tells him point blank that he's being
• 22:48
  ridiculous and needs to stop.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: And Terry's response to Kelly is one of the most
• 22:52
  chilling quotes in this entire case.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: He looks at her and says, I want to protect
• 22:56
  my queen and my kingdom.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: We really need to dissect the linguaeistics of that statement,
• 23:01
  protect my queen and my kingdom. When you hear that
• 23:04
  out of context, or if you view relationships through a
• 23:07
  heavily romanticized patriarchal lens, it might sound like chivalry.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a guy trying to be protected.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Right, It sounds like a man expressing a deep protective
• 23:17
  instinct for the woman he loves. But it is a
• 23:20
  psychological mask. Look at the specific nouns queen, kingdom.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: It's all about ownership.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: This is the explicit language of monarchy, of absolute, unquestionable
• 23:32
  ownership in a kingdom ruled by a king. A queen
• 23:35
  does not possess autonomy. She is a subject, a possession
• 23:39
  that must be guarded against rival claimants.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: So he's not protecting her, He's protecting his property.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: He is not saying he wants to protect k from
• 23:46
  danger or harm. He is asserting that Ka is his
• 23:49
  territorial property, and he will defend his borders against any
• 23:52
  perceived trespasser, even a guy wiggling his hips for two seconds.
• 23:57
  It is a declaration of extreme proprietary control, heavily cloaked
• 24:01
  in the socially acceptable language of romance.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: That is a staggering way to frame it. He views
• 24:06
  her as territory. And what makes this so heartbreaking is
• 24:09
  how Kay responds to the escalating tension.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: They eventually leave the bar shortly after midnight.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: The ride home seems to have temporarily diffused the immediate confrontation.
• 24:18
  Kay sends a text message to Kelly. She writes, Lol,
• 24:21
  sorry for that, so stupid, Everything's okay now.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: In Kelly, acting as a fiercely protective friend who recognizes
• 24:27
  the absurdity of his behavior, text back, tell Matt to
• 24:31
  stop being stupid or I'm going to punch him in
• 24:33
  the balls.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly the kind of text you send your
• 24:35
  best friend. You are trying to break the tension with humor.
• 24:38
  You absolutely do not think your best friend is on
• 24:40
  the verge of being murdered, not at all. But I
• 24:42
  keep looking at Kay's text, so stupid, Everything's okay now.
• 24:46
  It breaks my heart because it is such a classic,
• 24:48
  tragic example of a victim attempting to normalize a terrifying situation.
• 24:53
  She is desperately trying to de escalate.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: She is classifying his terrifying possessiveness as just a stupid
• 24:59
  little moment, exactly. In trauma psychology, we talk about the
• 25:02
  stress responses fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. What Kay is
• 25:08
  exhibiting here is a textbook fawning response.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Fawning meaning trying to appease him.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is a deeply ingrained survival mechanism. Victims of
• 25:18
  long term course of control become hypervigilant experts at reading
• 25:22
  the microscopic shifts in their abuser's mood.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: So she's just trying to smooth things over.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: By texting her friend and laughing it off. By assuring
• 25:28
  the outside world that everything is fine. She is attempting
• 25:31
  to manifest that peaceful reality into existence. She is trying
• 25:35
  to soothe the waters, hoping that if she acts like
• 25:37
  the danger has passed, the abuser will adopt that reality too.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: She is managing his emotions to preserve her own safety.
• 25:44
  Here's where it gets really interesting, because the danger had
• 25:47
  absolutely not passed. And this is where the investigation takes
• 25:51
  a turn that is almost impossible to believe.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Because when the Florida investigators are at the hospital trying
• 25:57
  to piece together why Matthew Terry would supposedly be violently
• 26:01
  attacked by an unknown assailant in the woods after a
• 26:04
  minor bar argument, the phone rings.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Right they receive a call that completely annihilates his self
• 26:10
  defense narrative. It turns out this is not the first
• 26:14
  time Matthew Terry has flown into a violent, jealous rage
• 26:18
  after a night out drinking.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: And it is not the first time he has reached
• 26:21
  for a knife.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: The investigation is suddenly confronted by the ghost of Michigan.
• 26:25
  As the detectives in Florida are working the scene, they
• 26:28
  get contacted by authorities in Lansing, Michigan.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: They have been connected to a woman named Michelle Rogers,
• 26:34
  who is Matthew Terrey's former girlfriend.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: And Michelle tells the Florida investigators a story that stops
• 26:39
  them in their tracks. She says, this is not an
• 26:41
  isolated incident. Matthew Terry attempted to murder me.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: The introduction of this information fundamentally alters the trajectory of
• 26:48
  the Florida homicide investigation. Up until this phone call, the
• 26:52
  detectives are working a chaotic scene with a suspect who
• 26:55
  has severe injuries and a plausible, if unlikely claim of
• 26:59
  being a victim himself.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: But Michelle Rogers provides them with a detailed behavioral blueprint
• 27:05
  that perfectly maps onto the crime scene in Lithia.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I want to outline exactly what happened to Michigan because
• 27:11
  the parallels are staggering.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go through it in a four years prior
• 27:14
  to the murder of k Baker. It's Saint Patrick's day
• 27:17
  in Lansing, Michigan, freezing cold, snowy night.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Michelle Rogers and Matthew Terry return home from a night
• 27:23
  out at a bar.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: They get back to the house and Matthew Terry flies
• 27:26
  into a violent, jealous rage. He begins to beat Michelle severely.
• 27:30
  He punches her, breaking her nose. He gives her a
• 27:33
  severe concussion.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: The violence escalates rapidly.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: He goes into the kitchen, pulls a knife from the
• 27:38
  wooden butcher block on the counter, and he proceeds to
• 27:41
  stab Michelle seven times. He targets her neck, her shoulder,
• 27:45
  and her face.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Let's analyze the methodology of the violence here, because the
• 27:49
  forensic overlap is chilling. We are not just talking about
• 27:53
  a history of general domestic battery. We are talking about
• 27:57
  highly specific signature behavior.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: It gets even more terrifying during the attack. Michelle's on
• 28:04
  the floor, bleeding profusely from her neck and face. She
• 28:08
  looks at him and yells, I love you, Why are
• 28:10
  you doing this?
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: And Terry looks down at her and replies, no, you don't,
• 28:14
  you expletive, I'm going to kill you.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: She manages to break away, and he chases her outside
• 28:19
  of the house into the freezing snow. This is a
• 28:23
  nightmare on its own, but the detail that haunts me
• 28:26
  is that there was a nine month old baby asleep
• 28:28
  inside the.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: House, his son, Michelle's son.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: So Michelle is standing outside in the snow, bleeding from
• 28:33
  the neck, screaming into the night, absolutely terrified that if
• 28:36
  she runs away to get help, he is going to
• 28:38
  walk back inside and murder their infant child.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Let's explicitly define those parallels, because this is what builds
• 28:44
  a prosecutor's case. In both Lancing and Lithia, the violence
• 28:47
  is precipitated by an evening out drinking at a bar.
• 28:50
  In both cases, the emotional trigger is extreme jealousy and
• 28:54
  it perceived loss of control by Terry. In both cases,
• 28:58
  the weapon of choice is not a firearm or a
• 29:01
  blunt object.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: It's a knife from a butcher block in the kitchen.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, in both cases, the anatomical target of the trauma
• 29:08
  is highly lethal and personal the neck and face area,
• 29:12
  and in both cases, the violence cannot be contained within
• 29:15
  the home. It spills outside into the yard, with the
• 29:18
  victim desperately trying to flee.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: But the most crucial parallel, the one that blows his
• 29:23
  current alibi out of the water, is what happens when
• 29:25
  the police arrive. In both cases, when law enforcement finally
• 29:29
  apprehends Matthew Terry, he has bleeding wounds on his own body,
• 29:33
  and in.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Both cases he claims that he was the primary victim.
• 29:36
  He claims self defense.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I want to try to understand the mechanics of this
• 29:40
  self defense alibi. It's almost like they are trying to
• 29:42
  inject a virus into the investigation software. How does an
• 29:45
  abuser orchestrate this?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Do they actually inflict wounds upon themselves or do they
• 29:49
  just use superficial scratches they got while the victim fought
• 29:51
  for their life to muddy the waters?
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah? How does that work?
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: It is a calculated strategy of introducing cognitive dissonance into
• 29:58
  the investigative process, and unfortunately, it occurs with alarming frequency
• 30:04
  in intimate partner homicides.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Because they know the scene looks bad for them.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: The perpetrator is entirely aware that the physical scene a
• 30:12
  brutally stabbed partner points directly to their guilt. To counter this,
• 30:17
  they manufacture chaos by deliberately inflicting non lethal wounds on
• 30:22
  themselves or by highly exaggerating defensive scratch marks sustained while
• 30:27
  the victim was desperately fighting off the blade. The abuser
• 30:30
  attempts to establish a narrative of mutual.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Combat, so they want the cops to just throw their
• 30:36
  hands up and say, who knows exactly?
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: They are trying to force the police, the prosecutors, and
• 30:40
  eventually a jury to look at two bleeding people and conclude, well,
• 30:43
  it's impossible to know who started it. They were both fighting.
• 30:46
  Maybe she attacked him first and things just ended in
• 30:48
  a horrific tragedy.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: It dilutes the intent.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: The mechanical goal of this alibi is to dilute the
• 30:54
  legal concept of intent. If the state claims he planned
• 30:58
  a cold blooded execution, the defense can point to his
• 31:01
  wounds and say, why would an executioner be bleeding from
• 31:04
  the jugular. It is planting a very specific seed of
• 31:08
  reasonable doubt.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Which brings up a massive legal question. We have this
• 31:12
  perfect blueprint from Michigan. Can the prosecutors in Florida actually
• 31:16
  use it. It's tricky because I know that generally you
• 31:19
  can't just tell a jury this guy is a bad
• 31:21
  person who did bad things in the past, so convict him.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Now, No, you definitely can't do that.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: But there is a specific legal mechanism here called the
• 31:28
  Williams Rule. I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is
• 31:31
  that the Williams rule allows past crimes to be introduced
• 31:34
  in court not to show bad character, but to prove
• 31:37
  a specific pattern.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: You've hit on one of the most fiercely contested areas
• 31:41
  of criminal law. The Williams rule stems from a Florida
• 31:45
  Supreme Court case and it is codified in Florida Evidence
• 31:48
  Code Section ninety point four zero four. You are absolutely
• 31:52
  correct that the loss trickly forbids introducing prior bad acts
• 31:56
  merely to prove a defendant has a propensity to commit crimes.
• 32:00
  You cannot say he stabs someone before, therefore he must
• 32:03
  have done it again.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: That would just be unfair prejudice.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly that is considered highly prejudicial. However, the Williams Rule
• 32:09
  provides a narrow exception if the prior crime shares unique
• 32:14
  signature characteristics with the current crime. What we call modus operandi,
• 32:18
  it can be admitted to prove motive intent, preparation plan,
• 32:23
  or to prove the absence of mistake or accident.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Ah okay. So because of the very specific similarities.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Because Matthew Terry claimed he was attacked by an unknown
• 32:32
  burglar in Florida, the prosecution fought to bring in the
• 32:35
  Michigan stabbing to prove that his modus operandi when his
• 32:39
  relationships face conflict is to use a kitchen knife to
• 32:42
  attack the neck and then claim self defense.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: But it's up to the judge.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, the judge has to perform a delicate balancing test.
• 32:50
  Is the probative value of this historical evidence outweighed by
• 32:53
  the danger of unfair prejudice to the jury?
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I imagine the defense fought that hard.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Defense attorneys will fight William's rule evidence to the her end,
• 33:00
  because when a jury hears a defendant has done the
• 33:03
  exact same horrifying thing before, the statistical likelihood of an
• 33:07
  acquittal plummets.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: But the Michigan case didn't just provide the legal blueprint
• 33:12
  and the weapon profile. It revealed a deeply unsettling, almost
• 33:17
  incomprehensible connection between the two victims.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Between Michelle Rogers, who survived the Saint Patrick's Stay attack,
• 33:23
  and Kay Baker, who was murdered in Florida.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: This is the point in the narrative where a procedural
• 33:28
  true crime investigation transforms into a devastating Greek tragedy. The
• 33:33
  psychological irony is suffocating, it really is. During Matthew Terrey's
• 33:37
  trial in Michigan for stabbing Michelle Rogers, his defense team
• 33:40
  called various character witnesses to testify on his behalf, and
• 33:44
  one of those witnesses, who flew all the way from
• 33:46
  Florida to Michigan, who walked into the courtroom, raised her
• 33:49
  right hand, sat on the witness stand, and swore under
• 33:52
  oath that Matthew Terry was a gentle, good guy who
• 33:55
  would never do something as horrific as stabbing a woman.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: That witness was Kay Baker.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: We genuinely struggle to understand this. I think anyone listening would.
• 34:03
  How does a highly intelligent, capable woman, a third grade teacher,
• 34:07
  a mother, look at a man who is literally on
• 34:10
  trial for stabbing the mother of his child seven times
• 34:13
  and testify he wouldn't do that. It defies all rational
• 34:17
  self preservation.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture. It defies
• 34:21
  logic only if you view it from outside the cycle
• 34:24
  of abuse. To understand case testimony, we must examine the
• 34:28
  mechanics of trauma bonding and the cycle of abuse.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, walk me through that.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Abuse is rarely a static state of violence. It is
• 34:36
  a cycle that consists of tension building the violent incident,
• 34:39
  the reconciliation or honeymoon phase, and a period of calm.
• 34:43
  During the reconciliation phase, the abuser is intensely apologetic, charming,
• 34:48
  and loving.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: So they reel them back in.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: This creates a biological reaction in the victim's brain spikes
• 34:53
  of cortisol during the terror, followed by massive hits of
• 34:56
  dopamine during the reconciliation. It operated exactly like an to
• 35:00
  a slot machine. Intermittent reinforcement bonds the victim to the abuser.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: That's insidious.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, abusers are master manipulators who excel at narrative inversion.
• 35:10
  He isolated K and fed her a highly curated inverted reality.
• 35:15
  He undoubtedly told her that Michelle was the unstable, violent.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: One, so he played the victim to K.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: He likely claimed that Michelle attacked him in a drunken
• 35:24
  rage that he was merely defending himself and that a corrupt,
• 35:28
  biased justice system was trying to destroy a good man's life.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: So he casts himself as the ultimate victim, and he
• 35:34
  casts k in the role of his savior.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Precisely, if you are deeply in love with someone and
• 35:39
  they are displaying the charming, vulnerable side of their personality
• 35:42
  to you, and they beg you to save them from
• 35:44
  a vindictive ex partner, your empathy is weaponized against you.
• 35:47
  You become their fierce protector.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: She thought she was doing the right thing.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: K Baker was not foolish, and she was not complicit.
• 35:54
  She was systematically manipulated into believing she was protecting a noble,
• 35:58
  misunderstood man from a full accusation.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: And her protection worked. The Michigan jury, swayed by a
• 36:04
  very expensive defense attorney who hammered away at the concept
• 36:07
  of reasonable doubt and lack of intent, found Terry guilty
• 36:10
  of a much lesser offense.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: They acquitted him of the tempted murder.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: He was sentenced to serve only three years in prison,
• 36:17
  and while he was incarcerated in Michigan, kay Baker actually
• 36:20
  visited him. They maintain and reignited their romantic relationship, so
• 36:25
  the moment he was released from prison, he packed his
• 36:27
  bags and moves straight down to Florida to live under
• 36:30
  the same roof with her.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Which brings us back to Michelle Rogers. I want you
• 36:34
  to imagine the psychological torment of her position.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I can't even fathom it.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: She is sitting in Michigan bearing the physical emotional scars
• 36:43
  of seven stab wounds, and she watches the justice system
• 36:47
  hand her attempted murderer a slap on the wrist, and
• 36:50
  then she watches him pack up and move in with
• 36:53
  the very woman who helped secure that light sentence.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Michelle decides she cannot just watch this happen. She attempts
• 36:59
  to warn Kay. She tracks Kay down on Facebook Messenger.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: She sends her direct messages, and she includes the gruesome,
• 37:06
  unedited forensic photos of her injuries from the Saint Patrick's
• 37:09
  Day attack.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: The photos show the horrific stitched up lacerations across her neck,
• 37:15
  the deeply bruised and swollen eyes, and Michelle writes a
• 37:19
  message to her. She pleads, please don't let him do
• 37:23
  this to you. He's not who he says he is. Please, please, please,
• 37:26
  just get out of this.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: It is an act of incredible bravery. It is a desperate,
• 37:31
  urgent plea from one survivor trying to reach across the
• 37:34
  void and pull another woman out of a burning building
• 37:37
  before the roof collapses.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: And Kay reads the message and she replies, I'm not
• 37:41
  talking to him. I don't know what you're talking about.
• 37:43
  She completely utterly dismisses the warning. She blocks it out
• 37:47
  and shuts down the communication.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Think about how agonizing this must have been for Michelle.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: She knew exactly what was going to happen, She had
• 37:54
  the physical, irrefutable scars on her own body to prove it.
• 37:58
  She provided the photographic evidence directly to the person in
• 38:01
  mortal danger, and she was entirely ignored.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: It is the definition of a modern day Cassandra complex.
• 38:07
  In Greek mythology, Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy
• 38:10
  to see the future, but cursed with the fate that
• 38:13
  no one would ever believe her warnings.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, that perfectly describes it.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: The psychological toll of that rejection is immense. When Michelle
• 38:21
  Rogers eventually received the phone call from Florida confirming that
• 38:25
  Kay Baker had been murdered in the exact same manner
• 38:27
  she had been attacked. Her reaction wasn't just profound sorrow,
• 38:31
  it was white hot fury.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: She was just done.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: She transitioned in that moment from a victim seeking peace
• 38:38
  to a relentless advocate fueled by anger at a broken system.
• 38:42
  She later told reporters, I got pissed. I was like,
• 38:45
  why did nobody listen to me? I told people he
• 38:47
  is dangerous.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And that pure righteous anger is what fortified her. It
• 38:52
  gave her the strength to travel from Michigan to Florida,
• 38:55
  walk into another courtroom and look the man who tried
• 38:58
  to kill her in the eye.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: She was determined to be the immovable wall that stopped
• 39:02
  him from doing this to a third woman.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: And that transition takes us directly into the Florida courtroom
• 39:07
  for the first degree murder trial of Matthew Terry. The
• 39:10
  stage as set. The prosecution, led by Justin Diaz, has
• 39:14
  a mountain of circumstantial evidence.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: They have the blood trail, they have the canine tracking,
• 39:18
  they have the flir video, They have the surveillance video
• 39:21
  from the bar showing the inciting incident, but they do.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Not have a video of the murder itself. Their entire
• 39:27
  strategy hinges on proving premeditation. They have to prove to
• 39:31
  the jury that this was not a drunken scuffle that
• 39:33
  got out of hand, not a mutual combat situation, but
• 39:36
  a cold, calculated execution.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: And to legally prove premeditation in a circumstantial case, the
• 39:43
  prosecution must mathematically dismantle the defendant self defense claim. They
• 39:47
  have to prove the alibi is a physical impossibility.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: So prosecutor Justin Diaz points to the forensic photographs taken
• 39:54
  of Matthew Terry at the hospital immediately after he was
• 39:56
  arrested in the woods. Yes, the photos clearly show he
• 40:00
  had the two severe lacerations to his neck, but.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Diaz focuses the jury's attention on what is missing from
• 40:06
  the photos.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Matthew Terry had absolutely zero defensive wounds on his face,
• 40:10
  his hands, his forearms, or his legs. If you are
• 40:13
  in a desperate life or death struggle against an unknown
• 40:16
  attacker wielding a knife, or even if you are fighting
• 40:18
  your partner in a dark yard, forensic pathology dictates you
• 40:21
  will have defensive wounds.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: You will have bruised knuckles, scraped elbows, or sharp forced
• 40:26
  trauma on the ulner aspect of your forearms from throwing
• 40:29
  your arms up to block a blade.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: But he had pristine's skin other than the neck cuts.
• 40:34
  This proved medically that his neck runs were self inflicted
• 40:37
  hesitation marks designed to create the illusion of an attack.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: It is a brilliant prosecution strategy because it uses the
• 40:44
  defendant's own alibi to prove premeditation. How So, the logic
• 40:49
  is inescapable if he had the presence of mind in
• 40:53
  the immediate aftermath of committing a brutal murder to methodically
• 40:56
  and specifically injure his own jugulars to stage a crime's
• 41:00
  that requires highly calculated rational thought.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates a functioning, planning mind, completely negating any defense
• 41:08
  of a blind, uncontrollable crime of passion.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: But the prosecution has a glaring weak spot in their case.
• 41:13
  They do not have the murder weapon right.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: That's a problem.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: They know from examining the wooden knife block in case
• 41:18
  kitchen that a very specific beak shaped pairing knife is missing,
• 41:22
  but despite massive exhaustive searches by law enforcement, the missing
• 41:27
  knife is never recovered. I read one detective even got
• 41:30
  severely stung by a hornet's nest while scanning the thick
• 41:34
  brush with a metal detector.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: It's just bad luck on top of bad luck.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: So I want to understand the legal reality here. How
• 41:40
  much does a missing murder weapon actually hurt a prosecution's case.
• 41:45
  When the circumstantial evidence, the blood, the history, is this
• 41:48
  incredibly heavy.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: It represents the defense's absolute best wage to pry open
• 41:54
  the door of reasonable doubt. We have to acknowledge the
• 41:56
  sociological impact of the CSI effect on marks.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Juries because everyone expects forensic perfection now exactly.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Television procedural dramas have conditioned the public to expect the neat,
• 42:07
  undeniable smoking gun juries. Want to see the bloody knife,
• 42:11
  perfectly dusted for fingerprints, sealed in a clear plastic evidence
• 42:15
  bag on the prosecutor's table.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: And when they don't have it.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: When the state relies entirely on circumstantial evidence, which legally
• 42:22
  carries the exact same weight as direct evidence, but psychologically
• 42:26
  feels less satisfying, the defense can weaponize that empty space
• 42:30
  on the table.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: They can just point to it and say where is it?
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: They point to the missing weapon and argue, if my
• 42:36
  client is a cold blooded killer, where is the tool
• 42:39
  he used? You cannot strip a man of his freedom
• 42:42
  and lock him in a cage for the rest of
• 42:44
  his life. Based on the fact that a kitchen knife
• 42:46
  is missing from a block.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: It forces the jury to rely on inferential leaps rather
• 42:51
  than tactile physical proof, and some jurors are deeply uncomfortable
• 42:55
  making that leap when a life sentence is on the
• 42:57
  line and Matthew Terry's defence team leans heavily into that
• 43:01
  missing weapon to invent a completely alternate theory of the crime.
• 43:05
  They introduce what is essentially the phantom burglar defense.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Which is a desperate yet classic maneuver in heavily circumstantial cases.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: It's like throwing a handful of sand into a finely
• 43:14
  tuned engine. Terry's lawyers stand up in front of the
• 43:17
  jury and say, the state has no video of the crime,
• 43:21
  the state has no murder weapon. Here is the narrative
• 43:24
  of what really happened.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: They propose that prior to Kay and Matthew arriving home
• 43:28
  from the bar, an unknown armed burglar broke into the house.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: When Kay walked through the door, the burglar ambushed and
• 43:36
  attacked her. Matthew Terry heard the commotion, ran to her defense,
• 43:40
  found her dying on the lawn, got her blood on
• 43:42
  his hands while trying to save her, and then heroically
• 43:45
  chased the phantom burglar into the pitch blackwoods, where the
• 43:48
  burglar slashed Terry's neck and vanished into the night.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Let's legally deconstruct why a defense attorney would present a
• 43:55
  theory that sounds this absurd. Mechanically, an armed burglar taking
• 44:00
  into a suburban home, stealing absolutely nothing, waiting in the
• 44:03
  dark for the homeowners, brutally assassinating one, delicately slashing the
• 44:07
  neck of the other, and then evaporating into the woods
• 44:10
  while taking the murder weapon with them defies all known
• 44:13
  criminological logic.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: It's basically a cartoon plot.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: But the burden of proof is not on the defense.
• 44:20
  They do not have to prove the phantom burglar exists.
• 44:23
  They are simply trying to inject that handful of sand
• 44:26
  into the gears of the jury's deliberation, just looking for
• 44:29
  one skeptic. They only need to convince one single jur
• 44:31
  to think, well, the state doesn't have the knife, so
• 44:34
  is it possible someone else was there? It is a
• 44:37
  strategy solely designed to manufacture reasonable doubt out of the
• 44:41
  empty spaces in the state's evidentiary timeline.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: To bolster this phantom burglar theory, the defense goes on
• 44:47
  the offensive, and who is the target of their attack
• 44:51
  Michelle Rogers. When Michelle takes the stand to testify about
• 44:54
  the Michigan stabbing under the parameters of the Williams rule
• 44:57
  we discussed earlier, the defense subjects her to a brutal,
• 45:00
  hostile cross examination.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: The attempt to systematically victim blame her. Look at the
• 45:05
  anatomy of this tactic. The defense attorney brings up the
• 45:08
  fact that on the night she was stabbed, four years prior,
• 45:11
  her blood alcohol level zer point one point two four.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: They aggressively question her about her intoxication level that night.
• 45:17
  Why are they legally allowed to bring that up? And
• 45:19
  what is the strategy here?
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: The legal pretext for bringing up her blood alcohol content
• 45:24
  is impeachment of a witness's memory. The defense argues they
• 45:28
  have the right to question the reliability of her perception
• 45:31
  and memory of the events because she was legally intoxicated.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: But it's really about something else, isn't it.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: The underlying psychological strategy is far more insidious. It is
• 45:41
  a calculated attempt to exploit the jury's subconscious societal biases
• 45:46
  regarding victims.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: They want the jury to judge her by.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Hammering on her intoxication. The defense is subtly priming the
• 45:53
  jury to think she was drunk. She was probably belligerent.
• 45:56
  Maybe she instigated the physical altercation in Michigan and he
• 46:00
  was just reacting to her aggression.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: They are attempting to put the victim's behavior on trial,
• 46:05
  shifting the moral scrutiny away from the man holding the
• 46:08
  knife and onto the woman who was bleeding. They didn't
• 46:10
  stop at her alcohol consumption. They even went after her
• 46:13
  regarding a civil suit she had filed for damages following
• 46:16
  the attack in Michigan. The defense attorney stood there and
• 46:20
  asked her, didn't you ask for a quarter of a
• 46:22
  million dollars? Didn't you ask for him to pay your
• 46:25
  utilities and for self defense classes.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: They were clearly trying to paint her as an opportunist.
• 46:30
  Some are in just looking for a financial payday off
• 46:33
  the trauma.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: But Michelle was an absolute rock on the stand. She
• 46:36
  fired back instantly, explaining that the trauma forced her to
• 46:40
  relocate her home to feel safe, that she had to
• 46:42
  learn martial arts just to function without constant fear. She
• 46:46
  completely refused to back down or be shamed.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: In that steadfast refusal to be shamed is exactly what sank.
• 46:52
  Matthew Terry's defense cross examination is a high wire act
• 46:56
  for a defense attorney.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Oh totally, because if it goes wrong, it looks terrible.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: When a jury watches a woman who survives seven horrific
• 47:03
  stablounds take the stand, bear her trauma to the court,
• 47:07
  and then they watch a well paid defense attorney try
• 47:09
  to humiliate her over utility bills and a self defense class,
• 47:13
  the empathy dynamics in the room shift violently.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: The tactic backfires spectacularly. The jury stops seeing reasonable doubt
• 47:22
  and they start seeing the defense as an extension of
• 47:25
  the abuser's cruelty.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: Interestingly, Matthew Terry was desperate to testify himself. The court
• 47:31
  transcripts show this prolonged exchange with the judge where Terry
• 47:35
  states he wants to take the stand and tell his
• 47:37
  side of the story.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: But he is ultimately choosing to follow his lawyer's explicit
• 47:41
  advice not to the prosecutor. Justin Diaz noted outside the
• 47:46
  presence of the jury that Terry had this incredibly cocky,
• 47:49
  arrogant demeanor.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Terry genuinely believed he could just charm and talk his
• 47:53
  way out of a murder charge, just like he likely
• 47:56
  talked his way into a lighter sentence in Michigan, and
• 47:58
  exactly how he talked his way back into kay Baker's life.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: It is the ultimate manifestation of the abuser's ego. They
• 48:05
  believe they are the smartest person in any room, capable
• 48:08
  of manipulating any audience.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: But his defense attorneys recognized the catastrophic danger. If Terry
• 48:13
  had taken the stand, his arrogance would have been fully
• 48:15
  exposed under the hostile cross examination of a highly skilled
• 48:18
  prosecutor like Diaz.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: The prosecutor would have methodically walked him step by step
• 48:23
  through the physical impossibilities of his phantom burglar story.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: He would have been forced to explain the lack of
• 48:29
  defensive wounds while under oath. His lawyers knew that if
• 48:32
  he opened his mouth, his narcissistic need to control the
• 48:35
  narrative would secure his own conviction.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: So Terry remains silent. The jury hears all the circumstantial evidence.
• 48:43
  They hear the haunting echoes of the Michigan attack. They
• 48:46
  see the phantom Burglar defense for the hollow, desperate manipulation
• 48:50
  that it is, and the jury goes out to deliberate.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: This brings us to the agonizing, terrifying wait for the verdict.
• 48:57
  Michelle Rodgers described sitting in the courtroom gallery during the deli.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: She was sitting in a row holding hands with Matthew
• 49:03
  Terry's ex wife on one side and another one of
• 49:05
  his ex girlfriends on the other. Three women, all inextricably
• 49:09
  connected by the trauma and violence this one man had
• 49:12
  inflicted upon them, sitting together, absolutely terrified that if the
• 49:16
  jury fell for the phantom burglar defense and he was acquitted,
• 49:20
  he would come for them next.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: The psychological weight concentrated in that specific row of the
• 49:25
  courtroom must have been crushing. It is the culmination of
• 49:29
  years of hypervigilance and sheer.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Terror, just waiting to hear if the state is going
• 49:34
  to validate their survival or if the system is going
• 49:36
  to release their nightmare back into the world.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Finally, the jury returns.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: The verdict is read guilty of first degree murder. A
• 49:45
  massive wave of relief washes over that side of the courtroom.
• 49:50
  Matthew Terry thought he could manipulate the justice system twice,
• 49:53
  but the cumulative undeniable weight of his actions, combined with
• 49:57
  the absolute bravery of the women who were used to
• 50:00
  be silenced, finally locked the door on him.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: But the trial is not fully over with the guilty
• 50:05
  verdict because this was a capital case. We now enter
• 50:08
  the penalty phase.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Right and this is where the profound moral complexities and
• 50:12
  the specific legal architecture of the justice system really show themselves.
• 50:17
  In the penalty phase, the state seeks the death penalty.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: They argue that the sheer brutality the attack, the fact
• 50:22
  that a mother was chased into her yard and nearly decapitated,
• 50:25
  warrants the ultimate punishment the state can levy.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: The defense, now fighting just to save his life, begs
• 50:31
  the jury for a life sentence. They introduce mitigating factors,
• 50:35
  bringing up his past service as a marine, his allegedly
• 50:38
  loving upbringing, desperately trying to humanize a convicted killer in
• 50:43
  the eyes of the jury.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: To understand the jury's decision here, we have to look
• 50:47
  at how capital punishment is structured in Florida. For a
• 50:50
  jury to recommend the death penalty, the prosecution cannot just
• 50:54
  prove it was a murder. They have to prove the
• 50:56
  existence of specific aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it needs to be worse than a normal
• 51:03
  murder in the eyes of the law.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Right. One of the most frequently cited aggravators in brutal
• 51:08
  cases is that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel,
• 51:13
  commonly referred to as the HAC aggravator.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: But the jury ultimately declines to recommend the death penalty.
• 51:19
  They review the verdict form and they explicitly checked the
• 51:21
  box saying no, the murder was not especially heinous, atrocious,
• 51:25
  or cruel enough to meet the standard for execution.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: That decision often shocks people.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: I remember reading that and being stunned. People in the
• 51:33
  courtroom gallery were shocked. I struggle to understand this. How
• 51:37
  can a jury look at a near decapitation with a
• 51:40
  kitchen knife and say it doesn't meet the definition of heinous?
• 51:45
  Is the legal definition just completely divorced from our common
• 51:48
  English understanding of the word.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, it often is. The legal threshold for the HAC
• 51:53
  aggravator is incredibly high and highly specific. It doesn't just
• 51:58
  mean the crime was bloody or tragic.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: What does it actually require? Then?
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: The legal standard generally requires the state to prove that
• 52:05
  the crime was consciousless, pitiless, or unnecessarily tortuous to the victim.
• 52:10
  It requires proving the victim experience prolonged acute psychological terror
• 52:15
  and physical agony before death.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: So if it happened too fast, exactly if.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: The medical examiner testifies that the fatal wound was inflicted rapidly,
• 52:22
  causing unconsciousness in seconds, a jury might determine it doesn't
• 52:25
  meet the legal definition of prolonged torture despite the gruesome
• 52:29
  visual nature of the aftermath.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: That's a really tough legal line to draw.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, we cannot discount the immense moral burden placed on
• 52:36
  the shoulders of twelve regular citizens. Sending a human being
• 52:40
  to the execution chamber is a profound, permanent act.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: A lot of people just can't do it.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Many jurors, even when faced with overwhelming guilt, possess a
• 52:50
  deep seated psychological reluctance to check the box that definitively
• 52:54
  ends another person's life unless the circumstances are so unimaginably
• 52:59
  sadistic that they feel they have no other choice.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: So without the jury's recommendation for death. The judge formally
• 53:05
  sentences Matthew Terry to life in prison without the possibility
• 53:09
  of parole, and the judge does not mince words during
• 53:12
  the sentencing.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: He was very clear.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: He looks directly down from the venge at Terry and says,
• 53:16
  I don't know what happened in Michigan, but based on
• 53:19
  what I heard, I believe that you should have been
• 53:21
  in prison in Michigan and that Miss Baker should still
• 53:23
  be alive. It was a stunning judicial acknowledgment of the
• 53:27
  system's previous failure.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: Then kate stepmother, Christine, stands up to give a powerful
• 53:33
  victim impact statement. She looks at Terry and asks him
• 53:38
  what words Kay could possibly have spoken that justified ending
• 53:42
  her life and destroying their family.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: The penalty phase might not have ended in a death sentence,
• 53:47
  but the absolute finality of that life sentence without parole
• 53:52
  is what mattered most to the survivors.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: For Michelle Rogers, it meant the hypervigilance could finally end,
• 53:58
  she could finally sleep through them.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: She stood in front of the court and delivered her
• 54:02
  own statement to Terry, saying, You're not going to do
• 54:04
  this to another person, I'm not allowing you it's done.
• 54:08
  That statement is the literal sound of a generational cycle
• 54:10
  of violence being shattered.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Let's bring this all together. We started this deep dive
• 54:16
  in the absolute darkness of a Florida night, exploring the
• 54:19
  incredible biological mechanics of bloodhounds and the physics of thermal
• 54:23
  imaging cameras. As law enforcement tracked a killer through the woods.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: We dissected the chilling pathological behavioral repetition of an abuser
• 54:32
  who used the exact same weapon, the exact same triggers,
• 54:35
  and the exact same self defense excuses on two different
• 54:38
  women four.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Years apart, and we witnessed the ultimate triumph of a
• 54:43
  meticulous prosecution team and a fiercely brave survivor who refused
• 54:48
  to let the system fail a third time.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: It serves as a stark mechanical breakdown of how coercive
• 54:54
  control operates and.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Escalates absolutely to everyone listening. If there is one practical
• 55:00
  life saving takeaway from this deep dive into k Baker's tragedy,
• 55:04
  it is the vital importance of trusting your gut instincts
• 55:07
  and recognizing the architecture of abuse.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: We have to understand that minor, seemingly petty controlling behaviors
• 55:13
  like a partner getting visibly enraged and whispering threats because
• 55:16
  you spent two seconds doing a goofy dance in a
• 55:18
  hallway are not signs of deep love or chivalric protection.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: They are not just stupid little moments that you should
• 55:24
  try to laugh off or manage. They are the structural
• 55:26
  foundation of coerceive control. They are the flashing red warning
• 55:30
  sirens to major, potentially life threatening violence.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: We must fundamentally shift our societal narrative. We have to
• 55:37
  stop romanticizing possessiveness. The language of extreme control. The kings,
• 55:42
  the queens, the kingdoms must be recognized for exactly what
• 55:46
  it is, a declaration of ownership, not a declaration of love.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Which leaves us with a final provocative thought for you
• 55:53
  to mull over long after this deep dive ends. We
• 55:56
  saw exactly how the justice system critically failed in Michigan.
• 56:00
  The courts treated a brutal seven stab wound attack as
• 56:03
  something worthy of only three years in prison.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: A clever defense attorney manipulated the concept of intent, and
• 56:10
  the abuser successfully manipulated a future victim into testifying to
• 56:13
  his good character.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: If the justice system had weighed Michelle Rodgers's initial horrific
• 56:18
  attack more heavily, if the courts possessed the tools to
• 56:21
  see through the manipulation and accurately assess the lethality of
• 56:24
  the offender, Kay Baker would still be teaching third grade today.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: It forces us to ask a deeply uncomfortable question about
• 56:30
  our institutions.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: How do we actively reform a legal system that two
• 56:35
  often treats domestic violence as a messy, private dispute between
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  partners rather than what the data proves it truly is
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  the most accurate, predictable precursor to murder.
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  Speaker 2: We rely on the justice system to interpret the threats
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  that we as a society sometimes struggle to categorize. But
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  when the system's parameters are blind to the realities of
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  course of control, the consequences are invariably fatal.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly like treating a broken bone. If you only look
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  at the surface of the skin, everything might occure fine,
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  maybe just a little bruise, but the severe underlying fracture
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  is hidden deep in the behavioral patterns, and until our
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  legal system learns how to accurately read those murky, complex
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  psychological x rays. We are going to keep missing the
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  brakes until it is entirely too late.