Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Devil’s Den Murder Suspect Linked to Vermont Trail Killing?

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Devil’s Den Murder Suspect Linked to Vermont Trail Killing? · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to picture two scenes in your
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: mind right now, just vastly different, thousands of miles apart. Okay.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: In one, you have the chaotic, just absolutely terrifying aftermath
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of a brutal stabbing in a rugged Arkansas state park.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's daytime, it's frantic, it's entirely visceral.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a complete nightmare scenario.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And then in the other, you have a sudden,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: almost a clinical shooting on a quiet, flat rail trail
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Up in Vermont, a single shot, this tiny, narrow window
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: of time, and then just complete silence.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Right, which feels like a completely different world.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It really does. On the surface, if you are looking
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: at these two events, they are entirely different ecosystems of tragedy.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: You know, they don't seem to share a zip code,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: let alone some sort of underlying mechanism.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. Geographically and methodologically, they really, they
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: resist being placed in the same file box. It's kind
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: of like looking at the structural damage from a hurricane
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and then, you know, the long-term devastation of a drought. Right.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: And trying to argue they were caused by the exact
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: same weather pattern. The human brain naturally looks for patterns,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: but as investigators and for our deep dive today, Our
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: job is to critically examine both the connections and the
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: contradictions because the physical evidence here points in completely opposite directions.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It really does. And, you know, we are pulling today
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: from a really compelling investigative report and an expert interview
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: from the Law and Crime Network.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, some incredible source material there.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Truly. And the mission of this deep dive today is
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to unpack the potential chilling links between these two crimes,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: explore the really troubling history of the prime suspect, And
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: look at the fascinating, honestly counterintuitive science of how cold
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: cases are actually solved because it's not what you think.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: It never is, is it?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Never. Okay. Let's unpack this because it's that exact murkiness
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that brings us to, of all places, a barbershop in Springdale, Arkansas.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Right. A barbershop.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Because sometimes when you dig into the background of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: an intensely violent act, the seemingly impossible connections start to,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you know, cast a very long shadow. So let's start
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: with the arrest itself.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Good place to start.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Because the scene is just so jarringly normal compared to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the violence that preceded it. We are looking at a
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: suspect named Andrew James McCann.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: And police apprehend him less than five minutes into a
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: haircut at a local barbershop.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Just sitting in the chair.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Literally just sitting there, the cape draped over him, presumably
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: looking at himself in the mirror. And you try to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: reconcile that mundane everyday setting with the sheer horror of
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the crime he is accused of. And I swear, your
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: brain almost rejects it.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, the contrast is what makes it so chilling. You
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: have this quiet, intimate moment in a barber's chair, which,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: you know, requires a certain level of relaxation, right?
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to sit still and let someone near
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: your neck with scissors.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly, a level of submission completely at odds with the
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: violent frenzy he is accused of unleashing just a short
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: time before. It speaks to this frightening ability to compartmentalize.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Or just totally disconnect, maybe?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, perhaps a complete dissociation from the reality of his
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: own actions. Because to sit for a haircut while the
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: police are actively hunting you for a double homicide... It's wild.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: It requires a psychological makeup that most people simply cannot fathom.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: It's truly unnerving.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Well, let's look at the reality of those actions, right?
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: What he is actually accused of is the brutal murder
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of a husband and wife, Clinton and Kristen Brink, at
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Devil's Den State Park.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: A really tragic situation.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Horrific. The Brinks were out for a hike. It's this normal,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: idyllic family activity with their seven- and nine-year-old daughters. And
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: McCann allegedly attacks the father, Clinton, first. Right. And the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: way Kristen, the mother, reacts is something that people who
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: knew them say cements her as an absolute hero. I mean,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: she actually manages to get her two young daughters away
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: from the attacker.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Which is incredible under that kind of stress.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable instinct. She secures their safety, and then she makes
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the conscious, terrifying decision to return to the chaos to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: try and save her husband. Wow. And she lost her
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: life doing so. It's just, it's gut-wrenching.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: It really is. And the location and the context here,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: they are fundamental to understanding the nature of the threat.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Devil's Den State Park is an environment designed for recreation.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for family time.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Peace and quiet.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: So the introduction of sheer, unprovoked terror into an environment
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: like that, it completely shatters our basic assumptions about public safety.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: We expect danger in certain contexts, you know?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Sure. Walking alone at night in a bad neighborhood, you're
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: on guard. Right.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: We mentally prepare for it.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: We do not prepare for a lethal, bladed attack while
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: looking at nature trails with our children.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: No.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: And the randomness of it is arguably the most terrifying variable, because...
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Police stated there was absolutely zero link between McCann and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the Brink family.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Right. No connection at all.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: None. No prior interaction. No ongoing dispute. Just this awful
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: collision in the woods. And when I read the analysis
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: from retired NCIS agent Joe Kennedy regarding this specific crime scene,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: he used the phrase 100% anger.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. That stood out to me as well.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Because initially, when I hear anger in the context of
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: a fight, I think of, I don't know, a barroom brawl.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: or a road rage incident that just gets way out
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: of hand. But Kennedy is talking about something much darker here,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: isn't he?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Because committing a messy, bladed attack in broad daylight, directly
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: in front of young children, that implies a total loss
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of the basic human survival instinct.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: It does. 100% anger in forensic terms denotes a massive,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: uncontrollable escalation of violent behavior that just overrides all logical deterrence.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Like self-preservation.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. To commit a double homicide with a sharp instrument,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: it requires extreme physical proximity and force. It is deeply personal.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: It requires immense physical exertion. And frankly, it is inherently messy.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a sterile crime.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Not at all. So to execute that in broad daylight,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: ignoring the massive risk of apprehension, and to do it
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: with child witnesses present, it indicates a desire to not
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: just eliminate the victims, but to utterly obliterate them.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: The perpetrator is so consumed by the impulse driving them
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: that Normal human deterrence, fear of witnesses, fear of the sun,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: fear of capture, they simply evaporate. It's a complete systemic
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: override of self-preservation.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: So here's my question then. Okay. If a crime is
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: this messy, this chaotic and rage-filled, and done in front
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of witnesses, isn't it basically a ticking clock until the
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: killer's caught?
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: In many ways, yes.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Because it's like leaving your emotional fingerprint right alongside your
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: actual DNA. If you leave that much of yourself at
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a scene, aren't you just guaranteeing your own capture?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: That vulnerability is exactly what law enforcement capitalizes on. And
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: in this case, the Arkansas police moved incredibly fast.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: They really did.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: They utilized DNA evidence tying McCann to the murders. And
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: there are strong indications he actually offered a confession shortly
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: after his arrest in that barbershop.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Which is wild to think about. Mid-haircut, basically.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Right. They also possessed a witness photo of him from
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: behind and a composite sketch of him speeding off with
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: blood on his face in a black sedan. When a
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: crime is committed with that level of reckless abandon, the
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: investigative closure is often rapid and definitive.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: But, and this is where it gets crazy, the arrest
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: in the barbershop wasn't the end of the narrative, right?
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It was basically a trap door into something much more systemic.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, it opened up a huge can of worms.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Because once investigators had McCann in custody, they obviously started
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: mapping his background. And they weren't looking at a hardened
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: criminal with a long rap sheet of violent felonies. They
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: were looking at an elementary school teacher.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Which is always a chilling realization.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Terrifying. And this is where the red flags don't just appear.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: They absolutely multiply.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: They really do. You have an elementary school teacher with
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: a deeply anomalous employment history, bouncing between five different school
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: districts in just three years across Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Five districts in three years.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Three.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: That's insane.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: It's not just a minor administrative quirk, I'll tell you that.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: In the education sector, which relies heavily on certification... rigorous
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: background checks and, you know, institutional onboarding, that level of
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: transience is a massive siren.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It has to be.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: It suggests a systemic inability to maintain employment, which often
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: masks underlying behavioral issues that institutions are unfortunately quietly passing
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: along rather than dealing with directly.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's really examine how that passing along actually happens,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: because the details from his 2022 employment in Flower Mound, Texas,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: are deeply unsettling.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Very much so.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Parents in that district started speaking up about behavior that
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: goes far, far beyond just poor judgment. We are talking
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: about allegations that McCann put a little girl on his
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: lap and told her, I wish I could date you.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I wish you could be my girlfriend.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Just abhorrent behavior.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: And the allegations extended to broader grooming behaviors within the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: classroom ecosystem, didn't they?
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: They did. Parents reported he would bring soda and candy,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: but selectively distribute it exclusively to the girls.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: That makes my skin crawl.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: And there were further claims that he would hold lunch
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: back specifically for what he deemed special girls. These are
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: textbook boundary testing mechanisms.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Designed to isolate them.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Designed to isolate, favor, and ultimately manipulate vulnerable populations.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: It's classic predatory behavior.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Hearing that just makes your blood run cold, especially if
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: you have kids. But the truly infuriating part, and this
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: is where the system just breaks down, is the institutional response. Right.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Parents complained. the Texas School District initiated an investigation. And
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: their conclusion was that they found, quote, no evidence of
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: inappropriate behavior.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I know. Instead of removing him for what looks blatantly predatory,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: they merely suspended him for classroom management, professional judgment, and
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: student favoritism. The bureaucracy took behavior that sets off every
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: alarm bell in the human psyche and sanitized it into this.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that the sanitization of that language
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: exposes the exact bureaucratic blind spots that predators navigate so effectively.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Well, look closely at how the parents described him outside
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: of these specific incidents. He was often praised for being
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: well-liked by students and for possessing charisma.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Right, the charming teacher trope.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And charisma in the hands of a predator is camouflage.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: When a school administration investigates a highly charismatic, well-liked teacher,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: there is an inherent, often unconscious bias to protect the institution.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: And to see the best in the employee. Yes.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: So they take deeply alarming grooming behavior, like isolating girls
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: with treats, and they downgrade it to poor classroom management.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: It's just a softer label.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: They soften the language because firing a charismatic teacher for
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: predatory behavior opens the school to massive legal and reputational liability.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: So they choose the path of least resistance, administrative friction.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Administrative friction. Wow. And that path of least resistance is
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: exactly what hands him the keys to the next school district.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Because his official record doesn't say terminated for predatory behavior
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: toward minors.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: No, it says suspended for classroom management issues. Right.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: So he just packs up his charisma, crosses state lines,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and starts over. I mean, he does a one-year stint
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: teaching outside Tulsa, Oklahoma. He gets a job in Plano, Texas,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: where he lasts a mere four days before leaving for
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: unclear reasons.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Four days.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Four days. And then he gets hired again in the Springdale,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Arkansas public school system, which is where he was employed
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: when he was arrested for the Devil's Den murders.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: The problem with a predator who uses state lines and
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: bureaucratic cowardice as a shield is that eventually the behavior
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: cannot be contained by HR language.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: It leaks out.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: The boundary testing escalates. Law enforcement looks at a suspect
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: with a documented history of crossing severe boundaries with vulnerable populations,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: a proven capacity for sudden extreme unprovoked violence, and this
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: highly transient state-hopping background.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: It's the perfect storm.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: It is. That specific matrix of violence and transience forces
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: investigators to ask a terrifying question. What else happened when
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: he was off the grid? Did this escalation jump from
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Arkansas to somewhere else entirely?
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Which is the perfect pivot, because that question takes us
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: far away from the rugged terrain of Arkansas, all the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: way to the Northeast, to Castleton, Vermont, in October of 2023. Right.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: We are looking at the unsolved murder of 77-year-old Honore Fleming.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And we really need to understand who this victim was.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: She was very important to her community.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. She was a former dean of education at what
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: is now Vermont State University. She had been married to
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: her husband for 47 years. They raised a son together.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: She was a deeply respected, beloved pillar of her community.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And she was killed while taking a late afternoon walk
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: on the Delaware and Hudson Rail Trail.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: The timeline of this tragedy is just terrifyingly narrow. Investigators
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: established that Honoré entered the trail at 4 p.m. By 4.30 p.m.,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: she was found dead.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: 30 minutes.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: A 30-minute window in a rural setting where a life
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: was violently taken and the perpetrator completely vanished. It suggests
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: a chilling level of efficiency or incredibly dark luck on
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: the part of the killer.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: But the method of the killing is where my brain
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: just hits a brick wall. Because... In Arkansas, we discussed
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: a chaotic, messy, rage-fueled stabbing with a knife. Up close, frantic,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: deeply personal. Yes. In Vermont, Honoré Fleming was killed by
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a single gunshot wound to the head. Connecting these two crimes,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: it feels like trying to say a barroom brawler who
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: swings broken bottles is the exact same person as a
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: clinical sniper, simply because they both happen to be standing
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: in an alleyway.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: It's a huge stretch initially.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Right. The mechanisms of the crimes are just so wildly different.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Is it really plausible to link them when the methodology
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: completely shifts like that?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: The barroom brawler versus clinical sniper analogy perfectly encapsulates the
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: hesitation every seasoned investigator would feel looking at these files.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm not crazy.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. Joe Kennedy addressed this directly by
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: focusing on the instrument or agent of death. When an
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: individual crosses the threshold into taking a life, they almost
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: always rely on a preferred instrument.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, like a signature.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Precisely. They are a shooter, a stabber, a strangler, or
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: they use blunt force. Changing lanes from a firearm to
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: a bladed weapon is a massive psychological and tactical inconsistency.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Because it requires a completely different relationship to the violence, right? Yes.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: A single gunshot creates distance, both physically and emotionally. It
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: can be instantaneous. It does not inherently telegraph the massive,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: sustained anger and physical escalation that a frenzied stabbing does.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: The emotional footprint of pulling a trigger from a few
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: feet away is vastly different from the emotional footprint of
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: tearing into another human being with a sharp instrument. So
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: you have a weapon inconsistency and a psychological inconsistency.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: So if the weapon is wrong and the psychological profile
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: of the act feels so different, Why does Vermont State
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Police even pick up the phone to talk to Arkansas?
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, why not just write it off as a
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: bizarre coincidence of transient violence?
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Because when you remove the weapon from the equation, the
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: environmental and physical parallels are too strong to ignore. It
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: becomes a matter of investigative due diligence. Let's look at
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: the geography of isolation. Both crimes occurred in rural, quiet,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: recreational areas, Devil's Den State Park and the D &
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: H Rail Trail. These are environments people seek out for peace,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: which tactically makes them ideal hunting grounds.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Because they are devoid of modern surveillance, right? Exactly.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: These aren't urban centers. You don't have overlapping security cameras
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: on every corner. You have massive gaps in cell tower coverage,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: making it difficult to ping mobile devices.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: And usually not a lot of people around. Right.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Crucially, you have low foot traffic, which minimizes the variable
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: of witnesses. A predator looking for a target of opportunity
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: will gravitate toward environments where the risk of detection is
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: mathematically lower.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: That makes a chilling kind of sense. Then we have
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: to evaluate the physical descriptions, which is another puzzle. Following
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the Vermont murder, witnesses on the trail provided a description
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of a person of interest.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, the sketch. Right.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: They said a white male, about 5 foot 10 inches tall,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: short red hair, wearing a dark gray t-shirt and carrying
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: a black backpack. Now, You compare that to the witness
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: photos and descriptions of McCann in Arkansas, a white male,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: medium build, carrying a black backpack.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: A lot of overlap there.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: There is, but there is a glaring discrepancy. The Arkansas
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: mugshot clearly shows a man with blonde hair, but the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Vermont witnesses specifically noted short red hair.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: And this raises an important question really regarding the inherent
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: fragility of eyewitness memory. You know, it is a constant
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: battle for law enforcement. Consider the context in which these
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: two descriptions were generated.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: They were very different situations.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Completely. In Arkansas, the witnesses to the actual murders included
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: highly traumatized children. Kennedy pointed out that interviewing them requires
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: specialized forensic techniques, you know, and it's likely conducted at
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: child advocacy centers.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: To protect them.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Yes. The goal is to carefully extract visual memory... from
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: a developing brain that has just witnessed the unthinkable. And
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: this has to be done without leading the witness or
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: compounding the trauma.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And the Vermont witnesses are operating under a completely different
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: set of cognitive conditions. Exactly.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: In Vermont, you have a bolt, but they are dealing
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: with the barrier of fleeting non-contextual memory. They are walking
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: on a trail. They pass a stranger. Maybe they saw
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: his face for two seconds. Right.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: They aren't expecting a crime.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe their view was obstructed by the tree line or
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: the angle of the late afternoon sun altered their perception
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: of color. Crucially, they aren't staring at him committing a crime.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Their brains are not actively logging his features for a
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: police sketch. They are just passing a guy with a backpack.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Just another hiker.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It isn't until hours or days later when they
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: learn a murder occurred that they try to force their
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: brain to retrieve that two-second memory. Memory is incredibly malleable,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: and under the pressure of trying to help a murder investigation,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: a fleeting glance at dirty blonde hair in the autumn
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: sun can easily be encoded and recalled as red hair.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Wow. So the police aren't going to just sit in
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a room, hold up a blonde mugshot in one hand
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and a red-haired sketch in the other, and make a
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: definitive ruling based on that?
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: So how do they actually test this potential link in
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a modern investigative landscape if memory is that flawed?
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: They bypass human memory entirely and turn to the digital footprint.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: As Kennedy outlined, the goal is to geographically place Andrew
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: James McCann in the state of Vermont in October of 2023.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Using data.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: You do that with hard data. Investigators will subpoena bank
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: records to look for debit card transactions at gas stations
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: or convenience stores along the interstate routes leading to the Northeast.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Ah, smart.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: They will analyze his electronic communications, They will request cell
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: tower dumps near the D & H rail trail to
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: see if a device registered to him pinged off a
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: local tower during that crucial 30-minute window.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: They are essentially looking for the invisible breadcrumbs that every
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: modern citizen leaves behind, even if they manage to successfully avoid, like,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: actual physical security cameras.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They will also utilize automated license plate readers, or ALPRs,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: and toll road data across multiple states. If he drove
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: from the Midwest or the South up to Vermont, his
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: vehicle likely passed through electronic tolling systems or past police
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: cruisers equipped with plate scanners.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: So there's almost always a trail.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Usually, yes. It is a painstaking routine process of dotting
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: every I and crossing every T. But it is the
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: only way to definitively include or exclude him based on
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: empirical evidence rather than just sketches and speculation.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: But here is the sobering reality for the community in Castleton.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: While investigators run down that digital trail to confirm or
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: rule out McCann, the Vermont case remains technically cold. It does.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: It's been nearly two years.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Almost two years. And this brings us to a broader,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: highly counterintuitive reality about how cold cases are actually worked.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: The statistics provided by Joe Kennedy, they completely dismantle the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: narrative we've been fed by decades of pop culture.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, the CSI effect has profoundly warped public expectation. Kennedy's
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: statistics are a massive reality check.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: They really are.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: He stated that only 15% of homicides are solved using
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: physical evidence.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Just 15%. Just 15%.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: That includes your DNA, your pristine fingerprints, your microscopic hair fibers,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: your matched shoe prints.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: All of it. Which is staggering. I mean, we've been
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: conditioned by slick 42-minute procedural dramas to believe there is always,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: you know, a glowing fingerprint under a blacklight.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Or a microscopic fiber that a lab technician uses to
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: instantly crack the case right before the commercial break. To
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: hear that 85% of murders are solved without that smoking
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: gun physical evidence... it completely reorients how you view the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: job of a detective.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: It has to, because physical evidence is remarkably fragile, especially
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: in outdoor environments. If a crime occurs on a rail trail,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: weather conditions, wind, rain, UV exposure, they degrade biological evidence rapidly.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: So Major basically washes it away. Yes.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, a perpetrator doesn't always bleed at the scene, and
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: touch DNA is often insufficient for a conviction on its own.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: It's just not as reliable as TV makes it seem.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: So if physical evidence only accounts for 15%, where does
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the rest come from?
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Kennedy notes that 35% of homicides are solved by witness testimony.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, 35%.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: However, he heavily caveats that this is a highly volatile 35%.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Witnesses are inherently unreliable over time. Their memories fade or
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: become corrupted by news reports.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Or they just don't show up. Exactly.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: They fail to appear for court dates. Or they take
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: the stand and are systematically impeached by skilled defense attorneys
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: who highlight the exact memory malleability we discussed earlier regarding
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: the hair color.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And Kennedy also pointed out that this 35% bucket, it's
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: actively shrinking, isn't it? Because of a modern shift in
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: bystander behavior.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: It is a massive hurdle in contemporary policing. There is
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: an increasing reluctance among the public to cooperate with law enforcement.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Whether it's fueled by a general distrust of institutions, fear
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: of retaliation, or just a desire not to get involved
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: in the legal system, investigators are finding it increasingly difficult
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: to get people to speak on the record. Kennedy noted
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: that even in heinous, community-shattering crimes, getting actionable witness testimony
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: can be like pulling teeth.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Which leaves us with the final and, frankly, most astonishing statistic.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: If 15% is physical evidence and 35% is witness testimony...
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: That means 50% of all murders, half of all homicides
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: in this country, are solved by confession. Half? Half.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: The investigator has to sit across a table from the perpetrator,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: navigate their psychological defenses, and maneuver them into voluntarily admitting
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: that they took a human life.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: That completely redefines the skill set required for the job.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: They aren't just lab scientists piecing together a physical puzzle.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: They have to be master psychologists.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: But if you can't rely on DNA... And the community
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: won't talk to you. How do you even begin to
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: reconstruct a cold case to the point where you can
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: put someone in that interrogation room? Our sources highlighted a
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: very specific, unique approach Kennedy uses regarding victimology.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, traditional victimology often looks backward.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Detectives ask, who was the victim dating? Who were they
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: fighting with? Did they owe anyone money?
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: The usual suspects.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Right. But Kennedy advocates for a forward-looking approach. analyzing what
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: he calls futuristic events.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I found this concept so fascinating. Let's walk through exactly
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: how this works practically. How do you apply futuristic events
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: to someone like Honoré Fleming?
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Let's look at the timeline. Honoré Fleming is killed between
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: 4 p.m. and 4.30 p.m. Instead of just looking at
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: what she did that morning, Kennedy's methodology asks, where was
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: she supposed to be at 6 p.m.? Oh, I see.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Does she have a dinner reservation? Was she supposed to
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: call her son at 8 p.m.? Did she have a
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: dentist appointment the next morning?
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: You're looking for the disrupted routine.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: You are looking for the ripple effect of her absence.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: But more importantly, you are looking for who possessed the
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: knowledge of that routine.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Give me an example of how that plays out.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Imagine an investigator sits down with a victim's calendar. They
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: see a scheduled appointment at 5 p.m. on the day
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: of the murder. The investigator calls that office and discovers
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: the appointment was abruptly canceled by an ex-partner at 3 p.m.,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: an hour before the murder. Oh, wow. Suddenly, the entire
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: landscape of the investigation shifts. You are tracking who knew
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: the victim had a specific window of vulnerability.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Because random stranger attacks, while terrifying, are not the norm, right?
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Statistically, they are absolute outliers. Kennedy noted that 9 out
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: of 10 murders involve some type of prior relationship or
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: association between the victim and the perpetrator.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: 9 out of 10?
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. Therefore, identifying who had intimate knowledge of the victim's
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: futuristic schedule is often a massive clue pointing directly to
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: the killer.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: But let's take this to the absolute limit. Let's say
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the trail goes completely cold. The futuristic events yield nothing.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: There is no DNA. The witnesses saw nothing.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: A true cold case.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If law enforcement requires a confession to solve 50%
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: of these cases, how do they extract a confession months
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: or even years after the fact? I mean, how do
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you convince a killer to admit guilt when they have
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: successfully gotten away with it?
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: It relies entirely on the psychological and physiological toll the
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: crime takes on the perpetrator. We have to fundamentally understand
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: the nature of the act of murder compared to other crimes.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Kennedy made a brilliant distinction here, actually. He pointed out
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: that burglaries are planned. Bank robberies are planned. The perpetrator
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: visualizes the steps. But murders, by and large, are chaotic,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: unplanned events.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And when a crime is unplanned, the perpetrator is
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: entirely unprepared for the reality of the execution. They do
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: not bargain for the victim fighting back with everything they have.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: They do not anticipate the visceral, horrifying sensory experience of
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: taking a human life. The gap between the fantasy of
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the act or the impulse of the anger and the
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: physical reality of the murder, it creates an immense, crushing
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: psychological weight.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: And that weight manifests physically, doesn't it? Investigators don't just
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: wait around. They actively look for the deterioration of the suspect.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: They build a pool of persons of interest and just
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: sort of monitor their lives to see who is cracking
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: under the guilt.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: They do. They look for specific coping mechanisms. Does the
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: suspect suddenly develop severe insomnia? Do they escalate into heavy
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: substance abuse to numb the memory?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Trying to forget.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. Do they exhibit extreme job instability? And crucially, do
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: they demonstrate an inability to remain in one location?
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Which brings us right back to the behavioral profile of
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Andrew James McHale.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: The parallels are striking, aren't they? Moving rapidly from Texas
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: to Oklahoma to Arkansas, unable to maintain a teaching position
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: for more than a few months, or in one case,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: a few days.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Just bouncing around endlessly.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: That level of extreme transience is a massive red flag
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: for an investigator. It is the geographic manifestation of a
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: psyche desperately trying to outrun its own actions.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: But there is a counterintuitive flip side to this deterioration.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: which was perhaps the most surprising element Kennedy discussed, the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: paradoxical suspect.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: It's a fascinating psychological phenomenon. Occasionally, investigators encounter a suspect
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: whose life actually visibly improves after they commit a murder.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Which, on the surface, that sounds completely insane. I mean,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: how does committing the ultimate crime improve someone's trajectory?
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I call it the shock doctrine of guilt. Imagine an
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: individual who is not a model citizen. Perhaps they are
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: a drifter, a petty thief, someone constantly in trouble. They
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: cross the line and commit a murder. The sheer horror
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: and magnitude of what they have done shocks their system
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: so profoundly that it essentially scares them straight. They realize
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: they are capable of monstrous behavior and they are terrified
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: of themselves.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: So they try to overcorrect. Exactly.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: They suddenly secure steady employment. They get married. They start
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: attending church or volunteering in the community. Wow.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Playing the part of a good citizen.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: They are frantically trying to balance the cosmic scales, trying
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: to construct a persona of a model citizen to prove
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: to the world and more importantly to themselves... that they
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: are not the monster they know they are. Investigators are
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: trained to look not just for deterioration, but for any sudden, drastic,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: inexplicable shift in a suspect's baseline behavior immediately following the
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: timeline of the murder.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: And while investigators monitor these behavioral shifts, They deploy their
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: most powerful yet agonizing tool, time. The conventional wisdom is
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: that time is the enemy of an investigation. We've all
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: heard the trope that if a case isn't solved in
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the first 48 hours, the odds drop to zero.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Right. The classic first 48.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But Kennedy argues that in cold cases, the liability
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of time transforms into the investigator's greatest asset.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Because time is the great eroder of loyalty. Think about
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: the social dynamics and alliances that exist on the day
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: a murder is committed. A killer often relies on someone
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: to help them cover it up.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Like an alibi.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: It's the girlfriend who provides the airtight fake alibi. It's
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the best friend who helps dispose of the clothing or
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: the weapon.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: But five years later, the landscape of those relationships has
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: completely changed.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: That girlfriend is now an ex-girlfriend who was abused or
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: cheated on and she harbors deep resentment. That best friend
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: had a bitter falling out over a business deal. The
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: protective alliances shatter.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: They aren't on the same team anymore.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And suddenly, when a cold case detective knocks on
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: their door, these individuals no longer have a vested interest
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: in protecting the killer. In fact, they may have a
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: vested interest in seeing them punished.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: You combine those fracturing alliances with the killer's own overwhelming
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: need to unburden themselves. Kennedy noted that a major factor
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: in that 50% confession rate is that killers eventually tell
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: someone what they did.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: The burden of carrying a lethal secret is often too
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: heavy for one's psyche. It leaks out. Sometimes it manifests
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: as braggadocious behavior. The killer is at a bar trying
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: to act tough and implies they committed a famous local crime.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Just showing off.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Or other times it is a desperate, tearful confession to
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: a spouse or a family member because the killer simply
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: cannot sleep at night.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: And often, the person hearing it doesn't even believe them
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: in the moment. They brush it off as a dark
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: joke or drunken rambling. But the seed is planted.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: And eventually, that urge to confess, combined with a former
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: ally who is no longer willing to carry the weight
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: of the secret, is what breaks the dam. The tip
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: comes in, the pressure is applied in the interrogation room,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: the psychological defenses crumble, and the investigator secures the confession
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: that closes the file.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: So when we step back and really look at this vast,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: complex investigative landscape we've traversed today, on one hand, you
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: have the terrifying immediate reality of Andrew James McKeon, a
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: suspect caught mid-haircut after allegedly unleashing a chaotic, rage-filled stabbing
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: that destroyed a family in an Arkansas state park.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: A horrifying reality.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: And his story exposes horrifying vulnerabilities in our school systems,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: where institutional self-preservation and the camouflage of charisma allowed a
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: man with deeply predatory allegations to bounce from state to state,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: classroom to classroom with absolute impunity.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: And on the other hand, you have the quiet, agonizing,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: unsolved tragedy of Honoré Fleming in Vermont, a case that
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: strips away the Hollywood myths and highlights the sobering, grueling
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: realities of cold case investigations.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: It's not glamorous at all. No.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: No. It's a reality where the weapon methodology is inconsistent,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: where physical evidence is luxury, where witnesses are scarce, and
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: where time, currently the family's greatest enemy, must slowly be
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: weaponized into the tool that eventually breaks the killer's alliances.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: It fundamentally changes how you view the world around you.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: You know, the real world of criminal justice is not
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: a slick, sterile laboratory where A computer beeps and prints
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: out the killer's name at minute 42.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Not even close.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: It is a deeply messy, intensely human web of fractured memories,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: institutional failures, shifting loyalties, and crushing psychological burdens.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: And for anyone listening who might be in or near Castleton, Vermont,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: it is crucial to note that there remains a $ 25, 000
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: reward for information leading to justice for Honoré Fleming. Because
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: as we've discussed, cases like this do not solve themselves
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: in a vacuum.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: They need people to speak up.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: They require the community to overcome that modern reluctance to
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: pay attention to those shifting behaviors and to come forward.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Which leaves us with a final thought for you to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: carry as you go about your day. If the statistics
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: we unpacked are true, if half of all murders are
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: solved solely because someone eventually breaks down and confesses, and
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: if suspects routinely unburden their horrific acts onto the people
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: closest to them, how many people right now are walking
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: past you in the grocery store or sitting next to
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: you in traffic, carrying a devastating secret for a friend,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: a sibling, or an ex-partner? How many ordinary people are
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: actively holding the key to a grieving family's closure, just
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: navigating their daily lives, waiting for the right moment, the
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: right fractured alliance, or the right amount of pressure to
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: finally step out of the shadows and speak the truth?