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Mom Refuses To Cooperate With Cops After Son Vanishes Amid Custody Battle · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So imagine you take a lie detector test, right, to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: prove that you didn't harm your own child.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: And you pass it.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You completely pass. And then on top of that,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Child Protective Services, you know, the actual agency tasked with
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: investigating child abuse, they do a thorough review and they
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: officially clear you.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge deal. I mean, they don't do
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: that lightly. Right.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: But then, despite all of this, like, totally objective evidence,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: a judge steps in and legally bans you from seeing
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: your kids for a full year. Wow. And it gets worse.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: They effectively hand those kids over to the other parent
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: who has a documented like severe history of psychological instability.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I mean, that's just a nightmare scenario.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: So the question is, how does the math of our
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: justice system get it so incredibly wrong?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it happens because we we tend to
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: confuse the ideal of justice with the actual like bureaucratic
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: administration of the law.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the day-to-day grind of it. Right.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: You go into these systems expecting this infallible machine that
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: weighs objective truth. But what you actually encounter is just
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: a series of human bottlenecks. Right.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Overwhelmed people making split decisions.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a structure that's entirely reliant on the subjective
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: interpretation of overworked arbiters. You've got conflicting mandates, procedural loopholes.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: It's messy.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It is incredibly messy. And welcome to today's deep dive
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: into the source material. We are unpacking two investigations today
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: sourced directly from the files of Crime Watch Daily.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: And they are heavy ones.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they are. But I want you to stick with
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: us because while the circumstances of these two cases could
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: not be more different, I mean, one is the baffling
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: disappearance of a two-year-old boy in Washington state, and the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: other involves a local business owner operating as a serial
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: predator in Chicago.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: They're basically entirely different worlds.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Right. But they share the exact same underlying anatomy. Okay,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: let's unpack this. We are going to examine the sheer
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: banality of systemic failure today.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Which is terrifying when you really look at it.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It really is. We're looking at what happens when the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: very institutions that we rely on to establish truth and
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: provide safety like family courts, police protocols, the felony review process,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: when those are manipulated by the people who hold the
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: keys to the front door.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: And understanding the mechanics of that manipulation is vital. I mean,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: these stories really illustrate how individuals can exploit the rigid
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: protocols of our legal systems.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: They use the rules against the system.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Turning the rules that are designed to protect the
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: vulnerable into shields for their own behavior.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So let's start with our first case. I
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: want you to imagine a perfectly normal family dynamic just
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: slowly eroding from the inside out. We're looking at the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Metawala family.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: On paper, the background of Solomon Metalwala and Julia Biriokova
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: reads like this classic American success story. Solomon was born
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: in Pakistan, Julia in Ukraine.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: And the sources say they actually met by chance at
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: a gas station, right?
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Met at a gas station, fell in love, got married,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and had two kids, a daughter, Miley, and a son, Sky.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And Solomon, like in his interviews, he describes Julia as
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: being beyond beautiful physically. And really giving.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: But then things start to shift.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: They do. That baseline of normalcy starts to fracture because
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: severe mental health issues emerge for Julia.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Specifically, the sources highlight debilitating, obsessive, compulsive behavior. And it
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: was focused entirely on cleanliness.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Which we should point out is not how most people
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: use the term OCD.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. We often casually misuse OCD in
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: everyday conversation, like to describe someone who likes a tidy desk.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: But what we're looking at here is the clinical reality
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: of the disorder.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: It's totally different.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Right. It functions as a maladaptive control mechanism. When a
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: person feels overwhelming internal chaos or, say, severe depression, they
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: sometimes try to manage that anxiety by rigidly controlling their
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: external environment.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And for Julia, that meant cleaning the house. But not
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: just normal cleaning. It began with like three to four
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: hours a day.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Which is already a lot.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: But then it escalates to a staggering six hours a day.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: It reaches this point where the interior of the house
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: has to remain so clinically sterile that the family isn't
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: even allowed to eat inside anymore.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: They had to eat outside.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They are forced to take their meals outside. Just,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, picture the mechanics of that for a second.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: You've got a husband and two young kids eating their
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: dinner on the porch, looking in at their own living room.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Because the mental illness has essentially claimed ownership of the
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: physical house.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's like living in a house where you can
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: hear the foundation cracking. But you keep hoping the walls
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: will hold up, you know.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: That visual is crucial for understanding the concept of normalized
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: pathology within a family unit. Severe mental illness, it doesn't
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: occur in a vacuum. It dictates the reality of everyone
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: living under that roof.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Especially the kids.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Right. Because when a parent enforces a rule that the
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: family cannot consume food indoors, the children internalize that profound
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: instability as their normal baseline. They don't have the cognitive
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: development to understand that their mom is sick.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: They just think that's how life works.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They just adapt to the erratic environment. And we
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: see the psychological bleed over very clearly in their young daughter, Miley.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this part is incredibly tough to read. According to
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the case files, Miley, who is just a toddler, started
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: mimicking her mother. She would repeatedly say the words, I
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: want to kill myself.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: A four-year-old echoing suicidal ideation. I mean, it's hard to
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: even process.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: It really is. But let me push back here on
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the timeline of intervention because I think a lot of
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: people listening would wonder, if you're a spouse living in
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: this environment, your family is eating outside, your toddler is
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: verbalizing self-harm because she hears it so often, why do
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you stay?
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Right. Why not just leave or get help?
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Why does it take a catastrophic event for someone
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: to finally intervene? If it was this bad, what was
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the holdup?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Well, it's because of the psychological phenomenon of the boiling frog.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: You know, you don't wake up one day to a
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: spouse demanding you eat outside and a child talking about self-harm.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It creeps up on you.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Right. It happens incrementally. A spouse compensates. They accommodate the
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: compulsions just to keep the peace. And slowly they lose
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: their own perspective on how dangerous the situation has become.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Plus, the legal and medical systems, they don't offer easy
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: off-ramps for spouses dealing with an uncooperative, severely ill partner.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Unless there is an imminent documented threat to life, you
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: can't just force an adult into psychiatric care.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the actual breaking point. Julia eventually
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: sends Solomon this text message and she states, I cannot
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: live another day. I am dead on the inside anyway
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and have been dead for a long time.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: And there it is. That is the imminent threat.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: The proof.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That text message provides the requisite legal and medical
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: justification to act. It signals a complete collapse of her
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: coping mechanisms. You know, the six hours of cleaning were
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: no longer holding the internal darkness at bay.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: So this finally allows Solomon to have her committed to
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: a psychiatric hospital on an involuntary hold. And the sources
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: note that during this hospital stint, they actually change her medication.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: And there is a brief period where Solomon says, quote,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: life was good.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: It brought them back to a baseline.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a brief baseline.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: But the relapse is swift and it's severe. The obsessive
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: cleaning returns. And Solomon realizes the environment is fundamentally unsafe
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: for his children.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: So he takes action.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: He filed for divorce to protect the kids and he
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: seeks custody. And this is where the narrative shifts right
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: from a private medical tragedy into just a brutal legal war.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: It becomes a war of attrition. Both parties secure protection
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: orders against each other. But then Julia begins to aggressively
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: leverage the mechanics of the court against Solomon.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: She goes on the offensive.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Big time. She denies the severity of her mental illness
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: and starts leveling severe allegations against him. She claims Solomon
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: beat her and the children with a wooden spoon.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: And to back this up, she produces an independent witness,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: someone who provides a sworn statement backing up the claim
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: of physical abuse.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge curveball.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: It is. And I want to challenge the criticism of
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the court here, actually. Because I hear what you're saying
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: about Julia's documented mental illness and the hospital hold. But
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: if a judge is sitting on the bench and they
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: are handed a sworn affidavit from a third-party witness stating
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: that the father beats his kids with a wooden spoon,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: isn't the court entirely justified in stepping in?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Like, how is a judge supposed to know the witness
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: is lying during a preliminary hearing?
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: They can't. And if we connect this to the bigger picture,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: that is exactly the structural trap of family court. You
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: are entirely correct that a judge cannot simply ignore a
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: sworn affidavit from a third party.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: They have to act on it.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Right. The issue lies in the differing burdens of proof
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: and the court's actual mandate. You see, in a criminal court,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: you have to prove an allegation beyond a reasonable doubt.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: The highest standard.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. But family court operates on a much lower threshold,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: often a preponderance of the evidence, which basically just means
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: it's more likely than not.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: That's a huge difference. It is.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: And the court's primary mandate is the immediate safety of
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: the child. So when faced with dueling narratives, a mother
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: with a psychiatric history versus a father accused of physical
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: abuse by an independent witness, the judge is placed in
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: an impossible position.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: They have to guess, almost.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: They aren't forensic investigators. They are arbiters trying to mitigate risk.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: But then Julia deploys what the sources describe as the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: ultimate weapon in a custody dispute. She accuses Solomon of
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: sexually abusing their young daughter, Miley.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: And that allegation mandates immediate aggressive intervention. It triggers jurisdiction
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: from Child Protective Services.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: The PPS.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Right, which operates parallel to but independently from the family court.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And this brings us right back to that paradox I
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: mentioned at the very beginning of the deep dive. CPS
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: steps in and they have the mandate, they have the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: training and the resources to investigate child sexual abuse.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: They do this every day.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Right. They conduct their investigation and they formally conclude that
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Julia's claim is completely unfounded.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Completely debunked.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Yes. And Solomon, who is just desperate to clear his
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: name regarding all of these allegations, voluntarily takes a polygraph
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: test and he passes.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: So wait, let's look at this. If CBS investigates and
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: says the worst allegations are unfounded and he passes a
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: lie detector test, how does family court still hand the
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: kids over to a mother with a documented history of
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: severe mental instability?
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: It's mind boggling.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: It feels like flipping a coin with children's lives.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Explain the legal mechanics of how that outcome is even possible.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Well, it happens because the findings of Child Protective Services
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: are not always legally binding on a family court judge's
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: final determination of custody.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Wait, really?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Depending on the specific jurisdictional statutes, a judge can
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: look at a CPS finding of unfounded and still decide
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: that the mere introduction of the allegation, combined with the
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: lingering muddy water of that physical abuse claim and the
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: independent witness, just creates too much risk.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Because they just play it safe.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Right. It is an extreme and in this case deeply
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: flawed application of the better safe than sorry approach. The
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: judge essentially decides that the risk of placing the children
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: with a father accused of abuse outweighs the documented reality
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: of placing them with a mother suffering from severe untreated
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: mental illness.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: That is just a bureaucratic coin flip that costs Solomon
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: an entire year of his children's lives. For 365 days,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: he is completely cut out.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: A full year.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: A full year. He describes his son, Skye, as being
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: pure love with these big brown eyes. And he just
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: has to sit and wait while the legal system slowly
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: grinds through the appeals and the visitation processes.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: It's agonizing.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: But finally, after a year, a Wednesday visitation is established.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Solomon is finally going to see his kids.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't happen.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: No. Just days before that reunion can take place, the
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: story takes a baffling and tragic turn.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: We arrive at a chilly November morning in Bellevue, Washington.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: And the story Julia tells the police is, well, it's
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: a study in logical inconsistencies.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: That's putting it mildly. She claims that two-year-old Skye woke
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: up sick, so she decides to drive him to the hospital. Okay.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: She loads Skye and four-year-old Miley into her car. But
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: according to her statement, while en route to the hospital,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: her car runs out of gas or breaks down.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Let's break down the sheer illogical nature of her timeline here.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Please do.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: If you are a parent with a toddler sick enough
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: to require immediate medical attention— and your vehicle becomes disabled
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: in the November cold, what do you do?
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: You stay with your kids.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The standard human response is to maintain proximity to
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: your vulnerable children and seek immediate assistance.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Right. You pull out your cell phone, you call a
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: tow truck, you call a cab. Or if the kid
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: is truly in medical distress, you call 911.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Precisely. But Julia's stated actions diverge wildly from any recognizable
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: standard of care. She claims she left the sick two-year-old
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: boy strapped into his car seat, entirely alone in the
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: disabled vehicle.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: On the side of the road.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Yes. She then takes the four-year-old Miley and decides to
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: walk a full mile to the nearest gas station.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Walking a mile in near-freezing temperatures with a four-year-old instead
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of just taking both kids, it's bizarre.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: But it gets worse. When she finally arrives at the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: gas station, she doesn't purchase gas. She doesn't ask the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: attendant to help with her vehicle. She uses her phone.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: which she had with her the entire time, by the way,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: to call a friend to come pick her up.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: She waits for the friend, and they eventually drive back
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to where she left the car. This entire sequence takes
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: over an hour, and when they arrive, Skye is gone.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: And when the Bellevue Police Department, led by Chief Steve Milett,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: begin their investigation, what's fascinating here is they don't simply
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: accept the narrative. They test the physical mechanics of the claim.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: They test the car.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They immediately focus on the inciting incident, the disabled vehicle.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: And they find it has plenty of gas. They turn
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the key, the engine starts perfectly, and they are able
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: to drive it without any mechanical issues whatsoever.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: The foundational premise of her story is a verifiable lie.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: It falls apart instantly.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: This is the difference between amateur staging and professional forensic analysis.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: You see, when a person attempts to stage a crime scene...
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: meaning they're manipulating evidence to redirect the investigation away from themselves,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: they're usually operating under immense cognitive overload.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: They're panicking.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Right. They construct a narrative that provides a surface-level excuse
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: for their actions, like, the call broke down. But they
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: lack the foresight to ensure the physical evidence actually aligns
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: with the lie. The car worked perfectly. The story crumbles
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: the moment it is subjected to basic mechanical testing.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: And as investigators dig into the family history, they uncover
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: case files. that cast a very dark shadow over Julia's
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: relationship with her vehicle.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Fact number three from the sources, right?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Exactly. In 2009, both Solomon and Julia were cited by
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: police for leaving Sky locked in a car outside of
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Target for 55 minutes while they shopped. Solomon readily admits
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: in the sources that it was an inexcusable lapse in judgment.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: But it's more than just negligence. It establishes a behavioral pattern.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates a history of utilizing the vehicle as a
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: holding pen for the child. Treating the car as a
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: containment unit rather than a mode of transport.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: But there is another piece of evidence, fact number four,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: that moves this from a pattern of negligence to something
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: highly calculated. And it is chilling.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, this part is wild.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: The night before Sky vanished, Julia's favorite television show, Law
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: & Order SDU, aired an episode featuring a very specific plot.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: A mother attempts to cover up the death of her
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: child by claiming the kid was abducted from a parched car.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: It's almost too exact.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's as if she used a television script
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: as a blueprint for a real-life tragedy, assuming the police
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: would just watch the show and buy the plot. But
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: let me play devil's advocate here for a second. Millions
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: of people watch Law & Order every single night. Is
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: it not entirely possible that this is just a grim coincidence?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: How often do investigators see perpetrators mimicking pop culture to
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: cover their tracks?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: While coincidence is always a factor in investigations, the timing
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: and the specific utility of the plot point heavily toward
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: media contagion.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Media contagion.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when individuals are in a state of extreme crisis
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: and need to fabricate a complex lie rapidly, they rarely
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: invent a scenario out of thin air. The cognitive demand
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: is just too high.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Instead, they pull from available mental scripts. If she watched
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: a detailed procedural narrative about covering up a child's death
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: via a staged car abduction merely hours before her own
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: child disappeared under those exact stated circumstances, it is highly
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: probable the episode functioned as a cognitive blueprint.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: But unlike TV, the Bellevue Police Department does not pack
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: up and go home after 45 minutes.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Well, they don't.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: They throw massive resources at this. Over 14,000 investigative hours,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: $ 2 million. They're desperately searching for this little boy. And
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: when they bring Julia in for follow-up questioning to confront
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: her with the fact that her car works perfectly, you'd
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: expect her to break down. Why? Or at least beg
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: for help.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: But she doesn't.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Instead, she builds a fortress of silence. She deploys a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: legal shield to completely halt the investigation. Her attorney walks
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: into the room, shuts the energy down, and she never
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: speaks to the police again.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: And this introduces one of the most difficult frictions in
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: our legal system. The space between constitutional rights... And moral expectations.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: The Fifth Amendment guarantees the right against self-incrimination, and securing
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: legal counsel is a fundamental right. In a court of law,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: a prosecutor cannot point to a defendant's silence as proof
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: of their guilt.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: But investigators aren't in a courtroom at this stage. They
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: are standing on the side of a road looking for
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a missing toddler. From an investigative standpoint, when a parent
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: lawyers up immediately and never speaks to police again, how
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: do you keep a cold case moving forward? Can't the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: police compel a parent, the last person to see the
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: child alive, to provide basic information?
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: No, they cannot. The constitutional protection is absolute in that regard.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: You cannot force a citizen to submit to police interrogation,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: regardless of the stakes.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Even for a missing kid?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Even then. This creates an immense structural wall for investigators.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: When your primary person of interest, the individual who holds
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: the key to the timeline, simply opts out of the process,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: the direct path to the truth is severed.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: So the case just stalls? And years later, Jason Matera,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a reporter for Crime Watch Daily, attempts to bridge that gap.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: He tracks Julia down in a parking lot, approaches her
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: at the trunk of her car, and begs her point
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: blank to help find her son.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: And her response is telling.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: It's chilling. Her response isn't just silence. She pulls out
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: her phone and calls the police on the reporter. Here's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: where it gets really interesting. She wants police protection from
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: a microphone, but not police help to find her toddler.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: It reveals her hierarchy of needs. Self-preservation supersedes the recovery
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: of her son. Wow. And the only time she breaks
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: her silence is via an email to ABC News. And
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: she doesn't use that platform to plead for Sky's return
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: or offer a reward. She uses it to attack Solomon,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: labeling him a sadistic Muslim Pakistani.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: It is a calculated racist deflection tactic. She is throwing
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: incendiary language into the media ecosystem, hoping a prejudice-driven narrative
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: will distract from her own inconsistencies.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Deflection at its worst.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: But it fails, largely because Solomon's behavior has been the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: exact opposite of hers. He remains entirely cooperative with law enforcement.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: He takes every interview. He passes polygraphs and relentlessly keeps
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Guy's name in the public eye.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: So how do police work around a silent primary suspect?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: They have to rely entirely on peripheral investigation. If you
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: can't go through the front door, you examine the foundation.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Like phone records and stuff.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Investigators audit financial records, subpoena cell phone tower data
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: to map physical movements against the stated timeline, and interview
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: every tangential associate. They also monitor the suspect's subsequent behavioral baseline.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to a grim yet validating update. Fast
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: forward to the present. The sources reveal that Julia had
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: another child, a baby boy with a convicted felon named
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Alan Morgan.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: But this time, the system functioned differently.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: It did. Child Protective Services intervened, declared Julia an unfit parent,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and legally removed the new baby from her custody.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: It is a tragic postscript. The intervention by CTS validates
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: the immense risk that the original family court judge chose
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: to ignore years earlier.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: It's too late for Sky, though.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Right. The system finally recognized her severe instability, but the
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: correction came far too late to protect him.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: And as for Skye, the theories regarding his fate are dark.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: The sources mention a theory that he was smuggled out
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of the country to Ukraine, which police investigated and closed
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the loop on.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: They ruled it out. Yeah.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Solomon has harbored the agonizing theory that Julia may have
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: sold him. But based on the totality of the evidence,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the fabricated car breakdown, the SVU episode, The absolute refusal
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: to answer a single question, what really happened to Skye?
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: While weighing these facts, the prevailing theory among investigators is
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: that little Skye was never in that car on that
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: November morning at all.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: He never made it to the car.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: The physical evidence suggests the crime scene was not the
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: side of the road, but a different location entirely. The
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: abandonment narrative was likely a constructed fiction to explain a
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: disappearance that had already occurred.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And Skye remains missing. It is a profound example of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: how the legal right to silence can be weaponized to
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: obscure the truth. And this smoothie transitions us from one
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: story of the justice system being manipulated by silence in
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Washington to another story in Chicago where a predator manipulated
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: the legal system to secure his own freedom.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: A different kind of monster.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly. If the first story was about a mystery in
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the fog, this story is about a monster operating in
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: broad daylight.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: We are shifting our focus to a different kind of
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: embedded threat. This isn't a family member. It is a
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: local business owner.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: The sources introduce us to Mark Winner. He owns several
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: tanning salons in the Chicago area, including one formerly known
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: as the Tanning Oasis.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: And he is accused of being a serial rapist.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Yes. Specifically targeting the women who cross his path in mundane,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: everyday settings. His customers and his employees. And we learn
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: about his methodology through the incredible testimony of Leslie Barton.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: A survivor.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, a former political consultant and survivor who bravely sat
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: down for an interview with Elizabeth Smart. Leslie chose to
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: use her real name and show her face on camera.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: The decision to speak publicly is a profound reclaiming of power,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: and the dynamic of the interview is significant. Elizabeth Smart
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: is a globally recognized survivor of abduction and assault herself.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: She brings so much credibility and empathy to the interview.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Her presence provides a unique safe space for Leslie
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: to articulate the visceral mechanics of the assault Without fear
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: of judgment.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: And when we think of a predator, society conditions us
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to picture the stranger lurking in an alleyway, right? But
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Mark Winner was the guy scanning your membership card at
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the tanning salon. How do predators like this use the
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: mundane nature of their businesses, like a tanning salon, as
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: a shield?
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: They rely on the psychology of embedded trust and the
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: normalcy bias. We are evolutionarily wired to assess threats based
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: on familiarity.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: If we see them every day, they must be safe.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Right. A local business owner is part of the community infrastructure.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: You see them regularly. You engage in minor social transactions.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: That repetition bypasses our threat detection radar.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So they don't even have to try that hard to
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: isolate you.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A predator in this position doesn't have to lure
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: victims into a dark alley. The victims willingly walk through
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: his front door because the context feels inherently safe.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: So to understand how he operated and manipulated that social contract...
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: We have to look at the exact timeline of the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: night of the night. Leslie's life was shattered. It begins
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: with a remarkably minor interaction.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: A very standard customer request. Yeah.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Leslie asked if a friend could utilize her tanning membership
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: for a single day, and Mark's response is wildly disproportionate.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: He screams at her at the top of his lungs
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the salon.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: This is a classic predatory boundary test. The explosive, unprovoked
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: rage over a trivial request is designed to gauge her
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: reaction to aggression and and assert dominance in a space
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: he controls.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: So later that evening, Leslie is at a local neighborhood bar,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: a place she describes as a cheers-type establishment. Mark Winter
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: is also there.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: And she approaches him.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: She does. She confronts him about his behavior earlier, telling
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: him he has no right to scream at customers and
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: needs to manage his anger. I want to pause here
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: because this is where the victim blaming often starts. People
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: might ask, why did she even approach him? Right. Why
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: not just avoid the guy who screamed at you?
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Because of the innate human desire to enforce social norms,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Leslie is a professional, assertive woman operating in her own neighborhood.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Confronting someone who acted inappropriately is a normal mechanism for
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: reestablishing mutual respect.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: She's just treating him like a jerk neighbor.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She is treating him like a difficult neighbor, completely
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: unaware that he is operating on a predatory wavelength.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So she tells him off and starts to walk away.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: But moments later, Mark changes his tactic. He approaches her
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: with a drink. He offers a seemingly sincere peace-offering apology.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: He says, you know what? You're right. I'm so sorry.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: And she accepts it.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Lizley accepts the drink, consumes about half of it, and
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: very quickly descends into what she describes as a strange fog.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: She becomes overwhelmingly lethargic, entirely out of proportion to what
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: she drank.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And this raises an important question about how often predators
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: use apologies and social norms to lower a victim's defenses.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying. It is.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: This sequence perfectly illustrates how predators weaponize social etiquette. When
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: someone offers a contrite apology and a peace offering, our
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: societal conditioning dictates that we accept it to resolve the conflict.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be rude.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Right. The predator uses the faux apology to instantly lower
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: the victim's guard. And the fog, Leslie describes, points directly
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: to pharmacological subjugation.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: He drugged her. Yes.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: By introducing a chemical agent into her drink, he bypasses
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the need for a physical struggle in a crowded public space,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: quietly stripping away her physical autonomy.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: So in this impaired state, Mark offers to drive her
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: to get some food. She agrees, relying on that embedded trust.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: He's the local salon owner. He just apologized.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: But he doesn't take her for food? No.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: He pulls up to his closed tanning salon in the
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: middle of the night. He ushers her inside first. And
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: this is where the sensory reality of the trap just
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: snaps shut.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: The psychological torment of realizing you've been trapped is unimaginable.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Leslie hears the deadbolt lock engage behind her. She describes
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: her entire body crunching. She loses periods of time eventually
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: waking up, standing inside a small tanning room, with Mark
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: physically blocking the only exit.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: The sound of the deadbolt is the auditory signal that
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: the social contract has been entirely severed. The crunching sensation
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: she describes is a profound neurobiological reaction to mortal terror.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Her body just knew.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Her autonomic nervous system is flooding her body with adrenaline
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: while simultaneously recognizing that she is trapped, leading to a
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: state of systemic shock. He has successfully isolated her on
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: every level, chemically, geographically, and physically.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: He looks her up, slams her onto a tanning bed,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and begins to strangle her. He applies so much pressure
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: to her neck that he leaves visible fingerprint bruises. Believing
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: she's about to be murdered, Leslie manages to gurgle out
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the words, stop, I'll stop fighting. Mark Winner then rapes her.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: She tells Elizabeth Smart, I just no longer existed in
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: that moment. I was gone.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: The visceral impact of that statement is just heartbreaking. I
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: wasn't me anymore.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? She confronted him about
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: his bad behavior, and his response was to chemically subdue
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: her and violently assault her. A terrifying level of entitlement.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Can you explain the significance of strangulation in sexual assaults
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: as an indicator of extreme danger and potential lethality?
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Strangulation is one of the most critical indicators of
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: lethality in the study of interpersonal violence. It is not
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: merely an attempt to cause pain. It is a demonstration
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: of absolute power over the victim's existence.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: It's about control.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Total control. By cutting off the oxygen supply to the brain,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the perpetrator is showing the victim that they hold the
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: power of life and death in their hands. The psychological
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: intent is total annihilation of the victim's will, which perfectly
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: aligns with Leslie's feeling that she no longer existed.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: That's so dark.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: And from a statistical standpoint, a victim who survives strangulation
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: by an assailant is exponentially more likely to be murdered
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: by that same individual in the future.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Leslie survived the physical attack, thank God. But as we
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: see so often, her nightmare was really just beginning. Because
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the system designed to protect her was about to become
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: her second abuser.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: The secondary trauma.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Yes. Six days later, Leslie finds the courage to report
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the rape. Mark Winter is arrested by police on suspicion
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: of criminal sexual assault. But then, the case hits the
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: specific procedural bottleneck in the state of Illinois, known as
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the felony review.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Right. In Illinois, specifically Cook County, police cannot simply file
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: felony charges on their own in many cases. The evidence
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: must be presented to a prosecutor in the state as
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: attorney's office, the felony reviewer, who decides whether the charges
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: will be officially approved or rejected.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: It adds this extra layer of prosecutorial discretion. before the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: case ever sees a courtroom. Exactly. Think of the felony
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: reviewer like a bouncer at a nightclub. The police can
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: bring a suspect to the door, but the bouncer has
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the unilateral authority to decide who gets inside the legal
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: system and what dress code applies.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: That's a great analogy.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And this specific bouncer decides to arbitrarily change the rules.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: The reviewer refuses to approve the felony sexual assault charge.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Because he interrogates Leslie with a series of victim-blaming questions
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: that demonstrate a catastrophic ignorance of trauma. He asks her,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: why didn't you run? Why didn't you break open the door?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: This prosecutor was looking for an action movie script, not
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: a biological reality. The justice system frequently demands that victims
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: demonstrate active physical resistance to prove they did not consent.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: They want you to fight back.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: They understand fight and they understand flight. But they fundamentally
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: fail to recognize the third and most common biological response
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: to inescapable lethal threat. Freeze.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Leslie was drugged, locked in a room, slammed onto
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: a bed, and was actively having the oxygen squeezed out
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: of her brain by a larger attacker.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: When the brain calculates that fighting will result in immediate
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: death and fleeing is physically impossible, it initiates a state
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: of tonic immobility. The freeze response.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: It's biological.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: It is an involuntary survival mechanism. Leslie verbally stated, I'll
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: stop fighting, specifically to prevent him from crushing her windpipe.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: For a prosecutor to interpret a biological survival tactic as
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: a lack of resistance and use it as justification to
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: deny a sexual assault charge is a profound institutional betrayal.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: And the result of that betrayal is staggering. Because Leslie
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: didn't fight back in a way that satisfied this specific
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: prosecutor's flawed expectations. the charge is drastically downgraded to mere battery. Battery.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: That's absurd. Wait, battery? Isn't battery just a physical scuffle?
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: How does drugging, isolating, strangling, and raping a woman on
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: a tanning bed get downgraded to a bar fight charge?
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: It's like charging a bank robber with jaywalking because he
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: crossed the street to get away.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: It is a severe misapplication of the statutory intent. Battery
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: generally involves making physical contact of an insulting or provoking
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: nature or causing bodily harm.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Which, I mean, he did cause bodily harm.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: But while strangulation technically involves bodily harm, utilizing a misdemeanor
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: or low-level felony battery charge to encompass a violent, chemically
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: facilitated rape is legally absurd. The prosecutor utilized their discretionary
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: power to minimize the severity of the crime, likely because
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: they felt a jury wouldn't convict without signs of a
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: massive physical struggle.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Discuss the chilling effect this has on other victims. If
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Leslie Barton, A professional woman who immediately reports the crime
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and provides police with literal fingerprint bruises on her neck
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: is interrogated about why she didn't break down a locked
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: door and her rape is downgraded to a scuffle. What
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: message does that send?
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It creates an immense chilling effect. It signals to the
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: community that the system requires you to risk death by
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: fighting back in order to earn the right to press charges.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Why would anyone else come forward if they know they'll
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: be treated this way?
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So Mark Winter goes to court. He pleads guilty
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: to the downgraded battery charge. the judge sentences him to
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: two years of probation.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Zero days in jail.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: None. He walks out of the courtroom a free man,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: but he is angry. And as he leaves, showing zero
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: remorse for the violence he inflicted, he looks directly at
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Leslie and yells, she's a liar.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Her absolute devastation at court. Leaning on her mother, watching
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: her rapist yell that and walk away with a slap
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: on the wrist. It's heartbreaking.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Crushed by a system that looked at the evidence and
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: decided to protect the predator. And just as Leslie feared,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: When you give a predator a free pass, they don't reform.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: They escalate.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Because he wasn't stopped, we see the psychological emboldenment of
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: a violent offender. Mark Winner learned a very specific lesson
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: from the felony review process. He could commit kidnapping, utilize
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: chemical restraints, strangle a woman, and rape her. And the
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: state would reduce it to a probation violation.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: He learned he could get away with it.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When a predator realizes the system is easily manipulated
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: or indifferent... Their sense of omnipotence expands. They realize they
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: can push the boundaries further.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: And the case files confirm this horrific escalation. Mark Winner
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: went on to assault more women. He is now facing
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: charges for four additional violent rapes that occurred between 2009
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and 2015. Four more. And the methodology became even more extreme.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: In one of these new cases, he is accused of
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: kidnapping a woman, transporting her to his own mother's home,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: and raping her at knife point.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Notice the progression here, the shift in the predatory behavior.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: He transitions from opportunistic assaults within the controlled environment of
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: his salon to active, aggressive hunting involving weaponized threats like
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: a knife.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: He was actively hunting on the streets.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: A witness actually told investigators that Winner would routinely cruise
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: the streets late at night, specifically looking for intoxicated, vulnerable women.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: He would use his business and resources as bait, offering
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: free tans, drugs and alcohol, to lure them into his vehicle.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: This forces a brutal reckoning regarding systemic accountability. If the
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: felony reviewer had simply understood the neurobiology of the freeze
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: response and filed the appropriate sexual assault charges in Leslie's case,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: how many subsequent women would have been spared?
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: All of them.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: The tragic cost of systemic failure is measured in preventable trauma.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: It is infuriating. We have a system that puts the
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: burden of proof on the victim's ability to physically fight
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: back against a man who is strangling her but affords
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the Predator the luxury of waiting out his new rape
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: trials from the comfort of his own home.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Because he's out on bond.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Yes. Despite facing four new violent rape charges involving kidnapping
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: and weapons, Mark Winner is currently free on bond. He
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: wears an ankle monitor with a 7 p.m. curfew.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: And we see the true nature of this Predator when
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Smart attempts to confront him for the interview. It
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: is one of the most revealing visuals in the entire
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: source material.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: You have Elizabeth Smart, a renowned survivor herself, walking right
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: up to his property and knocking on the coward's door.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: And Mark Winner, the man who used deadbolts and physical
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: force to overpower women in secret, he hides.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: He hides behind his gate and his security cameras.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Completely unwilling to face accountability in the daylight.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: It perfectly illustrates the cowardice inherent in predatory violence. He
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: requires isolation and vulnerability to exert power. When faced with
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: strength and public scrutiny, he retreats.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly why Leslie is so amazing.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is why Leslie Barton's bravery in showing her
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: face and using her name on national TV is so vital.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: By refusing to hide her identity, she reclaims ownership of
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: her narrative. She effectively strips him of the secrecy he
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: relies on so he no longer has power over her.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: She states that he changed her life forever. But she
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: refuses to let him maintain any power over her future.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: It requires immense fortitude to stand up, point at the
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: structural failures of the state, and say, the system failed
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: to protect me, but I will not let you silence me.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Her advocacy is so important. Much like Solomon Metawala's unending
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: search for sky, it's this relentless advocacy that forces these
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: stagnant systems to evolve.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: So as we wrap up today and synthesize the information
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: from these two cases, the final thread is undeniable. We
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: went on quite a journey.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: We did.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: In Washington, a mother uses silence and legal maneuvering to
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: obscure the truth about a missing two-year-old boy. In Chicago,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: a predator uses a flawed legal system to remain free
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: and continue hunting.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: And for you listening, these aren't just sensational true crime stories.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: They are urgent warnings about the fragility of the systems
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: we rely on to establish truth and provide safety.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: We think the system will just handle it.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: But they remind us that justice is not automatic. It
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: requires relentless advocacy like Solomon and Leslie showed.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: We spend so much time teaching our kids not to
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: talk to strangers. Right. And we invest heavily in home
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: security systems to keep the bad guys out.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: We do.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: But based on what we learned today about Julia Birikova
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and Mark Winner, I want to leave you with this
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: final thought to mull over. What happens when the greatest
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: threat isn't the stranger in the dark, but the person
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: who holds the keys to the front door?
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: That is the ultimate vulnerability.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this intense deep dive
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: into the source material. Keep asking the tough questions, keep
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: seeking the truth, and we'll see you next time.