Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Day 4: Trial for ex-Titans scout accused of killing pregnant girlfriend resumes

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Day 4: Trial for ex-Titans scout accused of killing pregnant girlfriend resumes · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: I want you to just imagine an evening that looks
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like a perfect snapshot of everyday life.
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Speaker 2: Okay, set the scene for me.
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Speaker 1: So picture a cozy apartment in Nashville, Tennessee. It's a Saturday.
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Speaker 2: Evening, right, just a normal weekend.
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Speaker 1: Exactly. There are canvases set up, maybe some brushes and
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acrylics scattered across.
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Speaker 2: A table, well, like a paint and sip thing.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, a dinner and paint date night. It's the
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kind of evening you might see on someone's social media feed.
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You know, completely ordinary, relaxed, intimate.
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Speaker 2: Sounds really peaceful, honestly it does.
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Speaker 1: But then you fast forward just a few hours, and
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that quiet, creative evening violently spirals. We're talking a frantic
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nine to one one call, sirens cutting through the night,
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a rush to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and.
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Speaker 2: Ultimately a devastating double homicide trial.
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Speaker 1: Right, welcome to today's deep dive. We are looking at
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a case that is just well, it's jarring.
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Speaker 2: The contrast is what really gets you. You have the
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intimacy of a date night in your own home colliding
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with this sprawling, high stakes legal battle in a Davison
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County courtroom.
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Speaker 1: It's a lot to unpack, and our mission today is
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to cut through the noise of this highly publicized case.
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We're going to examine the mechanics of how a murder
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trial is actually constructed.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, from circumstantial evidence to toxicology and even digital forensics.
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Speaker 1: We're using detailed courtroom reporting covering up today four of
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the ongoing trial of Blaze Taylor. He's a former Tennessee
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Titan scout who's accused of poisoning his pregnant girlfriend, Jade Benning.
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Speaker 2: With a leazal glass of pink lemonade, which is just
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it's a chilling.
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Speaker 1: Detail, it really is. And you know, as I was
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going through the reporting on this, I was struck by
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Taylor's background. He built a career analyzing professional.
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Speaker 2: Football, right, he was an analytics guy.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it hit me how much a criminal trial
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actually resembles an NFL scout's opponent breakdown.
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Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting way to look at.
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Speaker 1: It, how so, well, think about it. In football, the
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offensive and defensive coordinators are studying the exact same game tape, right,
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but they use that same footage to build entirely different
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strategic narratives.
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Speaker 2: That's actually a perfect analogy for the adversarial justice system.
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The prosecution and defense are looking at the exact same
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game tape. Here.
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Speaker 1: They have the same toxicology reports, the same texts, the
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exact same timeline exactly.
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Speaker 2: The prosecution uses that tape to build a narrative of
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calculated murder, while the defense looks at it and sees
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a tragic medical emergency followed by a flawed police investigation.
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Speaker 1: And the jury is just sitting there trying to decide
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which narrative aligns with the raw footage.
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Speaker 2: Right, So to really understand these competing narratives, we have
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to look at who these people were before everything spiraled
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out of control.
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Speaker 1: Let's start with Jade Benning. What do we know about
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her life before that February night in twenty twenty three.
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Speaker 2: Well, the reporting gives us a really clear picture. She
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was twenty five years old, originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, but.
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Speaker 1: She had moved to Nashville.
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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, she was living and working in Nashville, and
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friends and family consistently describe her as just this vibrant,
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radiant person. She was really engaged with her community.
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Speaker 1: But the most critical piece of context here is her pregnancy.
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Speaker 2: Right, she was five months pregnant at the time, and the.
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Speaker 1: Source of show she was completely leaning into this. Her
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family shared that they already had a name picked out
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for the baby girl, Ivy Right, Yes, Ivy Jade was nesting,
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She was actively planning out the nursery. She was preparing
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for this massive shift in her life's trajectory.
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Speaker 2: And then you contrast that with Blaize Taylor. He was
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thirty years old at the time and his life was
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basically defined by high level football.
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Speaker 1: He played Division I didn't he he did.
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Speaker 2: He was a defensive back at Arkansas State University. But
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the really important part is what he did after he stopped.
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Speaker 1: Playing, right, He transitioned into the administrative analytical side of.
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Speaker 2: The sport exactly. He landed with the Tennessee Titans organization
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and worked his way up to a pro scout around
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twenty twenty one.
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Speaker 1: Now, I follow football, but pro scout can mean a
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lot of different things depending on the team. What does
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that role actually look like day to day?
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Speaker 2: Especially for someone dealing with advanced analytics. A modern pro
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scout is essentially a behavioral.
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Speaker 1: Analyst, like studying player habits.
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Speaker 2: Yes and crunching massive data sets from platforms like Pro
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Football Focus. They do opponent of breakdowns, they assess position matchups,
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they predict human behavior on the field, So they're.
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Speaker 1: Looking for incredibly specific tendencies.
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Speaker 2: Exactly like, if it's third and long and the linebacker
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shifts two feet left, what's the statistical probability of a blitz?
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Every human action is reduced to a data point to
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gain a strategic advantage.
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Speaker 1: Wow. And he later became a defensive analyst at Utah
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State University too. So this is a man whose entire
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professional life is about meticulous calculation.
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Speaker 2: Right, And you have these two very different trajectories colliding.
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Jade is embracing motherhood and Blaze is climbing this intense,
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high pressure ladder in professional.
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Speaker 1: Sports, and the verses indicate things were not good between them.
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The dynamic regarding the pregnancy was heavily strained.
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Speaker 2: The tension was apparently palpable. Leading up to February twenty five,
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twenty twenty three, that's the night of the dinner in Paint.
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Speaker 1: Date, and later that night everything falls apart. But Taylor
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is actually the one who calls nine.
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Speaker 2: One one right. He calls the dispatcher and reports that
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Benning appears to be having an allergic reaction.
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Speaker 1: But when first responders arrive, it's obviously much worse than that.
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They find Jade face down across her bed, completely pulseless.
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Speaker 2: They rushed her to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and from
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there the timeline is just incredibly grim.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's heartbreaking. The unborn child, Ivy passes away two
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days later on February twenty seven, and.
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Speaker 2: Jade remains on life support suffering from severe brain damage
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until March sixth.
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Speaker 1: Which was our twenty fifth birthday. Just an absolute tragedy.
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Speaker 2: It really is. Now from an investigative standpoint, this timeline
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is vital. She dies in March twenty twenty three, but
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Taylor isn't arrested until a full year later, in March
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twenty twenty four.
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Speaker 1: He was picked up by US Marshalls in Utah right
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after a Nashville grand jury indictment exactly, and.
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Speaker 2: The trial itself doesn't even again until June twenty twenty six.
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Speaker 1: I really want to pause on that three year gap.
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I mean, if police suspect foul play, why does it
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take over a year to make an arrest and three
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years to see a jury.
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Speaker 2: Well, it totally shatters the illusion you get from TV
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shows where a crime is solved in an hour with
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suspected poisoning, the investigative process is deliberately, agonizingly.
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Speaker 1: Slow because they can't just guess right right.
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Speaker 2: A prosecutor will never take a circumstance of poisoning case
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to a grand jury without an ironclad evidentiary foundation. And
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the first massive hurdle there is forensic toxicology.
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Speaker 1: How is that different from like the blood tests they
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do at the hospital when she was first admitted.
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Speaker 2: So hospital screens are designed purely for speed. The doctors
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just need a quick yes or no is a substance present,
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so they know how to treat the patient.
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Speaker 1: Clinically just keeping them alive exactly.
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Speaker 2: But forensic toxicology is entirely different. They have to determine
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the exact concentrations of specific substances in different biological.
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Speaker 1: Tissues like blood and liver tissue.
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Speaker 2: Blood, liver tissue, even vitreous fluid from the eye. They
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use this process called gas chromatography mass spectrometry.
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Speaker 1: That sounds intense, What does that actually do?
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Speaker 2: It literally vaporizes the sample. Then it measures the mass
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to charge ratio of the ions to identify exact molecular signatures.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow, so there's no ambiguity none.
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Speaker 2: But that testing alone, especially with state Lab backlogs, can take.
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Speaker 1: Months and the digital side has to be just as complicated.
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I mean, the sources mentioned investigators seized his electronics directly
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from the Titans facility.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the digital forensics process is incredibly laborious. Law enforcement
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doesn't just scroll through a seized phone like you or
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I would, right.
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Speaker 1: They plug it into specialized machines.
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Speaker 2: Exactly like Celebrate machines. They create a bit forbit physical
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image of the device's storage. They're diving into the squadlight
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databases on the phone to recover deleted texts.
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Speaker 1: Wa wait, so deleting a text doesn't actually get rid
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of it.
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Speaker 2: Not immediately. No, when you delete a text, the phone
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just marks that storage space as available until new data
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overwrites it. Forensic software can pull it right back.
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Speaker 1: That's fascinating. And they're probably tracking his location too, right.
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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. They pull carrier records to triangulate cell tire
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pings matching geolocation data against the timeline of his nine
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one one call.
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Speaker 1: So synthesizing all that data takes a massive amount of time.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, they have to build a coherent timeline before a
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detective can even draft a probable cause AFFIDAVID for an
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arrest warrant.
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Speaker 1: Okay, the trial delay makes total sense now, But I
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keep coming back to that nine to one to one call.
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Speaker 2: It's the big sticking point.
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Speaker 1: Right, Taylor summoned the authorities himself. If you're a prosecutor
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claiming this was a premeditated murder by poison, how do
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you explain the alleged killer calling the police.
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Speaker 2: That is the central psychological puzzle of this whole case,
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and the defense is using it as a massive anchor
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for their narrative.
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Speaker 1: Because it doesn't fit the typical profile of a murderer exactly.
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Speaker 2: The defense is essentially asking the jury to look at
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basic human nature. People who commit premeditated murder usually try
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to distance themselves from the scene.
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Speaker 1: They try to hide the body or at least run away.
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Speaker 2: Right. They definitely don't invite the police into their living
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room while the victim is still there on the bed.
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Speaker 1: But I mean, could calling nine one one be a
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form of narrative control?
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Speaker 2: How do you mean?
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Speaker 1: Well, if you know the victim is dying, and you
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know an ambulance will eventually be called dialing nine to
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one one lets you plant the seed of an allergic
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reaction with the dispatcher.
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Speaker 2: Before the paramedics even walk through the door.
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Speaker 1: Exactly. It sets the stage, and.
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Speaker 2: That is exactly how the prosecution frames it. They argue
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the call wasn't an act of innocence, but the ultimate act.
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Speaker 1: Of a cover up because it misdirects the first responders.
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Speaker 2: Right when paramedics arrive expecting anaphylaxis, they treat for anaphylaxis.
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They're looking for an EpiPen, not a crime scene. It
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buys the perpetrator valuable time.
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Speaker 1: But the doctors at Vanderbilt eventually realized this was definitely
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not an allergic reaction, which forced investigators to pivot and
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look closely at the remnants of a drink left at
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the scene.
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Speaker 2: And that brings us to the prosecutions theory led by
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Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman. It is brutal.
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Speaker 1: They alleged that Blaze Taylor methodically poison Ja to avoid
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the responsibilities of fatherhood.
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Speaker 2: Yes, the state is pursuing charges of first degree murder,
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which means they have to prove premeditation and intentionality.
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Speaker 1: They have to show this wasn't an accident or a
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crime of passion exactly.
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Speaker 2: They have to convince the jury this was a calculated,
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preplanned event.
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Speaker 1: And the messog they allege is that Taylor took cocaine,
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liquefied it into alcohol, and secretly mixed that cocktail into
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Jade's glass of pink lemonade.
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Speaker 2: The state weaves a really complex web of evidence for this,
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but the foundation is the forensic toxicology.
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Speaker 1: Because they found cocaine in her system, not just a
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little bit.
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Speaker 2: Medical experts testify that the concentrations found in betting system
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far exceeded any kind of recreational use. It was a
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system shocking dose.
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Speaker 1: See that's what I don't get. We hear about cocaine
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overdose is sure, but usually it's snorted as a powder.
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Speaker 2: Right. The delivery method here is highly unusual.
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Speaker 1: Dissolving it in alcohol and serving it in a sweet
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drink changes everything. Why wouldn't you just spit it out?
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Cocaine is incredibly bitter.
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Speaker 2: The pharmacology of this is fascinating and honestly devastating. Cocaine hydrochloride,
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the salt form found in powder, is highly soluble in
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water and alcohol.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so it dissolves completely.
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Speaker 2: Yes, So by dissolving it in an alcoholic solution first
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and then mixing it into a sweet, citrus heavy beverage
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like pink lemonade, you create a very effective mask.
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Speaker 1: Wow. So the intense sweetness and the bite of the
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alcohol just completely override the chemical taste exactly.
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Speaker 2: The victim has absolutely no sensory warning that they're ingesting
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a massive dose of narcotics.
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Speaker 1: That is terrifying. So once she drinks it, what happens?
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What's the physiological cascade that leads to her collapsing.
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Speaker 2: Well, when you snort cocaine, it hits the bloodstream quickly
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through the nasal membranes, but it peaks and tapers pretty fast.
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Speaker 1: But drinking it is different, very different.
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Speaker 2: When you ingest a large amount orally, especially in a
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liquid with alcohol, it's absorbed rapidly through the stomach, lining
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and intestines. But the real danger is in the liver.
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Speaker 1: What does the liver do?
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Speaker 2: The liver enzymes metabolize the cocaine and the ethanol simultaneously,
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and that interaction creates a third entirely new chemical compound
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called cocathyleene.
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Speaker 1: Wait, cocathleene, I've never even heard.
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Speaker 2: Of that most people haven't. But it is significantly more
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toxic to the cardiovascular system than cocaine alone, and it
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stays in the bloodstream much longer because the liver clears
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it very slowly.
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Speaker 1: So it's basically a supertoxin essentially.
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Speaker 2: Yes, it causes an immediate, massive spike in blood pressure
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and heart rate. It triggers severe vaso construction, the narrowing
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of blood vessels, which starves the brain of oxygen.
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Speaker 1: And that's what caused the brain damage. Yes.
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Speaker 2: At the same time, it overloads the central nervous system
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with adrenaline and dopamine.
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Speaker 1: The sources mentioned she was violently vomiting and stumbling before
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she collapsed.
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Speaker 2: Right. The vomiting is the body's autonomic response to acute
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systemic poisoning, is trying to purge the toxin, and the
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stumbling and loss of motor function are clinical signs of
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profound neurological collapse that.
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Speaker 1: Is just horrifying to picture. So the physical evidence, the
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pink liquid, the toxicology, that provides the how, but the
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prosecution is also using digital evidence to build the why motive.
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Speaker 2: Is everything in a circumstantial case.
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Speaker 1: Right, They introduced text messages between Jade and Taylor and
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between Jade and her friends. The sources show a clear
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pattern of severe relationships strain over the pregnancy.
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Speaker 2: There was even a note found on our phone, right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, a note explicitly stating she did not wish to
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have an abortion, despite allegedly being pressured to do so.
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Speaker 2: So. The state is establishing that Taylor had a perceived
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problem impending fatherhood and that Jay's was immovable in her
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resolve to keep the baby.
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Speaker 1: Which they argue is what drove him to formulate this
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horrifying clan exactly.
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Speaker 2: But out of all the evidence, Ady Norman presented that
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testimony from Jade's best friend, Najaha Jackson is arguably the
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most powerful moment in the trial so far.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Jackson took the stand and detailed a phone call
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she got from Jade on the night of February twenty fifth.
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Speaker 2: While Jade was suddenly violently ill.
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Speaker 1: Right. Jackson testified that she heard Jade explicitly accuse Taylor
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on the phone. She said Jade asked him what did
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you do? What did you put in my drink?
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Speaker 2: The legal weight of that specific phone call cannot be.
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Speaker 1: Overstated, But isn't that considered hearsay, like you can't usually
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testify about what someone else said out of court.
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Speaker 2: Generally, yes, hearsay is inadmissible, but there are exceptions, and
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one of the most powerful exceptions is the dying declaration.
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Speaker 1: Meaning because she was about to die. The law treats
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it differently.
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Speaker 2: Precisely, if a person believes their death is imminent and
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makes a statement about the cause of that pending death,
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the log considers it highly reliable.
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Speaker 1: Because why would you lie on your deathbed?
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Speaker 2: Exactly. Even if it doesn't formally meet every technical hurdle
15:08
of a dying decoration, it falls under the excited utterance exception,
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which carries similar weight for a jury.
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Speaker 1: So you have the toxicology, you had the text messages,
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and you have this damning phone call. But the prosecution
15:21
still has a fundamental problem here, which is they don't
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have a video of Blaze Tailor physically stirring cocaine into
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that pink lemonade.
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Speaker 2: True, there's no eyewitness standing in the kitchen watching him
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do it, right, And you.
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Speaker 1: Know, sticking with the football theme, it made me think
15:36
of analyzing a quarterback's heat map. Oh, how so, like
15:39
you might not have the actual game tape showing a
15:42
quarterback throwing a specific interception in the third quarter. But
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if his data shows he always forces passes to the
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left sideline under pressure.
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Speaker 2: And the postgame stats show a pick six on.
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Speaker 1: The left sideline exactly, the data tells the story of
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what happened even without the video. That's circumstantial evidence.
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Speaker 2: And the law deeply respects the quarterback's heat map. To
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borrow your phrase, there is this persistent myth that circumstantial
16:07
evidence is somehow weaker than direct evidence. But it's not
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not at all. Prosecutors and judges will often tell you
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that circumstantial evidence is actually more reliable, really.
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Speaker 1: More reliable than an eyewitness.
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Speaker 2: Yes, because eyewitnesses have flawed memories, they suffer from bias, stress,
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poor lighting. Physical and scientific evidence does not have a
16:28
memory to distort.
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Speaker 1: The science just is what it is.
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Speaker 2: Right. The prosecution's job is to weave all those circumstantial threads,
16:34
the digital motive, the chemical means, the geographical opportunity into
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a web so tight that no other logical explanation can
16:41
escape it.
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Speaker 1: But to make that web unbreakable, the prosecution really needed
16:46
a translator. They needed someone who could look at the
16:48
chemical damage inside Jade's body and explain it to twelve
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lay people in a jury box.
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Speaker 2: And that brings us to day four of the trial. Friday,
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June twenty sixth, twenty twenty six.
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Speaker 1: The state called doctor Aaron Carney to the witness stand.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Carney's the Davidson County Medical Examiner, and in any
17:06
murder trial involving poison, the medical examiner is the structural
17:10
foundation of the state's case.
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Speaker 1: They are the objective voice of the deceased exactly.
17:15
Speaker 2: Their entire job is to determine the cause and manner
17:18
of death through empirical medical.
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Speaker 1: Science, and her testimony was incredibly uncompromising. She conducted the autopsies,
17:26
and she stated with absolute medical certainty that the cause
17:29
of Jade Benning's death was acute cocaine toxicity.
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Speaker 2: She also explicitly confirmed for the jury that it is
17:35
entirely possible to ingest liquefied cocaine, which.
17:38
Speaker 1: Legally validates the state's theory of the pink lemonade weapon.
17:41
Speaker 2: Right establishing the cause of death as the baseline. But
17:44
doctor Carney delivered two specific findings that severely damaged potential
17:48
defense narratives.
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Speaker 1: What was the first one?
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Speaker 2: The first dealt with Jade's history. Doctor Carney testified that
17:54
there was absolutely zero evidence of any historical or recent
17:58
illicit drug used by Benning.
18:00
Speaker 1: The sources mentioned the only thing she had a history
18:03
of using was occasional marijuana edibles.
18:05
Speaker 2: Right, and this is crucial. If the medical examiner had
18:08
found evidence of chronic cocaine use, how do you think
18:12
the defense would have weaponized that?
18:14
Speaker 1: Oh, they would have had a prepackaged alternative theory. They
18:17
could just argue it was a tragic accidental overdose by
18:20
a known user.
18:21
Speaker 2: Exactly, they'd argue she mixed the drink herself, misjudged the dose,
18:25
and died. But by testifying that Benning was medically a
18:28
non user, Doctor Corney slammed the door on that theory.
18:31
Speaker 1: That makes sense, And the second finding doctor Carney presented
18:35
is what elevates the stakes of this trial to an
18:37
entirely different legal tier.
18:38
Speaker 2: Yes her testimony regarding the fetus, the unborn baby Girl IVY.
18:42
Speaker 1: She testified that the autopsy of the fetus showed absolutely
18:45
no abnormalities. She told the jury that had Jade survived,
18:49
a perfectly healthy pregnancy and birth was expected.
18:52
Speaker 2: Conducting an autopsy on a five month fetus is medically
18:56
incredibly complex. The medical examiner is looking at placental health
19:00
looking for signs of abruption, genetic anomalies, presisting distress, and.
19:05
Speaker 1: She ruled all of that out.
19:07
Speaker 2: She ruled all of it out, which isolated the acute
19:11
cocaine toxicity as the sole catastrophic event that caused the
19:14
fetal demise.
19:16
Speaker 1: I really want to dive into the legal mechanics of this,
19:18
because prosecuting someone for the murder of an unborn child
19:22
involves very specific statutes. How does Tennessee legally define the
19:27
victim here?
19:28
Speaker 2: Well, Tennessee has very stringent fetal homicide laws. Historically, the
19:33
law relied on what was called the born alive rule.
19:35
Speaker 1: Right, the baby had to be born first.
19:37
Speaker 2: Right. Criminal charges could only be brought if the child
19:40
was born, took a breath, and then died from injury
19:42
sustained in utero.
19:43
Speaker 1: But that's not the case anymore. No.
19:45
Speaker 2: Modern statutes in Tennessee and many other states have abolished
19:48
that rule. Under current code, a person can be charged
19:51
with criminal homicide for the death of a fetus at
19:54
any stage of gestation.
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Speaker 1: So viability, whether the baby could survive outside the womb
19:59
doesn't prevent them murder.
20:00
Speaker 2: Charge viability can be a factor in certain legal arguments,
20:04
but the statute recognizes the fetus as a distinct secondary victim.
20:09
Speaker 1: And because doctor Kearney testified the baby was healthy before
20:12
the poison, it legally solidifies the causation for that second
20:16
count of first degree murder exactly.
20:19
Speaker 2: And the presence of that second victim fundamentally alters the
20:22
potential punishment.
20:23
Speaker 1: Right because the second victim was a child under twelve,
20:26
the prosecution can pursue enhanced sentencing. Blaze Taylor is facing
20:31
life without the possibility of parole.
20:33
Speaker 2: It shifts the entire gravity of the courtroom. The jury
20:36
isn't just deciding if he committed murder. They're deciding if
20:39
a thirty year old man will ever breathe free air again.
20:42
Speaker 1: But I did catch a very specific phrase doctor Carney
20:44
used during her direct examination when the prosecutor asked her
20:48
about the liquefied cocaine, she said, I don't know how
20:50
it was ingested. I just know it was ingested.
20:53
Speaker 2: It's a remarkable moment of scientific boundary setting.
20:55
Speaker 1: It perfectly isolates the limit of forensic science and the
20:58
justice system and analyze tissues run mass spectrometry pinpoint the
21:03
exact molecule that caused the collapse, but.
21:06
Speaker 2: The mass spectrometer cannot tell you who mixed the drink exactly.
21:10
Speaker 1: Doctor Carney can point to the broken machinery of the
21:12
body and say cocaine broke this, but she cannot point
21:16
to the defense table and say Blaze tailor did it.
21:18
Speaker 2: That leap from scientific causation to legal culpability rests entirely
21:24
on human deduction.
21:25
Speaker 1: And the adversarial system is designed to attack that exact gap.
21:29
The medical examiner is the prosecution's most armored witness, but
21:33
she's not left unchallenged.
21:34
Speaker 2: No, the defense's entire mandate is to take that medical
21:38
certainty and surround it with enough procedural ambiguity to create
21:42
reasonable doubt.
21:43
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the defense attorney and Joshua Brand.
21:46
He executed a very specific strategy during cross examination. He
21:50
focused relentlessly on forensic incompleteness.
21:53
Speaker 2: Right, The defense highlighted that the medical examiner did not
21:55
test Jade's hair or fingernail clippings for chronic drug use.
21:59
Speaker 1: This feels like a class exploration of the CSI effects.
22:01
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, juries are conditioned by television to expect forensic
22:05
labs to run every conceivable test on every single piece
22:09
of evidence.
22:10
Speaker 1: When in reality, police departments and medical examiners operate with
22:13
finite budgets and time constraints.
22:15
Speaker 2: Exactly, but medically speaking, hair and fingernails are actually much
22:20
better at showing chronic use than blood tests.
22:22
Speaker 1: Why is that?
22:23
Speaker 2: It comes down to the biology of keratin. When your
22:27
body metabolizes a drug, the metabolites circulate in your blood.
22:32
As your hair follicles and nail matrices grow, they pull
22:35
nutrients from.
22:36
Speaker 1: The blood and the drug metabolites get trapped in there, yes.
22:39
Speaker 2: Permanently trapped inside the carrotin structure. And because hair grows
22:43
at a predictable rate of about one centimeter per month,
22:46
a toxicologist can literally segment a piece of hair and
22:50
create a month by month timeline of drug use.
22:52
Speaker 1: Oh wow, while blood only shows what happened in the
22:55
last few hours or days.
22:57
Speaker 2: Right, So, Joshua Brand is arguing that by only testing
22:59
the BLO blood, the state wilfully ignored a biological timeline
23:03
that could have proven Benning had a hidden history with cocaine.
23:06
Speaker 1: Even if he doesn't actually believe she had a history.
23:08
His job is just to highlight the absence of the
23:10
test exactly.
23:12
Speaker 2: He's telling the jury, they want to send my client
23:14
to prison for life, but they didn't even bother to
23:17
clip her fingernails to give you the full picture. It
23:20
creates a psychological gap.
23:22
Speaker 1: He also floated the idea of external contamination, suggesting someone
23:26
could have handled the cocaine and contaminated the glass without
23:29
intentionally making a poisoned drink.
23:31
Speaker 2: But the tactic that really stood out as a brilliant
23:34
piece of court remaneuvering was the fentanyl confusion.
23:37
Speaker 1: Oh yes, this really highlights how medical data can be
23:41
weaponized in front of a lay jury.
23:43
Speaker 2: In the initial hospital toxicology reports when Jade was first
23:47
emitted to Vanderbilt, ventyl was detected in her system.
23:50
Speaker 1: And the defense immediately seizes on this because in the
23:53
public consciousness, fentanyl is the ultimate deadly street drug. It's
23:57
the center of an epidemic.
23:58
Speaker 2: Right, So the defense uses this to suggest she was
24:01
using hard street drugs, muddying the waters around the spiked
24:04
lemonade theory.
24:05
Speaker 1: But doctor Carney aggressively clarified on the stand that the
24:09
fentanyl was not illicit street fentanyl.
24:11
Speaker 2: No it was pharmaceutical fentanyl administered by the hospital staff
24:15
during life saving treatment.
24:16
Speaker 1: Why do hospitals use fentanyl if it's so incredibly dangerous.
24:20
Speaker 2: In a controlled clinical setting like an ICU, pharmaceutical fentanyl
24:25
is an incredible tool when a patient needs intubation or
24:28
is in severe cardiovascular distress. Doctors need a painkiller that
24:32
acts immediately.
24:34
Speaker 1: But doesn't linger forever exactly.
24:35
Speaker 2: It has a very short half life. It clears the
24:38
system quickly if they need to adjust the dosage. It's
24:41
a standard trauma protocol.
24:42
Speaker 1: So it wasn't a street drug. It was medicine that
24:45
doctors gave her while trying to save her life.
24:47
Speaker 2: Yes, but bringing it up in trial is a linguistic
24:50
slide of hand. It forces the medical examiner to play defense.
24:54
Speaker 1: Now the jury has heard the word fentanyl associated with
24:57
the victim, even with the clinical clarification. That cognitive association
25:01
is planted in their minds.
25:03
Speaker 2: And alongside these forensic attacks, the defense continuously hammers their
25:07
strongest narrative, beat Taylor's cooperation.
25:10
Speaker 1: Right. They remind the jury he called nine to one one,
25:13
he stayed at the apartment, he went to the hospital,
25:15
and cooperated with the responders.
25:17
Speaker 2: They want the jury to view him as a traumatized
25:19
partner who witnessed a sudden medical emergency, not a fleeing murderer.
25:24
Speaker 1: And they reinforce this with his current status. He's been
25:28
out on a two point five million dollar bond since
25:30
April twenty twenty four. He's sitting in court every day.
25:33
Speaker 2: He's wearing a GPS monitor, but he hasn't tried to run.
25:36
He's fully participating in the judicial process.
25:39
Speaker 1: Think about the cognitive dissonance adjuror has to manage in
25:42
that box. If the defense makes you doubt just one element,
25:46
like the missing fingernail test, does that procedural doubt force
25:50
you to throw out the horrifying phone call to the
25:53
best friend.
25:53
Speaker 2: Well, the scandred of beyond a reasonable doubt is the
25:57
highest burden of proof in our legal system. The defense
26:00
doesn't have to provide an alternative narrative that makes perfect sense.
26:04
Speaker 1: They just have to poke enough holes that a juror
26:06
feels hesitation.
26:07
Speaker 2: Exactly does an incomplete investigation mean the defendant is innocent
26:11
or does he just mean the police made triarge decisions
26:13
about which tests to run.
26:15
Speaker 1: I want you, the listener, to evaluate your own biases
26:18
right now, knowing Blaze Taylor's background, we know he's an
26:21
advanced analytics professional.
26:23
Speaker 2: His brain is wired to process data, anticipate scenarios, and
26:27
find tactical advantages under pressure.
26:29
Speaker 1: So, knowing that, how do you interpret his nine to
26:31
one one call? Do you hear the genuine panic of
26:34
a man watching a tragedy or do you hear a
26:37
statistically calculated strategic move.
26:39
Speaker 2: Did he know that calling the police himself was the
26:42
best statistical play to control the narrative?
26:44
Speaker 1: The fact that his profession trains him to think in
26:47
those exact terms makes analyzing his behavior incredibly difficult. Is
26:52
his calm demeanor cooperation or psychopathy?
26:55
Speaker 2: Is his presence at the hospital genuine concern or a
26:59
calculated effort to surveil the police investigation in real time?
27:02
Speaker 1: And the way the jury decides to answer those questions
27:05
won't just impact Blaze tailor a verdict in a case
27:08
this high profile ripples outward into much broader societal issues.
27:12
Speaker 2: The NFL connection inherently brings massive scrutiny to the entire
27:16
professional sports scouting environment.
27:17
Speaker 1: The scouting industry deals in billions of dollars, immense pressure
27:21
and a culture of hypermasculine competition.
27:23
Speaker 2: When law enforcement officers show up at the Titans facility
27:26
to seize the Scouts electronics for a double homicide, it
27:29
forces a reckoning.
27:30
Speaker 1: It raises questions about vetting processes and the psychological toll
27:34
placed on young professionals who are basically taught to view
27:37
human beings as data points on a spreadsheet.
27:39
Speaker 2: Does that environment breed a kind of detachment that turns
27:43
toxic in personal crises. We don't know, but the trial
27:47
forces the public to ask.
27:48
Speaker 1: Beyond the sports world. This case is a massive test
27:51
of legal precedence. This trial is pressure testing Tennessees definitions
27:55
of poisoning, intent and causation in fetal homicide.
27:58
Speaker 2: Proving poisoning without a confession or an eyewitness is notoriously difficult.
28:03
Speaker 1: Right. If the state secures a conviction here based purely
28:06
on circumstantial toxicology, digital motive, and a dying declaration, it.
28:11
Speaker 2: Says a powerful precedent for how complex domestic violence and
28:15
fetal homicide cases are prosecuted in the future.
28:18
Speaker 1: It also forces us to confront how we view intimate
28:21
partner violence. We are conditioned by media to look for
28:24
obvious loud signs of abuse wheel.
28:26
Speaker 2: For physical assault, yelling, broken bones.
28:29
Speaker 1: We're conditioned to fear the gun, the knife, the raised fist.
28:32
Speaker 2: But violence can be incredibly quiet.
28:35
Speaker 1: I keep thinking about the banality of the weapon. The
28:38
alleged instrument of death wasn't a firearm. It was a
28:41
glass of pink lemonade.
28:43
Speaker 2: It's an innocuous, almost childlike symbol of summer.
28:47
Speaker 1: You drink pink lemonade at a picnic, you don't expect
28:49
it to be weaponized by someone You're sharing a dinner
28:52
and paint night with.
28:53
Speaker 2: The violence of a spike drink is uniquely terrifying because
28:56
it requires a profound, calculated level of betrayal.
29:00
Speaker 1: It isn't a crime of sudden passion. It's weaponizing the
29:03
victim's trust against them in their own home.
29:06
Speaker 2: And the human impact of that betrayal is staggering. The
29:10
sources mentioned community vigils and the absolute devastation of Jade's family.
29:15
Speaker 1: Imagine the agony of waiting three years, waking up every
29:18
day without your daughter, without the granddaughter you were building
29:21
a nursery.
29:22
Speaker 2: For three years of legal delays, just waiting to sit
29:25
in the courtroom and listen to a medical examiner detail
29:28
the chemical destruction of her body.
29:30
Speaker 1: Friends of Jade have spoken to the media desperately trying
29:33
to keep her memory alive, separate from the morbid forensic details.
29:37
Speaker 2: They want the public to remember the woman who lit
29:39
up rooms and cared for her community, not just the
29:42
subject of a toxicology report.
29:44
Speaker 1: This trial is a profound, irreversible tragedy about two extinguished
29:48
lives and a family seeking whatever fractured sense of accountability
29:53
the justice system can provide.
29:54
Speaker 2: We are looking at a trial vibrating with tension. On
29:57
one side, a rising NFL's gout whose life is halted
30:01
by the most severe accusations possible, and on.
30:04
Speaker 1: The other the tragic double loss of a young mother
30:06
and her unborn child. The jury has to weigh the
30:09
haunting echo of that final phone call against the defense's
30:12
calculated push for procedural doubt, and.
30:15
Speaker 2: It is vital to remember that right now, the jury's
30:18
verdict is entirely unwritten. Blase Taylor is presumed innocent under
30:22
the law.
30:23
Speaker 1: The prosecution bears the immense burden of proving their case
30:26
beyond a reasonable doubt, and the defense is fighting to
30:29
ensure that doubt remains.
30:30
Speaker 2: As we wrap up this deep dive into the sources,
30:33
we want to leave you with a final lingering thought.
30:35
Speaker 1: Consider for a moment how heavily our modern justice system
30:38
relies on the assumption that the dead can speak through
30:40
science and digital data.
30:42
Speaker 2: It is a profound, almost total reliance in cases without witnesses.
30:46
Speaker 1: If the mass spectrometer hadn't been able to isolate that
30:50
massive spike in cocaine toxicity.
30:52
Speaker 2: Or if Jade hadn't left a digital trail of texts
30:55
establishing her resolve to keep the baby.
30:58
Speaker 1: Most chillingly, if she has I hadn't managed, in her
31:00
final moments of neurological collapse to make that frantic phone
31:04
call asking what did you put in my drink?
31:06
Speaker 2: Without those digital footprints and that final communication, the narrative
31:11
vacuum is complete.
31:12
Speaker 1: If none of that existed, would a highly analytical sports
31:16
professional have simply walked away from an unfortunate allergic reaction.
31:21
Speaker 2: Would this have remained a tragic medical mystery instead of
31:24
a capital murder trial.
31:25
Speaker 1: It really makes you wonder how many quiet crimes go
31:28
completely unpunished simply because the dead weren't able to leave
31:32
enough data behind. Thank you for joining this deep dive
31:34
into the sources today.
31:36
Speaker 2: Stay curious, keep questioning the narratives presented to you, and
31:39
always
31:40
Speaker 1: Think critically about the information you consume.