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The Tarot Trap: Christopher Waide’s Chilling Confession · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to just picture the interior of an
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: emergency 911 call center for a second. Oh, yeah. Because
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the operators sitting at those consoles, they're basically conditioned to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: hear the absolute worst moments of human existence on just
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: this endless loop.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Right. They're dealing with frantic screams. or whispered pleas for
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: help from people hiding.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The chaotic, overlapping background noise of an emergency unfolding
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: in real time.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: The adrenaline is just a constant baseline for them.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Right, but every once in a while, a call routes
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: through that completely, like shatters that expected audio script.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's jarring.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: The voice on the other end of the line isn't panicked.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: It's not out of breath. It is chillingly calm, deliberate even.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: The caller just simply states, I'd like to confess to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a murder.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Which, I mean, that is the kind of sentence that
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: essentially freezes the entire dispatch floor.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It has to, right.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because we have this culturally ingrained expectation of how
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: a murder confession is supposed to happen.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Like in a movie.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We picture it occurring in some dimly lit, claustrophobic
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: interrogation room, usually after hours of methodical psychological maneuvering by
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: some seasoned homicide detective.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Right, the classic good cop, bad cop routine.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: We absolutely do not expect a suspect to dial a
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: dispatcher from a public place and just volunteer that information
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: like they're ordering takeout.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It's wild. And the context of this specific call... just
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: turns the entire scenario completely on its head.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Because the person making this confession isn't calling out of some,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know, sudden overwhelming sense of moral clarity.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: He's not sitting alone in a dark room having a
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: crisis of conscience or buckling under the weight of his
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: own guilt.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: He is making this call from a public park gazebo
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: in broad daylight.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And he is doing it because the brother of the
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: young woman he murdered is standing directly over him, having
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: quite literally forced him to dial the phone.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Which is just an incredible image.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: It really is. So welcome to today's deep dive. We
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: are thrilled you're sitting down with us today. Our mission
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: today is to unpack this massive stack of sources, primarily
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: anchored by a truly shocking investigative report from ABC News.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: And we've supplemented that with our own research into legal precedents.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: the psychology of civilian stings, and the forensic realities of
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: missing persons cases.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So we are looking at the 2014 disappearance of
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: 19-year-old Lee Porter in Westminster, Colorado. But we aren't just
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: walking through a true crime timeline today. The goal here
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: is to really examine the unimaginable, almost cinematic lengths a
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: desperate family member will go to when the official justice
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: system just hits a brick wall.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Right, because the forces at play here create this sort
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: of perfect storm of systemic friction.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Well, you have a family pushed to the absolute edge
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: of grief and frustration.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And then a highly calculated suspect who operates under the
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: delusion that he has outsmarted everyone.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: The worst kind.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And on top of that, you have a legal system
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: that is deeply fundamentally constrained by his own strict rules
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: of evidence.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Right, which we'll definitely get into.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: It is phenomenally rare to see a civilian, a grieving brother...
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: With absolutely zero law enforcement training step into the vacuum
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: created by those legal constraints. Yeah. And actually extract the
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: very thing the police couldn't secure themselves.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: It's completely unprecedented. So to understand the mechanics of how
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: we get to a forced 9-11 confession in a part
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: of Zeebo, we need to examine the initial disappearance and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the immediate police response. Right.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: The drowned work.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So the date is June 3rd, 2014. The location is Westminster, Colorado.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Which is a suburb situated just northwest of Denver, for
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: those who don't know.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Right. And 19-year-old Lee Porter vanishes. Based on the timelines
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: reconstructed in the ABC News reporting, one of the very
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: last places she is seen alive is a local Boston market.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And at the time she dropped off the map, she
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: had been spending time at the apartment of a 23-year-old
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: man named Christopher Wade.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: And the nature of their relationship is really a critical
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: starting point here.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How did they know each other?
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Wade wasn't just some stranger who happened to cross paths
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: with her in a parking lot. they had an established
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: connection going all the way back to high school. Oh, wow.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, so there's history there.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly. According to Wade's own initial statements to the authorities,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Lee was hanging out at his place while she was
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: in this transitional process of preparing to move.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Right, so there's a reason for her to be there.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it provides a baseline logic for her presence in
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: his apartment. It establishes a clear, verifiable timeline that places
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: her in his immediate vicinity right before all communication from
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: her Completely ceases.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And obviously the police recognize that proximity immediately. Oh, yeah.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: They zero in on Christopher Wade almost from the jump.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Because it's always the last person to see them.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Right. He becomes the prime suspect and they bring him
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: in for formal questioning.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: And what happens in that interrogation?
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Well, during that initial interrogation, Wade doesn't deny seeing her.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: He admits she was there. Yeah.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: He fully admits to the detectives that Leah was indeed
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: with him at his apartment the night before she disappeared.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they have him placing himself with her. Right.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: But then the investigation hits this massive barrier.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, boy.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: The police suspect him. They know he was the last
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: person with her. Right. They have him right there in
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: the room. Yeah. But they release him.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: They just let him go?
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: They let him walk right out the front door of
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: the precinct.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Wow. I mean.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: For a family watching this unfold, that has to feel like,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know, watching a pathogen map out the immune system.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Like the threat is visible, it's identified, but the body
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: just can't mount a defense.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Why do police have to open the door and let
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: someone go when all the circumstantial arrows are pointing directly
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: at them as the prime suspect? It just seems insane.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: The frustration the family feels in that moment is overwhelming.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It's a byproduct of the fundamental design of the American
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: legal system. Right. The gap between police suspicion and legally
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: actionable evidence is vast by design.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, unpack that for us.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: So in a constitutional framework, a detective's instinct or even
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: circumstantial proximity like Wade admitting he was the last person
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: to see her, that does not meet the threshold of
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: probable cause required to actually file a murder charge or
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: hold someone indefinitely.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? Even if he was the last one to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: see her.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Right. This is especially true when you lack a physical
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: body to conclusively prove that a murder has actually occurred.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the burden of proof is acting like a
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: sequence of tumblers in a lock, and the police only
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: have maybe one or two of the keys.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: That captures the mechanical reality perfectly, yeah. You cannot hold
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: a citizen in custody simply because the circumstantial narrative looks
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: incredibly guilty.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: The system demands physical evidence, a confession... Or a verified,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: unimpeachable timeline of a crime.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Which they didn't have.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. At that early stage of the Westminster investigation, detectives
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: had none of those tumblers aligned.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Wade admitted she was at his apartment, which is a fact.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: But a person being in an apartment is not inherently
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: a crime.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: No, of course not.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Hanging out with a friend is not a felony. Without
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: evidence of foul play, his admission only proves they were
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: in the same room.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Man. So the system is really engineered to protect everyday
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: citizens from being locked up based on just a detective's hunch.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Which intellectually, if we take a step back, we all
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: rely on that protection as a society. Right.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: You wouldn't want to be locked up just because you're
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: the last person to see someone before they, you know,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: ran off somewhere.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We want that barrier to exist. But emotionally, in
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the white hot center of a crisis... It creates this
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: terrifying and agonizing delay for the victim's family.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: And that dual nature of that legal protection is what
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: makes these cases so volatile. The police release Wade because
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: the Fourth Amendment and the principles of habeas corpus completely
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: tie their hands.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: They literally have no choice.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: They cannot legally deprive him of his liberty without probable cause.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: And this release becomes the critical inflection point of the
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: entire Leah Porter case. How so? Because the system's mandatory
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: pause is exactly what triggers Leahy's brother, Max Porter, to
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: reevaluate his reliance on the authorities.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: He realizes they can't do anything right now.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Right. Max realizes that if he simply complies with the
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: standard procedure and waits for detectives to slowly, methodically build
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: a circumstantial case... the trail might go completely cold.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, days are ticking by.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: He might never get answers.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: So the institutional friction effectively forces the brother to take
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: an active operational role.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Which sets the stage for one of the most bizarre,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: psychologically intricate civilian stings we have ever come across in
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: our research for a deep dive.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's wild.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: We are about a week into the disappearance. Max Porter
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: decides the waiting period is over.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: He, along with a few friends... decide to bypass the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: police entirely.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: They go rogue.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Basically. They formulate a plan to lure Christopher Wade out
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: of his apartment and into a nearby park gazebo for
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: a face-to-face confrontation.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: And the specific methodology they employ for this lure is
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: just a fascinating study in leveraging human vulnerability.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: It really is. They don't just ask him to meet
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: up for coffee to talk about Leah.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: No, that wouldn't work.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: They exploit a very specific aspect of his personality, and
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the lure is so incredibly niche.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Tell him what he did.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: So Max discovers that Wade has this deep ongoing obsession
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: with tarot cards and mysticism. Right. So Max reaches out
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: to Wade and pitches this scenario. He pretends that he
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: wants Wade to perform a tarot card reading for him,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: specifically framing it as a way to use the cards to, quote,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: help find his sister it's brilliant and the entire time
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: this is happening max is secretly recording the audio of
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the encounter on his phone well but this is where
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the logic seems to completely break down for me okay
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: why if a person knows they are guilty of murder
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and they know they are the prime suspect Why on
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: earth would they agree to sit down in a public
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: park gazebo with the victim's brother and perform a mystical
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: tarot reading about the person they just killed? It makes
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: no sense.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: I know, that decision to attend that meeting defies rational
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: defensive logic. But it aligns perfectly with the psychology of
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: an arrogant offender.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: An arrogant offender.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to view this through the lens of
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: a suspect who believes he has successfully navigated the most
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: dangerous part of the process.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, because he survived the police interrogation.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Wade had just gone toe-to-toe with trained homicide detectives
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: in a formal interrogation setting, and he walked out a
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: free man.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: So he thinks he's a genius.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Surviving that kind of scrutiny provides a massive intoxicating boost
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: to the ego. He likely felt functionally untouchable at that point.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: He feels like he beat the boss level of the game,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: so a meeting with the brother just feels like a
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: victory lap.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: That is the exact psychological state Max is manipulating. Max
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: weaponizes Wade's own niche interests against him.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: For individuals who are highly focused on esoteric practices like tarot,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: there is often this underlying desire to possess hidden knowledge.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: To feel as though they are tapped into a layer
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: of reality that ordinary people cannot access.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: They want to feel special.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Right. By asking Wade to use his special skills to
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: help find the sister he secretly murdered, Max is feeding
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Wade's ego a highly concentrated dose of validation.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It feeds the ego, but it also creates this massive
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: blind spot, doesn't it? Because Max is playing the role
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: of the desperate, clueless family member just grasping at mystical straws.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the brilliance of the trap lies in its
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: ability to completely disarm Wade's paranoia.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: If the grieving brother is resorting to asking for magical intervention,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Wade logically assumes the brother has absolutely no earthly, physical
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: evidence against him.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, that makes so much sense. Like, if he's asking
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: for tarot cards, he has no idea what actually happened.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It makes Wade feel like he is in total
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: control of the narrative, allowing him to actively manipulate the
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: family while pretending to be this supportive friend.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: That is so twisted.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It is. Wade couldn't resist the opportunity to play the
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: wise mystic, completely failing to realize that his arrogance... was
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: the very vulnerability being exploited.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: He thought he was walking into an ego-stroking session.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was actually stepping into a meticulously designed
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: psychological ambush.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: The tension in that gazebo must have been just suffocating.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Once they are isolated in the park, the tarot facade
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: drops entirely. Max pivots from the desperate brother to an interrogator.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Based on the audio recordings and Max's subsequent interviews with
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: ABC News, he starts relentlessly pressing Wade. He demands to
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: know what happened to Leah.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And Wade denies knowing anything, right?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he denies it. They go back and forth 10, 15,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: 20 times. A relentless verbal tennis match of, I know
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: you know, followed by, I don't know what you're talking about.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: It's an endurance test. Until finally, the pressure fractures, Wade's resolve.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: And the specific way Wade breaks, and the language he
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: uses when he does, provides a textbook example of how
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: the human brain attempts to manage overwhelming culpability when cornered. Right.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: So on the recording, the denial stops and Wade says,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: all right, look, you have every right to be angry
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: with me.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: There it is.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: In that moment, he admits for the first time that
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: he was the one who killed Leah.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: But he does not offer a flat, unconditional confession to murder.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: He immediately constructs a narrative claiming self-defense. Yeah. Wade's version
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: of events is this. He claims he and Leah went
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: out to get food, came back to his apartment, and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: engaged in consensual sex.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Then, according to Wade, she suddenly wanted drugs. He claims
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: she grabbed his knife and attempted to stab him to
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: get money for those drugs. Oh. And the excuse he
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: gives for her death is the focal point of this
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: entire confrontation. He tells Max that he squeezed her throat
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: to force her to drop the knife.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, boy.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: The exact phrasing he uses is chilling. Wade says, I
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: thought that her muscles would relax when she went unconscious
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: and that I could gradually move the knife away and
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: let her go and let her regain consciousness. But that
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: didn't happen.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, if we isolate that statement and examine it through
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: the framework of criminal psychology, we are looking at the
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: exact anatomy of a partial confession, heavily layered with minimization techniques.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: We have to dismantle the biological absurdity of Wade's excuse
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: before we even touch the psychological aspect.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Please do.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Because the concept of choking someone to relax their muscles
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: is entirely divorced from how the human body actually functions.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Right. It's not a movie.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Manual strangulation is not a volume knob where you just
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: dial down someone's consciousness so you can easily disarm them.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: When the carotid arteries and jugular veins are compressed, restricting
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: blood flow to the brain, the body goes into a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: state of severe panic and hypoxia. It is a violent, desperate,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: flailing struggle for survival.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: It's horrific.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: The idea that someone would just gently go to sleep
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: while maintaining a grip on a knife, allowing you to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: calmly remove it, is medical fiction.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: It's absurd.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: And his phrasing, I thought her muscles would relax, is
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: delivered with this clinical, detached tone. He describes extinguishing a
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: human life As if it were a high school physics
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: experiment that yielded an unexpected variable.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: And that clinical detachment you are highlighting is the core
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: feature of a partial confession.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Really? How so?
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: When a suspect is backed into a psychological corner, and
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: the sheer repetition of the confrontation makes continued denial impossible,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: their brain shifts into a sophisticated form of damage control.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: They admit to the undeniable physical act. In this case,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: his hands wrapping around her throat and causing her death.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Because the pressure from the interrogator is too intense to
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: deflect anymore.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Right. He couldn't keep lying about that part.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They offer up the what to relieve the immediate
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: stress of the confrontation. But simultaneously, cognitive dissonance and self-preservation
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: instincts kick in.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: So they spin the story.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Right. They invent a surrounding context that drastically reduces their
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: moral and legal culpability.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: They wrap the truth of the action in a lie
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: about the intent.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Yes. It transforms a murder into a tragic, unavoidable accident
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: born of self-defense.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: And the narrative Wade constructs, the sudden demand for drugs,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the unprovoked knife attack, the reluctant application of force solely
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: to disarm her, is a classic minimization strategy.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: It blames her.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: It actively shifts the blame onto the victim, suggesting her
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: actions forced his hand. It paints the perpetrator as the
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: actual victim of a chaotic circumstance. That makes me sick.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: He fabricates the why and the how, to shield himself
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: from the reality of cold-blooded murder. He gives Max a confession,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: but it is a sanitized, heavily edited version designed to
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: make himself look less monstrous.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Max Porter, however, is not a detective bound by professional detachment.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: No, he is not.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: He is a brother listening to a man calmly describe
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: strangling his 19-year-old sister. The sanitized narrative doesn't work on them.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: The sheer, visceral human reaction overrides everything else, Max punches
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Wade directly in the face.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: It is the rawest manifestation of the emotional toll we
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: discussed earlier. The legal system forced a delay, the brother
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: took on the burden of investigation, and the psychological weight
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: of extracting that confession culminated in a physical breaking point.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: The environment in the gazebo is just pure chaos at
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: this point. Max's friend, Eric Fay, who was present to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: help facilitate the sting, later told ABC News that he
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: deliberately let Max get at least one good shot in
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: before intervening to pull Max off. Faye admitted he wanted
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to attack Wade himself, but recognized that letting him rot
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: in prison was a more permanent punishment.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: That shows some incredible restraint on his part.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Definitely. But even after being punched, Wade still attempts to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: dictate the terms of the engagement.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: What does he do?
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: He tells Max and his friends that he wants to
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: go home to prepare for his surrender to the police.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Requesting to go home to prepare is a
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: massive flashing red flag in any confrontation.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what does that actually mean?
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: It translates directly to a desire to access a controlled
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: environment where evidence can be destroyed, digital footprints can be erased,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: a more coherent alibi can be constructed, or the suspect
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: can gather resources to flee the jurisdiction entirely.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Max and his friends recognize the danger immediately. They categorically
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: refuse to let him leave the gazebo. It's for them.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: they form a physical barrier and force him to use
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: his phone to call 911 right then and there.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And that brings us full circle to the audio we
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: analyzed at the start. Christopher Wade on the phone with
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the dispatcher, calmly volunteering a murder confession, while the victim's
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: brother stands over him, ensuring he doesn't run. Adams County
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: District Attorney Dave Young, who brought 25 years of prosecuting
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: experience to this case, spoke to ABC News about this
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: specific moment.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: He stated that in his entire quarter century career spanning
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: countless homicide cases, he had never once encountered a scenario
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: where a family member bypasses law enforcement, confronts a suspect,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: extracts a full-blown verbal confession, and physically forces the suspect
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: to initiate the 911 call.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: And the prosecutor's shock is entirely warranted because the event
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: completely circumvents the massive institutional apparatus we have built to
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: handle violent crime. Right. Max Porter, armed with a fake
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: tarot reading and sheer willpower, achieved in a public park
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: what the entire criminal justice infrastructure could not achieve in
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: a controlled interrogation setting.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: The sheer audacity of the gazebo trap is mind bending,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: but there is a structural twist to this narrative that
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: makes it feel like a scripted thriller.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. This is where it gets even crazier.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Max, his friends, and Christopher Wade all operated under the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: assumption that they were having this isolated, highly secretive confrontation.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: They believed they were the only actors on the stage.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: But what none of them knew, what the ABC News
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: report later revealed, was that they were entirely surrounded. Yeah.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: They were not the only ones watching Christopher Wade that day.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: The narrative expands here from a localized family tragedy into
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: a highly complex, multilayered surveillance operation.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Because the police had not actually walked away.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Nope.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to everyone in the park, Westminster police surveillance units
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: had been secretly shadowing Christopher Wade from the very second
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: he walked out of that first interrogation.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Which demonstrates highly competent police work, honestly.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: They released him to comply with the legal requirements we discussed,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: but they never took their eyes off him.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: When detectives are forced to release a prime suspect due
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: to a lack of probable cause, standard procedure often dictates
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: implementing covert surveillance.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: The strategy relies on the suspect feeling a false sense
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: of security.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Like we talked about with his ego.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The hope is that the suspect will either attempt
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: to revisit the disposal site, try to destroy secondary evidence,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: or simply panic and engage in erratic behavior that provides
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the necessary legal pretext for an arrest.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Well, the surveillance logs detailed the places Wade went after
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: his release, and they followed him to his college campus.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And the details of his academic life add a terrifying
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: layer of irony to the entire investigation.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: It's unbelievable.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Wade was enrolled as a college student, and his specific
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: major was criminal justice.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: You can't make this up.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: He was taking classes taught by a professor named Robert Wells.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Professor Wells later confirmed that his curriculum covered the precise
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: challenges law enforcement faces when acquiring evidence. and extensively detailed
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the forensic vulnerabilities of crime scenes.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Wade was literally sitting in a classroom learning how to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: clean up after a murder.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: This introduces a profoundly unsettling dynamic into the case.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Our cultural archetype of a criminal often involves someone acting
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: out of impulsive panic, leaving a trail of sloppy, disorganized mistakes.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Right. Leaving fingerprints, dropping the weapon.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: But here, the investigation is dealing with a suspect who
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: is being formally investigated. academically trained by the very system
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: tasked with apprehending him.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: He is taking detailed notes on Lockhart's exchange principle, blood
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: spatter analysis and the decay of trace evidence.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: The academic advantage is staggering. It is the equivalent of
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a cybersecurity firm unknowingly giving a hacker the exact source
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: code to their firewall.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Wade was studying the blueprints of a successful homicide investigation
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: while actively committing one.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: And the application of that academic training becomes glaringly obvious
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: during Wade's secondary confession.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, definitely.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Because once a 911 call is made from the gazebo,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: the surveillance teams who are already in position move in
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: and execute an immediate arrest.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Wade is transported back to the precinct, but this time
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: the dynamics are different.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: He's caught.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: He has legal representation and he is locked into the
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: self-defense narrative he gave Max. But he begins to detail
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: the specific methodical steps he took in the immediate aftermath
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: of Leah's death.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: The cleanup process he describes to the detectives is terrifying
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: in its precision. Wade confesses that after Leah was deceased,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: he systematically reclothed her body. He moved her onto the bed.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: He then went through his entire living room, identifying and
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: gathering every single personal belonging she had brought with her
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and moved them into his bedroom. He then procured a
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: duffel bag, forced her remains into it, and disposed of
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the bag in a large municipal dumpster located at his
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: apartment complex.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: When ABC News interviewed Professor Wells about these specific actions,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the professor confirmed that efforts to purge a scene, to
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: sanitize the area, and to deliberately sever forensic links by
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: gathering up trace items are exactly the methodologies Wade would
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: have studied in his coursework.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: The dark irony of the situation is almost difficult to process.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: The educational infrastructure designed to empower the next generation of
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: law enforcement to catch killers was systematically weaponized by Wade
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: to erase his victim from existence.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: He understood the fundamental rule of homicide prosecution. Physical evidence
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: is the absolute linchpin.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: By choosing to reclothe the victim, he is attempting to
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: control the future forensic narrative regarding sexual assault or the
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: context of the struggle.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Wow. I didn't even think of that.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: By meticulously gathering her belongings, he is coming to remove
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: her physical footprint from his living space, minimizing Locard's exchange principle,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: the idea that every contact leaves a trace.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: By utilizing a communal dumpster, he is relying on the
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: automated schedules of municipal waste management to destroy the primary evidence,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: the body, before the authorities even realize a crime has occurred.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: It is a breathtakingly calculated sequence of events. It is.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: But the contrast between the two main actors in this
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: drama is what I find most compelling.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: How so?
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Well, on one side of the board, you have Christopher Wade.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: He executes a cold textbook, academically informed cleanup of his apartment,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: relying entirely on his criminal justice education.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: On the other side of the board, you have Max Porter.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Max constructs a raw, emotional, highly unconventional trap based on
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: a deck of tarot cards and and a gut understanding
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: of arrogance.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: And in the end, it isn't the forensic science that
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: breaks the textbook cover-up. No.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: The element that unravels the perfect academic crime is the
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: one variable you cannot adequately study in a textbook. Human vulnerability.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Wade possessed the intellectual capacity to sanitize a physical environment flawlessly.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: But he entirely lacked the emotional intelligence to recognize when
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: he was being manipulated.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: His inflated ego, his bizarre obsession with mysticism, his need
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: to feel superior to the grieving family. That was a
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: psychological flaw that couldn't be scrubbed away with bleach or
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: hidden in a duffel bag.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: That's incredibly well said.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Max Alaysia's vigilante operation succeeded precisely because it bypassed the
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: physical evidence battleground where Wade had the advantage and instead
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: launched a targeted strike on the killer's psychological weaknesses.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: It is a striking example of street smart intuition dismantling
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: academic arrogance.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: However, while Max won the psychological battle in the gazebo,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Wade's classroom knowledge proved devastatingly effective in one specific, highly
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: consequential area.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: The body. Yes.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: He successfully executed the most critical part of his plan,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: making the victim disappear.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: By the time Wade admitted to the police that he
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: had utilized the apartment dumpster, The timeline had already worked
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: against the investigation.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Because of the trash collection.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: The contents of that specific dumpster had been collected by
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: the sanitation department and transported to a massive regional landfill.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: And the logistics of what happens next just plunge the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: entire legal proceeding into a nightmare scenario.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, finding something in a landfill is nearly impossible.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: The physical search for Lee Porter was a monumental, grueling undertaking.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Authorities organized a search of the landfill that lasted for
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: 40 consecutive days. If you consider the sheer scale of
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: a modern municipal landfill acres of compacted, rotting garbage, hazardous materials,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: shifting terrain, the task is almost incomprehensible.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: It's a needle in a haystack, but the haystack is
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: the size of a city.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Combing through that environment for over a month requires immense resources,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: and at the end of those 40 days, they did
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: not locate her remains.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Which is heartbreaking.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: What they did find buried in the refuse was a
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: single pillowcase.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Just a pillowcase.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Inside that pillowcase, investigators recovered Leah's cell phone, her wallet,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: her ID, and articles of her clothing.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: And the discovery of the pillowcase is a double-edged sword
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: for the prosecution.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Why is that?
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: On one hand, it directly corroborates Wade's confession regarding the cleanup.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: It proves that he gathered her belongings and disposed of
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: them exactly as he described, inextricably tying him to the
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: immediate aftermath of her disappearance.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: OK, so it shows he was telling the truth about
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: that part. Right.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: But from a legal standpoint, it is not the ultimate
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: piece of evidence required to secure a murder conviction.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Because the absence of the body creates a massive void
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: in the case.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Westminster Police Detective Matt Calhoun summarized the situation with brutal clarity.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: He stated, we need a body. There are very few
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: solved nobody homicides.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: It's an incredibly high bar.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: The prosecutors reviewing the file were highly skeptical of Wade's
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: self-defense narrative. They did not believe his story about the
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: knife or the struggle for drug money.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Naturally.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: But despite their personal convictions, they were profoundly hesitant to
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: take the case in front of a jury without Leah's
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: physical remains.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: For anyone listening right now, this is where the legal
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: system can feel incredibly disjointed from common sense.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: It really can.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: You have a suspect on tape confessing to the brother.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: You have him on a recorded 911 call confessing to dispatch.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: You have a secondary confession to detectives detailing the cleanup.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: And you literally found the victim's ID and phone in
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the trash exactly where he said he put them.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like a slam dunk.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Why is the lack of a body such an insurmountable
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: hurdle for the prosecution?
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: It is deeply frustrating for the public to process, but
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: it requires an understanding of how the burden of proof
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: operates in a courtroom. Okay. Particularly when the defendant is
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: actively claiming self-defense. Right.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Because he's not denying he killed her. He's denying it
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: was murder.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The legal doctrine of corpus delecti, which translates to
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: the body of the crime, traditionally requires the state to
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: prove that a crime actually occurred before someone can be
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: convicted of it.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: In modern courts, you can sometimes prove a murder without
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: a body using overwhelming circumstantial evidence, but it is incredibly difficult.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Why is it so hard?
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Because without the body, the prosecution is flying blind from
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: a medical and forensic standpoint.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: So the medical examiner is essentially sidelined.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Consider what a forensic pathologist contributes to a trial.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: If Christopher Wade takes the stand and claims Leah Porter
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: attacked him with a knife, and he simply squeezed her
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: throat for a few seconds to disarm her. The physical
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: body is the only objective witness that can conclusively destroy
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: that lie.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Are there defensive wounds on her hands or arms, indicating
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: she fought back against an unprovoked attack?
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Are there defensive wounds on Wade that corroborate a knife attack?
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: What was the precise mechanism of death?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: They can't answer any of that. No.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: In cases of manual strangulation, a pathologist can examine the
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: hyoid bone in the neck.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: If it is fractured or crushed in a specific manner,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: it suggests the application of extreme, prolonged, intentional force, kind
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: of force required for murder, not a brief defensive squeeze.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Is there physical evidence of a sexual assault that would
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: completely dismantle his timeline of a consensual encounter?
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Right. The body provides the unalterable truth of those final moments.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: It removes the ambiguity.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: And without the physical remains to testify, the prosecution cannot medically,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: scientifically disprove Wade's self-defense claim.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: So it's just his word against no one's.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: The prosecutors can argue to the jury that his story
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: is absurd, that the biological mechanics of his excuse don't
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: make sense, but argument is not evidence.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: In a criminal trial, a defense attorney doesn't have to
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: prove Wade is telling the truth.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: They just have to create doubt.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They only have to plant a single seed of
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: reasonable doubt in the mind of one juror out of 12.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Just one.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: The defense strategy writes itself. My client was involved in
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: a terrible, tragic accident. He panicked and he made the
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: incredibly poor decision to hide the body, which is a
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: crime he admits to. But the death itself was a
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: desperate act of self-defense. And the state of Colorado cannot
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: provide a single piece of medical evidence to prove otherwise.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: That is so frustrating to hear, but it makes perfect
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: sense legally.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: This is the exact moment where Wade's criminal justice education
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: pays dividends. By ensuring the body was unrecoverable, he engineered
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: an environment where reasonable doubt could thrive.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: And the success of his disposal method forces the prosecution
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: into a corner.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Faced with this massive evidentiary gap, the district attorney's office
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: has to engage in a deeply painful calculus.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: They have to negotiate a compromise with a confessed killer.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: It's awful.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: This brings us to the resolution of the legal case
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and the ongoing reality for Leah's family. The prosecutors analyze
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: the risk and decide they cannot take a chance on
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: a trial where Wade might be entirely acquitted of the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: murder charge and only convicted of a lesser charge, like
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: tampering with a deceased human body.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: To avoid that nightmare scenario, they offer him a formal
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: plea deal.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: And the concept of a plea deal often feels fundamentally
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: inadequate when the currency being traded is a human life.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: It definitely does.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: But it is the pragmatic engine that keeps the justice
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: system moving, especially in compromised cases.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: So the parameters of the deal are stark. Wade agrees
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: to plead guilty to second-degree murder.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: In exchange for that plea, he receives a sentence of
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: 48 years in the state penitentiary.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: 48 years.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Based on the sentencing guidelines, he will be eligible for
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: release in the year 2062, at which point he will
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: be in his 70s.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: But a crucial stipulation of this agreement was that the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: 48-year offer was contingent on him providing actionable information on
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: the exact location of Leah's body.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: So he had to tell them where she was.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Wade accepted the prison term, but he rigidly maintained his
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: original story. He swore under oath that he placed the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: body in the apartment dumpster, the contents of which went
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: to the exact landfill the authorities had already spent 40
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: days searching.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: DA Dave Young explained the trap they were in. He
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: noted that they couldn't simply go before a judge and say,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: we have a gut feeling this man is lying to
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: us about the dumpster. Please reject the plea bargain. Right.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Feelings are evidence. Exactly.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The state had no empirical proof he was lying
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: about the disposal method to invalidate the deal.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: However, the DA did include a caveat. If Leah's body
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: is ever discovered in a different location, the state can
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: prove Wade violated the terms of the agreement, void the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: 48-year deal, and potentially pursue harsher first-degree charges.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: And the resolution of this case is a textbook illustration
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: of the prosecutor's dilemma. How so? The district attorney is
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: forced to weigh the pursuit of maximum ideal justice against
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: the terrifying mathematical risk of a total acquittal.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I have to voice the immense frustration that anyone listening
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: to this deep dive is undoubtedly feeling right now.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: I feel it too.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: It feels profoundly unjust that a perpetrator receives a negotiated deal,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: a legally guaranteed release date, specifically because he was highly
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: competent at hiding his victim. Yes. It creates the perception
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: that he is being actively rewarded by the justice system
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: for executing a thorough, academically informed cover up.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: It is an incredibly bitter pill for the public and
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: more importantly, the family to swallow.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: But it forces us to define what justice actually means
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: in an inherently flawed human run system.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Is justice rolling the dice on a trial where a
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: charismatic defense attorney might convince a jury that without a body,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: the state hasn't met its burden?
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: That's a huge risk.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: If Wade were to be acquitted of the murder charge
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: at trial, the constitutional protection against double jeopardy attaches permanently.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: So they could never try him again.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: He could never be tried for Leah's murder again, regardless
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: of what evidence surfaced later.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: He could theoretically walk out of the courthouse and publicly
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: admit to the intentional murder the next day without legal consequence.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: That is terrifying.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: So the prosecutors made a cold, calculated risk management decision,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: securing a guaranteed 48 years off the streets, But pragmatic
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: justice does not heal a family. No, it doesn't. It
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: leaves a massive open wound of ambiguous loss. Max Porter
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: refuses to accept Wade's narrative about the dumpster. Understandably.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: He fundamentally believes Wade is still lying and that he
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: disposed of Leah somewhere else entirely. Max remains absolutely fiercely
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: determined to find his sister's remains. In his interviews with
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: ABC News, he stated his motivation clearly. I want to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: do it for her. She doesn't deserve to be just
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: tossed away like a piece of trash.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: And Max's ongoing search highlights the unending burden placed on
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: the survivors.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Max did the impossible. He utilized his intuition, his courage,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: and his deep understanding of a killer's psychological flaws to
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: secure the confession that cracked the case wide open.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: He did what the police couldn't.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: He handed the authorities the breakthrough they needed. But the system,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: bound by its rigid requirement for physical proof and forensic certainty,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: could not secure the final piece of the puzzle. His
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: sisters return.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: It's tragic.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Max won the psychological battle in the gazebo, but he
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: is condemned to keep fighting the physical battle in the landscape.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: It is an incredible, harrowing journey we've navigated today.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: We started with a frustrated brother who realized the institutional
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: guardrails of the police couldn't help him, prompting him to
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: use a bizarre tarot card lure to trap an arrogant
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: killer in a public park. We explored the deeply unsettling
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: irony of a criminal justice major weaponizing his college education
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: to execute a textbook crime scene cleanup only to be
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: undone by his own fragile ego.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And it culminates in a painful legal compromise, a 48
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: year plea deal born directly out of the forensic nightmare
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: of a nobody homicide.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: And the totality of this case forces us to think
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: deeply about the intersection of modern technology and archaic crime.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: We live in an era characterized by inescapable digital footprints.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: We have cell phones pinging towers constantly, high definition security
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: cameras on every corner. and GPS tracking our every movement.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: True.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Yet, the Lee-Porter case demonstrates how the most primitive physical
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: method of disposal, simply hiding a body effectively in the
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: dirt or the trash can, still bring our highly modern,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: sophisticated justice system to an absolute standstill.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: That's a profound point.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: It leaves us with a critical, lingering question to consider.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: If a jury's demand for physical forensic proof can outweigh
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: a recorded confession and a meticulously executed psychological trap, who
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: does the burden of proof truly protect in the end?
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Does it protect the innocent from overzealous prosecution? Or does
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: it provide a shield for the educated calculated guilty?
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: That tension between the law's intent and its actual application
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: is a thought that will definitely stay with me.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Same here.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: The indelible image of that 911 call, the brothers standing
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: over the killer, extracting the truth that the law couldn't reach,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: only to find that the law still demanded more. Thank
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you so much for joining us as we took this
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: deep dive into these sources today. We appreciate you taking
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: the time to explore the legal complexities, the psychological warfare,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: and the hard unanswered questions with us. Take care of
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: yourselves and we'll catch you next time.