Latest / Crime Night / The Impossible Fall of Phoebe Handsjuk

Transcript

The Impossible Fall of Phoebe Handsjuk · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture this. It is December second, twenty ten. You're in Melbourne, Australia,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: standing inside this very sterile, quiet hallway of a luxury
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: high rise apartment building.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Right, But you aren't looking out those expansive glass windows
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: at the beautiful city skyline.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: No, you are staring at a tiny steel hatch set
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: into the wall on the twelfth floor. It's a trash shoot.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: And behind that heavy metallic flap is just sheer, claustrophobic darkness,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: literally an eleven story vertical drop exactly.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: So, now transport yourself down to the ground floor into
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the cold concrete basement of that very same building.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: The building's concierge is down there right, standing outside the
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: trash compactor room.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's just looking for a room to sweep up.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: So she turns the handle, pushes, but the door is.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Totally jammed, like there is something incredibly heavy blocking it
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: from the inside.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Right. She throws her shoulder into it, pushing a little harder,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: shifting the heavy door just enough to peer into that
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: dim fluorescent light, and.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: What she sees is just a gruesome, real devastating scene.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: The twenty four year old woman named Phoebe hans Jack
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: is lying on the floor, surrounded by blood. She had
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: seemingly fallen those eleven stories down the chute.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It is an incredibly dark, almost incomprehensible scene to walk into,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: it really is, and that brings us directly into the
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: mission for today's deep dive. We are going to unravel
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: one of the most perplexing, physically baffling mysteries in recent memory.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Because the physics here they just don't make sense.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: They don't. We are going to guide you through the
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: bizarre circumstances leading up to this moment, the physical evidence
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: that simply defies the laws of physics, and a jaw
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: dropping historical echo that happened years later.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: It's a lot to unpack, it is.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Ultimately, we have to explore how a case with so
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: many glaring, unanswered questions could be officially closed by authorities
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: as a tragic accident, and what that tells us about
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the mechanisms of criminal investigations.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I am still trying to wrap my head around
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the heure mechanics of a fall like that.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I mean anyone would be, But.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: To understand how we end up in that basement, we
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: actually have to rewind the clock, but just one day
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to December first, twenty.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Ten, right the day before she was found.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly so, Phoebe sends this group text message to her family,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: her boyfriend, and her boss.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: And you really need to hear the exact wording of
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: this message because it is incredibly jarring.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: It really is. It reads, quote, high, Family, I am
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: in bed, about to sleep, and when I wake, I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: will transform into the most incredible human being you've ever seen.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Which is already such a bizarre way to start a text, right,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and it continues.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I hear the special tonight is tomato soup, delicious, nutritious.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I love you all very much, but not enough to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: send an individual text. Sorry about that, so strange. But
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: time is sleep and I must be on my way merrily, merrily, merrily.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Life is but a dream exo.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Wow. To really grasp the weight of that message, we
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: need to look at Phoebe's reality at the time.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's give some context.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: She was a vibrant young woman, but she heavily struggled
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: with depression and anxiety. She sometimes turned to prescription drugs
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: and alcohol as a coping mechanism.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Family was already hyper aware of her mental.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: State, exactly so, when her family receives a message that
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: is this highly poetic, erratic, and deeply uncharacteristic. They don't
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: just brush it off as some quirky late night.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Text, right, It's not just a joke to them.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: No, it is an immediate, glaring red flag indicating that
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: her mental state might be deteriorating rapidly.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: And her grandmother is absolutely terrified by it. She immediately
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: calls Phoebe's live in boyfriend, who goes by the name Aunt. Right.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: They share this fancy high rise apartment on the twelfth floor.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: So the grandmother figures, you know, he's right there, he
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: can just walk into the bedroom and check on her.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: That makes total sense.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: But Aunt answers the phone, says he actually isn't with
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Phoebe at the moment, but that when he left that
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: morning she seemed fine.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: He tells the grandmother that Phoebe is probably just sleeping,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: and he completely dismisses the concern, like totally.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Brushes it off. To calm the grandmother down, he says
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: he'll go check on her later.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: But it is totally unclear if he ever actually went
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: to the apartment to check, or if he ever bothered
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: to call the grandmother back yeah.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: His sheer nonchalance seems to have temporarily paused the family's rising.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Panic, though, right up until the very next day, December second.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: So Phoebe's father, Lenn, has standing dinner plans with Figi
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and Ant.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: He calls Phoebe's phone to say he's running a bit late, right.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But there's no answer. Then exactly thirty seconds later, Len's.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Phone rings and it's not Phoebe.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: No, it's Aunt. And this is highly unusual because Ant
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: has never in the entire history of their relationship called
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Len directly.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Before, never, not once.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Ann tells Len that Phoebe isn't home, but her purse
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: and her keys are still sitting in the apartment.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Wait, I need to pause on that thirty second gap.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Len calls Phoebe, she doesn't answer, and exactly half a
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: minute later, the boyfriend calls.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a very specific, very tight window.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: And Len is sitting there thinking, you know, we have
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: dinner plans, her purse is there, her keys are there,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: and she sent that incredibly disturbing life is but a
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: text yesterday exactly.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: So Len begs Aunt to call the police and report
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: her missing.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Immediately, which is the logical next step.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: But Aunt flat out refuses. He says he doesn't think
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the police would take it seriously.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I have to be honest. I struggle to understand the
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: logic here.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: It makes no sense. It's like seeing thick, black smoke
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: pouring out from under a bedroom door, smelling burning plastic,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and saying, let's just wait and.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: See if there's an actual fire before we bother calling
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: the fire department.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly why wait? What is the mechanism behind that kind
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: of apathy?
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Well, that inaction forces Len to take matters into his.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Own hands, because somebody had to do something right.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Len starts desperately calling everyone who knows Phoebe, hitting dead
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: end after dead end throughout the afternoon, just.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: A father panicking trying to find his daughter.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And it isn't until later that night that Aunt finally
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: calls Len back with the devastating news Phoebe had been
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: found in the building, but she.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Was dead, which takes us right back to that basement
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: at seven p the concierge trying to pry open the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: jam door of the compactor room.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: The brutal reality of what happened in that room is staggering,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: both medically and physically.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: It's awful.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: When Phoebe fell down that eleven story shoot, she struck
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: the compactor mechanism at the bottom, which nearly severed her foot.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Oh man, But the fall itself didn't kill her instantly.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: She actually survived that devastating one hundred foot drop.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Which is a miracle in itself, but a tragic one. Yeah.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Forensic investigators determined she likely bled to deck on that dark,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: cold basement floor while trying to drag herself toward the door.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, that is genuinely horrifying to visualize.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Based on the blood laws, it probably took between five
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: and ten agonizing minutes for her to pass away in
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: the dark.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Wow. So when the police show up, they look at
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the scene, they look at her history, and they formulate
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: an immediate theory.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Right, they rule it a suicide or a tragic accident.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: They point to the toxicology report, which shows her blood
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: alcohol level was point one six that's double the legal driving.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Limb, and that she had taken Still Knox Right for context.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Still Knox is a very strong, heavy sedative prescribed to
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: treat intense insomnia.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important to dig into that. So the police
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: paint this picture of a young intoxicated woman who was
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: heavily medicated, wandering the halls and simply had a tragic mishap.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: But it is crucial to understand how still Knox works
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: pharmacologically to see why the police clung to this theory exactly.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Still Knox is the brand name in Australia for Zolpidem,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: which is the active ingredient in medications like ambient.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Right, the stuff that knocks you out.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Zolpidem binds to Gabba receptors in the brain, which
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: depresses the central nervous system.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: It induces sleep, obviously.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: But it is notorious for causing complex sleep behaviors like sleepwalking,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: sleep eating, and profound antarograde amnesia, meaning.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: You have absolutely no memory of what you did.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Right. Furthermore, it severely impairs motor function and coordination.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm want to play Devil's advocate for the police
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: here for a second. Sure, ohhay, if we know that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: still knocks can cause people to literally cook full meals
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: in their sleep without waking up, and she has a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: zero point one six blood alcohol level amplifying those.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Effects, which is a massive dose of impairment.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Right, isn't it entirely possible. She hallucinated. What if she
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: wandered out into the hallway completely disoriented and thought that
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: metal hatch was a door or a window.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Just stumbled right in.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, couldn't she have just fallen in?
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: That is a very plausible sounding theory on paper, which
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: is exactly why the police adopted it so quickly.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It wraps things up nicely.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: But that theory completely shatters the second you examine the
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: biomechanics required to actually enter that specific shoot.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, explain that.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Phoebe's family, specifically her grandfather, who happens to be a retired,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: highly experienced detective.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Talk about having the right person in your corner.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: I know, right. He looked at the police report and
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: immediately realized the physical math did not work.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the shoot itself. Because when you hear
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: trash chute, you probably picture this big, gaping, waist high hole.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: In the wall, like a commercial hotel laundry shoote. You
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: could easily toss a giant Duffel bag into exactly.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: But that is not what this is. This is a
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: small steel hatch. The dimensions are incredibly specific.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: How small are we top?
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: It is eleven point eight inches tall by twenty one
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: point five inches wide.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: That is tiny, and it sits.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: More than three feet off the ground. Furthermore, it doesn't
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: open outward like an oven door.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: How does it open?
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: It pushes inward and only fans open at the top,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: like a tight restrictive wedge.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Wow. The architectural design is specifically meant to prevent large
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: objects and certainly human beings from going down.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Right. To get into this shoot, Phoebe, you would have
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: had to pull the heavy, spring loaded hatch open, hold
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: it open with one hand, hoist her entire body weight
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: up over thirty six inches into the.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Air while keeping the hatch open, yes.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And then thread her cell feet first into a tiny
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: eleven inch wedge shaped opening.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Let's combine that physical reality with the pharmacological reality we
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: just discussed.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: It's just wild. She has a point one six BAC
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and is full of heavy sedatives that destroy motor coordination.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Trying to voluntarily get into this shoot would be like
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know, an adult trying to purposefully shove themselves
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: feet first through a standard mouse slot three.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Feet off the ground, while heavily intoxicated and barely able
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: to stand up straight.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: It utterly defies physical logic.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Phoebe's grandfather actually built a full scale physical replica of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the shoot and had a friend of Phoebe's exact height
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: and weight try to get into it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, what happened?
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: It was virtually impossible, even for a sober coordinated person
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: to do it without immense struggle.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: And if someone were to attempt this nearly impossible physical feet,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: they would leave a trace. Of course, there'd be immense friction,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: they would leave signs of a struggle.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: But the physical clues left behind, or rather the glaring
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: lack of them, tell a story that completely contradicts the
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: official police narrative.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Let's break that down. If you are hoisting yourself up
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: by a steel flab, your hands and arms are going
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: to show it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: But Phoebe had absolutely no cuts, no scrapes, and no
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: bruises on her fingers or forearms none.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: That makes zero sense. And then there is the state
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: of her clothing.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: This part is crazy. When she was found in the basement,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: her jeans were pulled down around her knees. Wait what yeah,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I want you to try to visualize climbing up over
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: a three foot ledge and threading your body into an
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: eleven inch opening with your genes binding your legs together
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: at the knees.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: It restricts your movement entirely. It removes your ability to
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: bend your knees or gain leverage, making climbing basically an impossibility.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Furthermore, forensic technicians process the shoot hatch, what did they find?
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Zero fingerprints, none, None of Phoebe's fingerprints, no one else's fingerprints.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: It had been wiped completely clean.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: If her physical and chemical state makes it biomechanically impossible
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: for her to have willingly climbed into that hatch alone,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: the physical evidence forces us to look.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Backward, right, we have to look at the environment she.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Just loves exactly what was waiting upstairs in that twelfth
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: floor apartment.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: That brings us back to six zero nine pm on
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: December second, just about an hour before Phoebee's body was discovered.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: In the basement, and returns to the twelfth floor apartment.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: And the scene he walks into is eerie, chaotic, and
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: deeply unsettling.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Tell us what he sees.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: There is broken glass scattered across the floor, There is
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: fresh blood on a computer mouse, and blood smeared on
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: a doorframe.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's already terrible.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: A hair straightener has been left turned on, posing a
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: huge fire hazard. And on the bed there is what
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the media later described as a shrine. A shrine, a
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: bizarre collection of photographs, surrounded by incoherent rambling messages scribbled
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: on post it notes.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: So it is a bloody, chaotic scene. Her purse and
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: keys are sitting right there, just as he told Len
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: on the phone earlier.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: But Ant's reaction is chillingly casual. Instead of seeing blood,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: broken glass and a bizarre shrine and immediately calling the police,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: what does he do?
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I can't even guess.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: He orders takeout? He literally orders food from the exact
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: same Thai restaurant they were supposed to be meeting her
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: father at.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: You're kidding.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: He later claims to investigators that he had absolutely no
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: idea she was dead until the Tai food delivery driver
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: arrived at the building and mentioned that the police were
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: downstairs blocking off the basement.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: This is where we have to critically examine the response
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: of law enforcement, because the initial investigation was, to put
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: it mildly catastrophically botched.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Botched doesn't even begin to cover it.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: We see a compounding series of forensic failures. When Phoebe
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: was found in the basement, nobody checked her body for
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: a time of death.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Wait they didn't.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: No, they didn't take a liver temperature to establish algor mortis.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: We have no scientific timeline for whether she had been
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: lying there for five minutes or for five hours before
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: the concierge found her.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I am genuinely baffled by that. Yeah, you find a
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: body in a basement and the foundational step of establishing
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a timeline is just skipped.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, the failures cascade from there. The trash bags that
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: were in the basement compactor room near her body bags.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: It might have contained the rest of the broken glass
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: from the apartment.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Or bloodsirk towels or rags used to wipe the fingerprints
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: off the chuot.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: What happened to them?
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: They were never collected by authorities. They were just thrown away?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Are you serious?
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: The CCTV footage from the building wasn't formally requested in time,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: so massive crucial portions of it were automatically overwritten by
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: the building security system.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Jeez.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: And the blood found in the apartment wasn't fully DNA
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: tested to conclusively determine whose it was or how it
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: was deposited there, and.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: We haven't even touched her digital footprint. Her phone and
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: her computer were left in the apartment with Aunt for
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: months months. Yes, by the time law enforcement finally got
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: around to seizing and examining them, all of Phoebe's emails
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: had been permanently deleted. Wow ought to explain the mechanics
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: of why that is so devastated. It's not just like
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: throwing away a piece of.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Paper, No, it's digital overriting.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly. If you delete an email, it marks that space
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: on the hard drive as available. But if you keep
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: using that computer for months, you're constantly writing new data
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: over those available sectors.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: It's like building a brand new house over a crime scene.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Perfectly said, the digital forensics team couldn't recover them. The
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: crucial window into her state of mind, who she was
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: communicating with, any clues at all, just permanently wiped out.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Through all of these catastrophic investigative failures, there was only
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: one piece of concrete evidence salvaged.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Just one tiny clip of CCTV footage that shows the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: last time Phoebe was definitively seen.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Alive, and it involves such a bizarre coincidence at eleven
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: three am on the day she died, a false fire
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: alarm goes off in the building, right.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: It forces all the residents to evacuate down to the street.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Phoebe is captured on tape walking out, and then at
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: eleven fifty am she is seen on camera walking back
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: into the building.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: And she looks completely fine.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: She is walking normally, seemingly unharmed.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: That means whatever happened, the broken glass, the blood, the shrine,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the impossible fall down the chute happened between eleven fifty
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: am and seven point zero pm.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: A massive seven hour window where we have zero evidence.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Because of the state of the initial investigation, the family
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: was left with a massive void of answers. So they
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: fought the system.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: They really had to. They fought for years to get
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: an official coronial inquest into her death.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: It is helpful to understand how the Australian coronial system
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: works here, right.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, During an inquest, an appointed council serves as an
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: independent set of legalized to review all the evidence or
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: lack thereof, and make a formal recommendation to the coroner.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: But the coroner in this system isn't just a medical examiner.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: No, they are a magistrate. They hold immense legal power.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, So, after reviewing the missing fingerprints, the impossible biomechanics
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: of the chute, the genes restricting her legs, the bloody apartment,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the appointed council makes their recommendation.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: What did they say?
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: They advise the corner to officially rule the death undetermined
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: because there are just too many physical anomalies to definitively
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: call it an accident or as suicide.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: But then, in a highly unusual move for the legal system,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: the coroner shockingly overrules the council's recommendation. Wait, really, yes,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Using their magisterial power, the corner maintains the official stance
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: that Phoebe's death was a tragic accident.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: It's devastating for the family. You fight for years, you
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: get the independent council to agree that the physics don't
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: support an accident, and the door is just slammed in
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: your face by the person at the top.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: It's crushing.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: But I need you to brace yourself to this next
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: part because we are going to fast forward seven and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: a half years to twenty eighteen.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Right, this is the historical echo that completely shifts the
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: lens through which we view everything. We've just discussed.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, another young woman is found dead. Her
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: name is Bailey Schneider. She's twenty five years old.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: She's found slumped over on the kitchen floor of her
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: home with a cord wrapped tightly around her neck.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: But here is the impossible physics of this new scene.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: She's on a flat kitchen floor where there is absolutely
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: nothing to hang.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: From, nothing at all.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: There is no suspension point.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: It is a physically baffling circumstance. I mean, asphyxiation by
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: hanging requires gravity and the suspension point right.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Finding someone deceased in this manner with nothing to hang
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: from presents the exact same kind of mechanical impossibility as
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: a tiny waist high trash choote.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Wait, if there's no suspension point, how did the authorities
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: explain the mechanics of her death?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: That's the thing. The statistical improbability of two cases having
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: such glaring physical impossibilities is staggering.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: And there's more to it, isn't there.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Yes. The morning Bailey was found, her parents, who she
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: lived with, heard her engaging in a heated argument with
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: her boyfriend before they left the house.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Who is Bailey dating?
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: She was dating aunt.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Two young women, both in their mid twenties, both dating
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: the exact same man.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And both end up dead under circumstances that fiercely defy
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: physical logic and biomechanics.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: But just like Phoebe's case, Bailey's death is almost immediately
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: ruled a suicide by authorities.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Her parents fight back. They push for a re examination,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: pointing out the lack of a suspension point. In twenty twenty,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: an experienced homicide detective reviews the case, and what happens
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the ruling inexplicably stands suicide.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: If we look at this objectively, we have to ask
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: why authorities might be so quick to close the book
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: on cases surrounded by such glaring anomalies.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: It's a fair question.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: It is necessary to provide some background context regarding Ant's family,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: as it sheds light on the environment he navigates. Let's
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: get into that Ant's father was a retired Supreme Court judge,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: and at the time of Phoebe's death, his stepmother was
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: a sitting county judge.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: So he comes from a family deeply entrenched in the
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: highest echelons of the regional legal system.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Now we have to be explicitly clear here we are
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: impartially reporting the facts of these investigations.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Very true, and has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing in both
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: of these cases.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: He has been found legally not responsible in both Phoebe's
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: death and Bailey's death.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: We bring this up not to make an accusation, but
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: to highlight the extraordinary anomalies in these investigations and the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: ongoing lack of closure for these families.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: You really have to wonder how two entirely separate investigations
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: could leave so much vital evidence uncollected and so many
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: mechanical questions unasked.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Our role is to synthesize the information and look at
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the underlying mechanisms, not to pass a legal.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Verdict, right, but the sheer volume of coincidences from white
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: hard drives and erased security footage to physically impossible crime
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: scenes forces a critical mind to examine the psychology of
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: law enforcement.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: In psychology, there is a concept called anchoring bias. It
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: is a cognitive bias where an individual relies too heavily
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: on an initial piece of information the anchor when making decision.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, I see where you're going. In Phoebe's case, the
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: point one six blood alcohol level, and the still Knox
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: acted as the anchor.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly once the police anchored to the idea of an
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: intoxicated accident, confirmation bias took over.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: They only look for evidence that supported the accident.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Theory, subconsciously ignoring the missing fingerprints, the restricted genes, and
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: the physical dimensions of the hatch because those facts conflicted
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: with the anchor.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Wow, that pause is heavy right now, because we just
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: recently passed the fifteenth anniversary of Phoebe's.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Death fifteen years and.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Officially, on paper, she is still considered the victim of
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: a tragic accident. Oh, We've taken you on a wild,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: deeply unsettling journey today.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: From a bizarre poetic text message about transforming into an
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: incredible human being to a physically impossible fall down an
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: eleven inch steel hatch.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: We've walked through a twelve floor apartment littered with blood
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and broken glass, and we've examined a devastating echo seven
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: years later with Bailey Schneider.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: As we close this deep, I want to leave you
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: with a final thought to ponder something that extends far
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: beyond the physical impossibility of a trashoot. What's that we
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: live in an era where we believe our digital lives
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: are permanent, that our data always leaves.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: A trail right the cloud back ups all of it,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: But consider.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: The terrifying reality of Phoebe's deleted emails. We place so
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: much faith in modern forensics and the justice system to
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: uncover the truth.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: But this case proves that all it takes to erase
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a person's final thoughts, their fears, and their crucial communications
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: is a few months of delay and a casually overwritten
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: hard drive.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly if the digital footprints of a life can be
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: so easily wiped away while the justice system looks the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: other way, you have to ask yourself how much of
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: our truth is really safe