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Dark 'Witchcraft' Rituals and a Man's Brutal Family Murders · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine stepping into a room, a crime scene that is
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: so utterly bizarre and honestly so brutal that the seasoned
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: law enforcement officers standing there don't immediately think of a robbery. Oh, right.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: They don't think it's a crime of passion. Instead, they
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: look at the room, they look at the calendar, and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: their very first instinct is to point to the sky
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and blame a literal witchcraft ritual tied to the lunar cycle.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Which is wild, but I mean, as human beings, when
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: we are confronted with something that defies all our standard
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: predictable categories of violence, our brains just scramble for an explanation.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we desperately want the world to make sense.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Even if the sense we impose on it involves
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: the supernatural, you know.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: And that is exactly what we are navigating today for
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: you guys listening. The mission of this deep dive is
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to completely strip away the sensationalism of a media frenzy
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: murder case and examine the actual gears beneath it.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are going to look at how investigators and
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: ultimately a jury of everyday people just like you actually
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: sift for the truth when a case is absolutely suffocated
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: by red herrings.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Right, like national security secrets, debunked conspiracies, and just deeply
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: flawed forensics.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It serves as a master class in how an investigation
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: can get derailed by noise, really, and how the justice
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: system has to try and course correct when the ingredients
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: they are using to build a case are, well, frankly, tainted.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Totally. The source material we're pulling from today is an
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: extensive transcript from the Law and Crime Network series called
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Killer Cases. Specifically, we are diving into the infamous Blue
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Moon murders that took place in Pensacola, Florida.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: A classic.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, OK, let's unpack this, because to understand how
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: this case spiraled straight into the Twilight Zone. You have
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: to understand exactly where it happened and who the victims were.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Context is the foundation here. Geographically, we are in Escambia County, Florida.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: It's the very last county in the Florida panhandle before
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: you cross the state line into Alabama. Locals affectionately call
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: it the Redneck Riviera because it features some of the
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: most beautiful, pristine beaches in the world, juxtaposed with a
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: very specific, laid-back Southern culture.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: But from a law enforcement perspective, Escambia County has a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Much darker, much more complicated reputation, doesn't it?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: The source mentions that investigators literally refer to the area
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: as a twilight zone vortex, which is, you know, not
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: exactly what you want the local cops calling your neighborhood.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: No, definitely not. But they have a historical reason for
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: that label. Escambia County has an incredibly high concentration of
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: utterly bizarre headline grabbing crimes.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Like what?
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Well, you have the Black Widow murders, where a woman
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: sequentially killed several of her husbands. You have the horrific
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Billings case, which was the home invasion and murder of
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: a couple who had adopted and were raising eight special
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: needs children.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: God, I remember reading about the Billings case. It was
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a logistical nightmare for the police because of the sheer
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: scale and cruelty of it.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Right. And going back a bit further, Escambia County is
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: where the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy was finally captured
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: after his final murder spree. Wow. He didn't get away
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: from them there. They caught him. And that ultimately led
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: to his execution.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: So when a new terrifying crime happens here, the local
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: authorities are already primed for the weird.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They've seen the absolute extremes of human behavior.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to Friday, July 31st, 2015. The
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: discovery of the Smith family. Let's paint a picture of
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: this family for you because it's crucial to understanding the
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: crime scene.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have the matriarch, von Seilsmith, known to her
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: extended family as Aunt Bunny. She was 77 years old.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And according to her niece, Faye Haas, von Seils used
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: to be vibrant. She was a good mother, very outgoing,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and she traveled a lot. But something shifted drastically.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: The shift happened when her husband passed away and her
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: own health began to fail. That combination of profound grief
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: and physical decline turned her into a complete shut-in.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and as she retreated from the outside world, she
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: replaced human connection with consumption. Specifically, she developed an intense
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: obsession with the home shopping network, QVC.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: The details on this in the source material are staggering.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: She was receiving five to six packages every single day.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Wait a day?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Every single day. The modest house was absolutely overflowing. It
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: was stuffed to the brim with cardboard boxes. Dresses she
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: would probably never wear and just endless piles of items.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, you have to imagine walking into a home
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: that feels more like a densely packed warehouse than a residence.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Right. We have to consider how hoarding changes the physical
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: landscape of a home and by extension, a crime scene.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: It creates a literal labyrinth.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: It isolates the occupants, physically insulating them from the outside world.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: It blocks windows, creates narrow pathways, and it makes processing
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: a scene incredibly difficult for evidence technicians because every single
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: surface is covered.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: And living in this fortress of cardboard boxes with Von
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Seal were her two adult sons.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: The younger son was John Smith, who was 47. Yeah.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: His cousin described him as being like a child in
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a man's body.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: He had special needs, and he was universally described as
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: incredibly sweet, always smiling, and entirely dependent on his family.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Then there is the older brother. Richard Smith, who was 49.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: He was the primary caretaker. The reason he was a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: 49-year-old man living at home with his mother was specifically
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: to look after her and to take care of John.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he knew he was going to have to take
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: care of his younger brother for the rest of his life.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: So it's a closed ecosystem. Three vulnerable people living in
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: almost total isolation. Which makes the scene investigators walked into
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: on that Friday all the more shocking.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Because this wasn't a standard break-in. Right. The source explicitly
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: notes there was no forced entry whatsoever. The doors weren't
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: kicked in. The windows weren't smashed.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Which tells us the killer was let inside or already
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: had a key. But the violence they found inside was staggering.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: It's described as a completely macabre scene. All three victims
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: were murdered in essentially the same brutal manner.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were struck in the head with a claw
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: hammer and then their throats were cut.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Richard, the oldest brother, was also shot in the head.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: But what I find deeply chilling is the staging of
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: the bodies.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, exactly. When the police first entered the home, because
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: of the sheer volume of QVC boxes and clutter, it
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: took them a moment to understand what they were looking at. Right.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: The house was in total disarray. But amidst the chaos,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: they noticed unnatural piles of blankets and clothing.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: It was only when they lifted the outer edges of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: these piles that they saw a foot and then a
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: female hand.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: The killer had taken the time in a house full
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: of three violently murdered people to meticulously cover the bodies
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: with the mother's QVC clothing and blankets.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Wait, pause for a second. Let's think about the psychology
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of that. You've just committed a triple homicide with a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: claw hammer.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Your adrenaline must be off the charts. Why stick around
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: to tuck the victims in?
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Well, that behavior usually points to one of two things
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: in forensic psychology. Either the killer feels a profound sense
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: of remorse or connection to the victims, or and cannot
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: bear to look at what they've done.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, like they feel guilty.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Right, this is often called undoing. Or they are attempting
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: to delay the discovery of the bodies by camouflaging them
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: within the hoarded environment.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Ah, that makes sense. Given the layout of this specific house,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: covering them with QVC boxes and clothes meant a casual
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: glance through a window wouldn't reveal a crime scene.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The positioning of the victims also tells a very clear,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: very disturbing story. John, the younger brother with special needs,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: was killed while sitting right on the couch.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: And the homicide detective, Matt Infinger, noted a horrifying detail
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: about that. John didn't have any defensive wounds.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Right. He didn't try to fight back. This implies he
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: was either completely asleep when the hammer struck or, more terrifyingly,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: he completely trusted the person standing over him.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Fonsel was the same. She was killed sitting in her
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: favorite chair in the living room. exactly where she always
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: sat to watch television, the killer just walked right up
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to her.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: The victims were completely at ease with their killer. It
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: points almost overwhelmingly to an inside job, someone deep within
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: their inner circle.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: But this is where it gets confusing. It's like a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: classic locker room mystery, where the sheer oddity of the
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: presentation distracts everyone from the core facts. If there is
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: no forced entry, and the victims were comfortable enough to
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: not even raise a hand to fight back, why on
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: earth would the police initially overlook the inner circle... and
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: immediately jump to wild international and supernatural conspiracy theories.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: I think the sheer brutality of a claw hammer and
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: a slit throat, combined with the bizarre ritualistic staging of
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: covering the bodies, forced investigators to search for a motive
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: that matched the extreme nature of the crime.
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  Speaker 1: Like everyday greed didn't seem to fit.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Everyday greed or family squabbles didn't seem to fit
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: the visual horror of that living room. They went looking
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: for extreme motives, leading them down to massive, entirely separate
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: rabbit holes.
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  Speaker 1: OK, so if we follow the investigators down the first
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: rabbit hole, we find ourselves looking at something straight out
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of Tom Clancy novel, the Homeland Security angle.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. This part is wild.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Because Richard, the 49-year-old caretaker brother, had a very mysterious
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: day job.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Richard worked at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, and he
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: wasn't just a mechanic or an administrator. He worked for
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: a secretive Homeland Security division in what was called the
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: crypto department.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: He was handling and teaching highly classified cryptographic codes for
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: the United States Navy.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And when someone with top secret high level clearance just
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: doesn't show up for work, alarms go off at a
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: federal level.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Instantly.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And there were physical clues at the crime scene that
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: genuinely supported this espionage theory. Richards's car keys were completely missing.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: And investigators found unidentified DNA inside his front pants pocket.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Think about how strange that is. Unidentified DNA in the
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: front pocket of a dead man who works in naval cryptography.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's creepy. spy thriller.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: A full federal investigation was immediately launched. Two Department of
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Homeland Security investigators were brought in to work directly with
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: the local homicide detectives.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: The immediate working theory was terrifying. Like, was this a
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: foreign assassin? Was it a terrorist cell tying up loose ends?
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Or looking for cryptographic codes.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: It sounds so plausible when you lay out the facts.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: It really does. But after exhaustively digging through Richard's classified life,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: what did the feds actually find?
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Absolutely nothing. They cleared him completely. The DHS investigators determined
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: that absolutely nothing Richard was working on at the naval
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: base precipitated this level of violence.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: No spies.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: No spies. He wasn't involved in any illicit trade of secrets.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: He was just a guy doing his highly classified job,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: going home to care for his family. The entire national
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: security theory was a dead end.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: OK, so while the feds are quietly looking at cryptography
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: and ruling it out, the local media is losing its
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: collective mind over the second theory, the blue moon witchcraft angle. Yes.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: The estimated time of death for the Smith family was
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: determined to be Tuesday night. And that specific Tuesday happened
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: to coincide with a rare astrological event, a blue moon.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: And for those listening who might not know, a blue
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: moon isn't literally blue. It just means it's the second
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: full moon in a single calendar month.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Right. It's an anomaly of the calendar, a quirk of
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: how we measure time, not some mystical event.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But to the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, this calendar
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: anomaly became the focal point of a triple homicide.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Sheriff Morgan famously went on the record on camera to
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the global media and said, quote, it's witchcraft. I'll say
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: that right now.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: He fully attributed the murders to a ritualistic pagan sacrifice
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: tied to the lunar cycle.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. How
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: does a seasoned law enforcement officer jump from bodies covered
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: in blankets to Wiccan human sacrifice based on the phase
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: of the moon?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Well, according to the source material, this massive claim was
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: based on a local deputy's quick and severely flawed reading
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: of a debunked conspiracy website about witchcraft.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Joking.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Nope. That is the origin of the theory. A quick
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: internet search that landed on a fringe forum, and suddenly
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: it is official law enforcement policy being broadcast to the world.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: That is wild. The backlash to this was swift, especially
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: from the actual Wiccan community.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Very swift.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: We hear from Susie Smith, who is a proud high
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: priestess of the Wiccan religion. She recorded a furious video
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: demanding a full retraction from the sheriff.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Rightfully so.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: She made it unequivocally clear. There is absolutely zero human
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: sacrifice in the religion of Wicca. She called the sheriff's
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: claims presumptuous, offensive, and incredibly damaging to a recognized religion.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Because Wicca is a modern, pagan, syncretic, earth-centered religion, it
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: has core tenets like the Wiccan read, which explicitly states,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: and it harm none, do what ye will.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Right, don't hurt people.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The fundamental philosophy is about non-harm and balance with nature.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: The idea of a triple homicide with a claw hammer
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: as a Wiccan ritual is is entirely contradictory to the faith.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: But the sheriff didn't consult a religious scholar. He consulted
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: a conspiracy website.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Here's where I have to push back on how law
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: enforcement handled this because it feels incredibly cynical.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: The source points out a deeply uncomfortable detail. Sheriff Mergen
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: blasted this witchcraft theory to the world at the exact
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: same time he was hosting his very first fundraiser for
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: his re-election campaign.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the timing is highly suspicious. He gained massive global publicity,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: appearing on national news networks, while simultaneously launching his political campaign.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: But is it just political opportunism? Or is it active
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: sabotage of his own department? I mean, by blasting this
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: theory to the world, didn't he risk tainting the entire
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: jury pool?
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: He gave the real killer a perfect smokescreen. It's like, hey,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: look over here at the spooky mood magic while the
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: actual evidence gets cold.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: It definitely hindered the homicide investigation. The lead detective on
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the ground, Madden Finger, was incredibly frustrated. He was suddenly
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: fielding tips and calls from all over the United States
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: about witches and local covens while he was trying to
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: work the actual forensics of a triple homicide.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: So if the feds prove it wasn't foreign spies and
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the Wiccan community proves it wasn't a blue moon sacrifice,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: detectives are forced to stop looking at the sky and
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: start looking at the living room.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Who actually benefits from these three specific people dying? We
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: are looking for someone who didn't need to break in.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: because they were already a part of the victim's weekly routine.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: And enter Donald Wayne Hartung. He was 59 years old,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: worked as a security guard at a local hospital, and
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: most importantly, he was von Seil's third son, the half-brother
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: to Richard and John.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Donald had a very specific routine, right? Every single Tuesday,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: he drove over to his mother's house to trick dinner
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: for the family.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: A Tuesday. The exact day investigators believed the murders took place.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: This made Donald Hartung the last person known to have
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: seen the Smith family alive. Naturally, police bring him in
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: for questioning.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: The details of this interrogation are bone chilling. They bring
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: him in at 1.30 in the morning, put yourself in
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that room for a second.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Think late, you're tired. Right.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: And when a detective sits across from a man and
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: tells him that his mother and both of his brothers
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: have been brutally murdered, you expect a reaction. Shock, tears, denial, screaming,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: hyperventilating something human.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: But Donald gave them absolutely nothing. He was completely emotionless.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: The detective noted he was entirely nonchalant.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Just flat.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Totally flat. When he was told his family was dead
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: and covered in piles of clothes, he just sort of nodded.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: And this lack of affect wasn't just an initial shock
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: reaction in the interrogation room. It persisted. He never shed
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: a single tear, not even at their joint funeral.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: When the detectives pressed him, asking point blank if he
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: killed them, Donald had this incredibly arrogant confidence. He looked
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: at them and said, I would never kill my mother
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and my brothers. Do I look like some kind of
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a blooming maniac to you people?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: That specific phrase, blooming maniac, is so odd and detached.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: It suggests he thought he was intellectually superior to the detectives.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Like he was playing a game.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He thought he could outsmart the police simply by
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: not confessing, assuming they had no physical evidence linking him
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: to the crime.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Well, His own family was terrified of him, and not
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: just in hindsight. His cousin, Faye Haas, shared a story
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: that is pure nightmare fuel.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, the machete story.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This was after the murder, while Donald was still
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: walking free. The surviving extended family was sitting around the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: table at Donald's house, understandably on edge. Donald suddenly stood up,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: reached on top of his refrigerator, grabbed a machete, slammed
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: it down on the table right in front of them,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and essentially mocked the police. He said, if I'm a
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: murderer and they're so smart, Why didn't they find this?
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is an act of intense psychological intimidation.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: He is asserting dominance and instilling fear in his surviving relatives.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: So miserable.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: He is letting them know he believes he is untouchable
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: and subtly threatening them to stay in line.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Now, despite the sheriff's wild press conference, there actually was
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: an occult connection in this case. But it was highly personal,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: not ritualistic. Donald Hartung actually was a practicing Wiccan.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: He was a solitary practitioner. He didn't practice with a coven.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: He practiced his faith alone. When he consented to let
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: the police search his home, which was only three miles
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: from the crime scene, by the way, they found a
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: setup that seemed to validate what the media thought the
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: crime was about.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: What did they find?
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: They found an altar, dried dead flowers, a ritual dagger,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: a pentagram on the floor, and a Ouija board.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: But the importance of his religion wasn't that the moon
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: commanded him to kill. The importance was the incredible tension
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: it caused within the family dynamic.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, massive tension.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Fonsel, his mother, was a devout, traditional Christian. She absolutely
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: despised Donald's practices. She openly called it devil worship, and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: she strictly did not want Donald exposing his younger, vulnerable
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: brother John to any of it.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: This religious friction points to a deeply fractured relationship. entirely
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: contradicting Donald's claim in the interrogation room that he and
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: his mother were incredibly close. Right.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: He tried to paint this picture of a happy family.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: But the neighbors confirmed this isolation. They said the family
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: was distant, and Donald only ever showed up on Tuesdays
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: to cook, which was the total extent of their familial bond.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: But religious friction over a pentagram on the floor doesn't
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: usually lead to a triple homicide. So what was the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: real motive?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Well, the prosecution looked past the Ouija boards and the
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: QVC boxes and found the oldest motive in the book.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Money.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Pure, simple, calculating greed.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: It was never about the moon. When investigators finally looked
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: at von Seil's last will and testament, they found a glaring,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: incredibly specific detail. The will explicitly excluded Donald Hartung. It
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: left everything to Richard and John.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: We have to look at the mechanics of inheritance law
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: to understand why this is a motive for a triple
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: homicide rather than just a single murder.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, walk us through that.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: If Von Seal died, the money would go to the
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: two brothers. If Richard died, it would go to Von
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Seal and John. In legal terms, the estate would pass
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: between the surviving named beneficiaries. For Donald, the explicitly excluded son,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: to inherit the estate through standard next-of-kin survivorship laws, his
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: mother and both of his brothers had to be dead.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: He couldn't just kill the matriarch. He had to wipe
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: out the entire line of inheritance. All three of them.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Wow. Here's where it gets really interesting. Put yourself in
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the shoes of a juror for a second. You have
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: a suspect who is the last person to see the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: family alive. You have an incredibly creepy, emotionless demeanor, complete
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: with a machete intimidation tactic. You have simmering family tension
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: over religion. And you have the ultimate financial motive. A
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: winner takes all inheritance that mathematically requires exactly three bodies.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: But.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: But the suspect isn't cracking in the interrogation room.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Motive and a bad attitude are not enough to convict
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: someone of a triple homicide and send them to death row.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: The jury system demands more. You need a smoking gun.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: You need physical proof tying the suspect to the violence
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: or you need a confession.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And this is where the prosecution found themselves in a
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: very dangerous, vulnerable position. They didn't have the murder weapons.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: The claw hammer and the gun were never recovered from
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the house or the surrounding area.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Which is crazy to think about.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: They didn't have a confession to the police. So to
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: fill in the gruesome, violent planks of what actually happened
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: inside that hoarder house on Tuesday night, They had to
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: rely on one of the most controversial, heavily scrutinized tools
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: in the American justice system.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: The jailhouse snitch. Donald Hartung sat in the Escambia County
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Jail for four long years awaiting trial. The legal system
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: moved slowly, especially in capital cases. And in that time,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: he was housed in a cell block with other inmates.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, imagine being locked up with this guy. The
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: source mentions that the other inmates were genuinely terrified of Donald.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and not because he was a big tough guy
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: who could beat them up, but because he leaned completely
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: into his reputation. They genuinely thought he was a witch
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: who could put hexes on them while they slept. Oh, wow.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Well, into this tense jailhouse dynamic enters a man named
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Marlon Devon Purefoy. He is the classic jailhouse informant. He
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: comes forward to the prosecution and claims that Donald Hartung
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: confided in him, spilling the darkest, most intimate secrets of
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: the murders.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Purefoy's testimony is horrific. He claims Donald admitted he killed
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: them for the money, specifically because he wanted to take
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the inheritance, move down to Miami and, quote, hang out
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: with some girls.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Which is just such a stark, pathetic, mundane contrast to
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the sheer brutality of a claw hammer attack.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: But the crucial test for an informant's reliability is whether
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: they know hold back information details of the crime scene
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: that were never released to the press or the public. Right.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Stuff only the killer would know.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If they know something only the killer and the
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: cops know... Their story gains credibility.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: And Purefoy had something horrifying. He claimed Donald told him
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: that he didn't just kill his mother quickly. He tortured her.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Jeez.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: He tortured her to force her to give up the
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: combination to a safe hidden somewhere in the labyrinth of
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: that house. And the gruesome detail Purefoy provided was that
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Donald cut off von Seil's left pinky finger to get
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: her to talk.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Investigators immediately went back to the evidence to verify this.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: They did find a safe in the home, and it
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: had indeed been successfully opened.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: And what about the finger?
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, the state medical examiner confirmed the horrifying specific detail
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: about the severed left pinky finger.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: That is a massive corroboration. But then Purefoy adds a
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: detail that almost undercuts his own credibility. He claims Donald
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: gave him a supernatural excuse for the murders.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, here we go.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Purefoy testified that Donald said he had been planning the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: murders for three or four years. but that ultimately a
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Ouija board made him do it.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: This brings us to a massive structural problem in criminal trials,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: you know, the mechanics of incentivized testimony. Why does the
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: justice system legally allow testimony from known criminals who are
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: often trading stories for lighter sentences?
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: It's a huge gamble. It is.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: When the defense attorneys cross-examine Marlon Purifoy, they don't attack
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: the intricate details of his story. They attack his fundamental
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: character as a messenger.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Right. The defense attorney, Michael Griffith, and his co-counsel go
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: right for the jugular. They get Pierre Foy to admit
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: on the stand in front of the jury that he
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: is a six or seven time convicted felon.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And not just any felonies. His convictions are specifically for
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: crimes of dishonesty, fraud, theft, lying to authorities.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: The defense makes a compelling, deeply cynical argument about the
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: nature of the penal system. They argue that career convicts
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: are essentially professional conmen. They survive by manipulating people and
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: trading information.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Griffith explicitly tells the jury that these guys could
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: sell ice water to Eskimos.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They argue that a snitch will say absolutely anything,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: read any piece of discovery paperwork left carelessly on a
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: table by a guard, and invent any story to get
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: a reduced sentence for themselves.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Think about this for a second. You are sitting in
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that jury box. You have a convicted serial con man
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: sitting on the stand under oath. telling you a wild
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: story about a severed finger, Miami girls, and a demonic
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Ouija board.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Are you buying it?
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Right? Or are you wondering if he just overheard guards
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: talking about the autopsy report or saw a piece of
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: paperwork in the warden's office?
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: It creates a massive seed of reasonable doubt. Juries fundamentally
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: want to believe the prosecution. They want the comforting, orderly
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: narrative that the bad guy has been caught and is
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: confessing his sins.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: We all want that.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: But a skilled defense attorney will make the jury feel
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: foolish and gullible for trusting a known liar.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: And this is exactly why the state desperately needed hard,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: incontrovertible science to back up the snitch's story. They needed
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: forensics to prove Donald was there.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: But the forensics in this case were anything but incontrovertible.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: To understand the forensic battle, you have to understand the
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: defense's overarching strategy. Michael Griffith didn't just want to prove
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Donald was innocent. He wanted to put the entire Escambia
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: County investigation on trial.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: He wanted to show that the system itself was broken.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: He stood up in court and openly called it a
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: very sloppy investigation for a murder case.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Sloppy doesn't even begin to cover the revelations the defense
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: brought to light. It is staggering. Let's look at the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: chain of custody. Okay. The lead crime scene technician. the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: person whose literal job it was to securely collect, log,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and catalog the DNA from the Smith house, with a
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: woman named Christine Rollins. By the time the trial happened
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: four years later, Christine Rollins had been fired.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: She wasn't just fired for poor performance either. She was
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: actively facing 24 felony counts, looking at up to 170
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: years in prison.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Wait, for what?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Her crime. She was caught stealing drugs directly from the
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: police evidence room.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: You cannot make this up. The person authenticating the DNA,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the person who holds the scientific key to putting a
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: man on death row, is an accused evidence thief.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: How on earth does the prosecution recover from that?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Well, the defense argues that if she is willing to
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: break the law and tamper with the evidence room to
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: steal drugs, she is entirely capable of tampering with DNA
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: swabs or mishandling the crime scene.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: It completely shatters the chain of custody.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: It does. And it gets worse for the state. Oh.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: The medical examiner, the doctor responsible for examining the bodies
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: and officially declaring the time and cause of death, had
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: abruptly resigned before the trial.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: She quit amid a swirling scandal involving allegations of misusing
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: state money.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: So the defense attorney stands in front of the jury
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: and asks a devastatingly simple question. Who do you believe?
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: We've got a medical examiner playing funny with money who
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: quits and a crime scene tech who steals drugs from
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the evidence room. I believe no one.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: It is a brilliant tactical move. He is taking the
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: halo of infallibility off the prosecution. And once he establishes
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: that the state is incompetent and untrustworthy, he attacks the
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: most critical piece of their entire theory, the timeline.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: The timeline is everything in an alibi defense. The state's
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: entire case rests on the murders happening on Tuesday night,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: the 28th. Why Tuesday? Because that is the only day
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Donald was there cooking dinner.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: The state had decent, though circumstantial, evidence for Tuesday. A
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: neighbor testified to seeing Donald arrive in the early afternoon,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: and crucially, they saw Richard come home from work while
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Donald was still inside the house.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: And the neighbor noted this was highly unusual, right? Usually
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Donald left before Richard got home.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Right. Furthermore, when Richard's body was discovered under that pile
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: of QVC clothes on Friday, he was wearing the exact
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: same clothes, the same shirt, the same pants that he
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: was seen wearing on a naval base security camera when
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: he left work on Tuesday.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: The logic is sound there. He came home, didn't even
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: have time to change his clothes, and was murdered.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: But the defense brings in their own heavy hitter, Dr.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Arden, a highly respected independent medical expert. And Dr.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Arden doesn't talk about neighbors or clothes or security cameras.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: He talks about pure biological science.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Let's get into the weeds of this science because it's fascinating.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: How exactly does a medical examiner determine time of death
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: days later?
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Dr. Arden breaks down two critical forensic metrics, algor mortis
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: and rigor mortis. Algor mortis is the cooling of the
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: body temperature after death. Rigor mortis is the stiffening of
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the muscles due to chemical changes.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Both of these processes happen at highly predictable rates, but
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: they are deeply dependent on the environment.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And we have to remember the environment here for you
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: guys listening. This isn't a sterile laboratory. This is a
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: house packed to the ceiling with cardboard boxes, which act
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: as incredible insulation.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That insulation changes the thermodynamic equation of how the
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: bodies cool. Dr. Arden testifies that based on the recorded
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: body temperatures usually measured via the liver and the specific
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: levels of rigor mortis observed when the bodies were finally
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: discovered on Friday afternoon, it is scientifically impossible for them
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: to have been killed on Tuesday.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: He states unequivocally to the jury that the murders could
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: not have happened any earlier than late Wednesday night or
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: even Thursday.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: If the jury believes Dr. Arden, If they believe the
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: hard biological science over the state's circumstantial evidence, then Donald
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Hartung has a rock-solid, unbreakable alibi. He wasn't at the
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: house on Wednesday. The prosecution even admitted how damaging this was.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: One of the prosecutors later said on camera that Dr.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Arden was amazing, intelligent, and that looking strictly at the
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: scientific factors, it absolutely looked like the murders were committed
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: after Tuesday. Think about the analogy of circumstantial evidence. If
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: you wake up and see the street is wet, you
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: might logically assume it rained during the night. That's circumstantial evidence.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Makes sense.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: But if a witness comes forward and says they saw
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: a street sweeper drive by and spray the road, your
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: assumption about the rain is completely invalidated. The state's timeline
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: was the rain and Dr. Arden was the street sweeper.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: He offered a scientific alternative that completely disrupted their narrative.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: So how does the prosecution overcome a fired evidence tech,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: a disgraced medical examiner, and a renowned expert destroying their timeline.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: They need a trump card. And they found it in
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the DNA.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: But finding Donald's DNA in the house means nothing on
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: its own. He was there every Tuesday cooking dinner. Of
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: course his DNA is on the kitchen counters or the doorknobs.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't that his DNA was found. It was
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: exactly where it was found. Investigators found Donald's DNA on
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the zipper of Richard's encrypted notebook case. They found it
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: on Richard's personal checkbook.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: And most damning of all, they found his DNA on
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: the inside of Richard's belt.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Wait, pause. If he cooked there every Tuesday, I'd expect
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: his DNA on a kitchen knife. How on earth does
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: his DNA get on the inside of his brother's belt?
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Was he dragging the body?
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: We have to look at the biomechanics of DNA transfer.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: If you bump into someone in the hallway, you might
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: leave touch DNA on their shirt sleeve. If you share
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: a bathroom, you might leave DNA on a towel.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: But to leave DNA on the inside of someone's belt
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: requires intimate, deliberate, forceful contact. It means he was unbuckling it,
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: searching the pockets, or as you suggested, dragging a heavy,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: lifeless body by the waist.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And this completely destroyed Donald's own words. Back in that 1.30 a.m. interrogation,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Donald had vehemently sworn to the detectives that he hadn't
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: seen his brother Richard in weeks. And he specifically stated, quote,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I don't touch nothing of RT's. RT was his nickname
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: for Richard.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: But the DNA proves he was handling Richard's most private,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: personal items, searching for something.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: But even the inner belt wasn't the final nail. The
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: true smoking gun was found in the kitchen trash can.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Investigators dug through the garbage and found a pile of
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: bloody towels that the killer had used to clean up
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: after the gruesome murders.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: And sitting right on top of those bloody towels, resting
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: neatly on the evidence of the crime, was a discarded
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: cigarette butt. And that cigarette butt contained the DNA of
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Donald Hartung.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: The logic there is inescapable. Whoever smoked that cigarette and
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: tossed it on top of the bloody cleanup towels had
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: to be standing in the kitchen after the violence occurred,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: after the blood was spilled and wiped up.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: It's like building a puzzle where the frame is completely rotted.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: You have a corrupt evidence tech. You have a compromised
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: medical examiner. But the pieces in the middle, like that
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: cigarette butt resting on the bloody towels, still form a
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: picture you simply can't unsee.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: That tension, the rotted frame versus the undeniable picture, is
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: exactly what the jury had to wrestle with because 98%
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: of this case was circumstantial. There was no murder weapon.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: There was no confession on tape. There were just bloody towels,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: a smirking suspect, and a fierce battle of scientific experts.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: In closing arguments, the prosecution was masterful. They completely ignored
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the initial sheriff's press conference. They didn't mention the blue moon.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: They didn't mention witchcraft rituals.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Good call on their part.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: They focused entirely on greed, the will, and that cigarette
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: butt in the trash can. They argued that the cigarette
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: proved Donald was in the house during the cleanup, completely
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: invalidating any scientific debate about the exact hour of death.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Donald's behavior in the courtroom was doing him zero favors.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: You're on trial for the brutal slaughter of your family,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: and you desperately need the jury to see you as
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: a sympathetic, wrongfully accused man.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Instead... Donald repeatedly turned around in his chair to look
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: at his surviving family members in the gallery. And he
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: would look directly at the jury and he would just smirk.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: It's unbelievable.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: He would smile at them while listening to descriptions of
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: his mother's severed finger.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: The source material notes that he was severely creeping out
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the jurors. The women on the jury were visibly unsettled
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: by him. He was projecting extreme arrogance instead of innocence.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: He still thought he was the smartest person in the room.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: After all the fireworks, the fired cops, the dueling doctors...
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: It only took the jury four hours of deliberation.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Four hours is incredibly fast for a complex, entirely circumstantial,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: triple homicide trial that spanned weeks of testimony.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: They came back, and they found Donald Hartung guilty on
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: three counts of first-degree murder. His cousin, Faye Haas, who
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: had endured four and a half years of waiting and terror,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: completely broke down in tears, thanking the Lord.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: And Donald.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: The stoic smirk finally vanished. But he remained entirely emotionless.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: But in a capital murder case in Florida, the guilty
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: verdict is only part one. The trial immediately moved into
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: the penalty phase where the exact same jury had to
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: decide if Donald should be executed or spend the rest
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: of his life in prison.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: And this is where Donald finally lost control.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: It was absolute chaos. Suddenly, the quiet, smirking man jumps
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: up in court. He addresses the judge, respectfully asks for
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: a mistrial, and then launches into an hour-long interrogation. unhinged
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: rant turning entirely on his own defense team.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: He claims he was duped and tricked by his lawyers.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: He complains that he is just a $ 10 an hour
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: security guard who was forced to go up against seasoned
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: attorneys and that his team didn't protect him.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: And he specifically attacks one of his lawyers, Mrs. Wilson.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: He tells the judge that when he asked her for
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: her legal opinion during the trial, she looked at him
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and called him a stupid asshole.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Which, given his behavior of smirking at the jury during
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: a capital murder trial, She might have felt was tactically accurate,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: though highly unprofessional if she actually said it.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: The judge naturally rejects the motion for a mistrial. You
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: can't just fire your lawyers after you've already been found
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: guilty because you don't like the verdict.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: No, you can't.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So the jury is sent back out to vote on
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the death penalty. Put yourself back in those seats. You
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: are looking at a man who slaughtered his elderly mother
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and his special needs brother with a hammer for money,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: who cut off his mother's finger, and who just spent
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: an hour screaming at the court.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: And in the final massive twist of this case, the
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: jury voted no on the death penalty. For all three counts,
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: they chose life in prison without parole.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: How does that happen? How does a jury find a
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: man guilty of such a heinous calculated slaughter beyond reasonable
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: doubt but refuse to impose the ultimate punishment?
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: There are a few theories. The prosecutor speculated that the
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: jury looked at Donald. He was nearly 64 years old
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: by the end of the trial. He looked aged. He
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: looked unhealthy. And they might have simply pragmatically figured he's
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: going to die in a concrete cell anyway. Why put
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: the state and the surviving family through decades of mandatory
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: death row appeals?
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: But the defense had a much more fascinating theory, didn't they?
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: They did. The defense attorneys believed that their strategy actually worked,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: just not enough for a full acquittal. They believed that Dr.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Arden's testimony about the body temperature, the rigor mortis and
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: the thermodynamics of that hoarder house planted a tiny lingering
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: seed of scientific doubt in the minds of the jurors.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Did the very defense lawyers that Donald just spent an
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: hour trying to fire and who allegedly called him a
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: stupid asshole actually save his life by introducing just enough
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: scientific complexity that the jury wasn't completely comfortable executing him?
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: It's highly probable. Juries require absolute moral certainty to execute someone.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: If there's even a 2% chance the medical examiner was
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: right and the timeline is flawed, a jury will often
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: default to life in prison. They believed he was guilty
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: of the crime, but the sloppy investigation robbed them of
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: the absolute, unshakable certainty required for state execution.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: The case ends with the family. Cousin Faye Haas spoke
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: about the incredible burden of hatred she carried for those
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: four years. She said she had to actively work through
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: her anger to find a place of forgiveness, just so
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: she could survive the grief. But she made it clear
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: she will never forget what he did. Her final quote
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: in the source material is chilling. She said, if you
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: put something out bad, expect bad. That's how it works. Evil.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Just pure evil.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: It strips away all the noise. Past the witchcraft, the forensics,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: the fired evidence texts, and the legal maneuvering, she recognizes
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: the core of what happened in that house. A profoundly
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: evil act committed by a family member driven by greed.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Let's recap this incredible journey. We started with a local
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: sheriff pointing at a blue moon and screaming about Wiccan
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: human sacrifice just to get his face on television for
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: an election.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Truly bizarre.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: We waded through Homeland Security investigations into naval cryptography. We
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: navigated a labyrinth of QVC boxes, horrifying tales of severed
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: fingers for safe combinations, and the testimony of a career
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: con man blaming a Ouija board.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: And ultimately, it was none of the spectacular, sensational theories
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: that brought the killer down. It was the absolute mundane
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: reality of a discarded cigarette butt left in a trash
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: can on top of bloody towels, proving that the killer's
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: arrogance was his own undoing.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: But I want you listening right now to really think
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: about the terrifying margins of this case. In a trial
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: where the lead evidence technician is an accused criminal stealing
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: from the evidence room, where the medical examiner resigns in
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: a financial disgrace, and where the court timeline relies heavily
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: on the word of a serial liar.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: We have to ask ourselves, how often does our justice
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: system actually manage to get the right result using entirely
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: the wrong ingredients?
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Consider this. If that cigarette butt had been tossed in
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: the toilet instead of the kitchen trash, or if Donald
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Hartung had just remembered to take the garbage out on
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: his way to his car, would a triple murderer be
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: walking free today simply because the initial investigation was too
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: sloppy to catch him?
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: It makes you wonder how much of justice is determined
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: by brilliant detective work, and how much is just the
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: sheer dumb luck of where a killer flicks his ash.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining this deep dive. Keep questioning the headlines,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: look past the blue moons, and we will see you
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: next time.