Latest / Crime Night / The Bridge Over Puget Sound: Accident or Murder?

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The Bridge Over Puget Sound: Accident or Murder? · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture this. It's just after midnight on March twenty, twenty twenty.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, literally the exact moment the world shut down exactly.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, there is this eerie, completely unprecedented quiet settling
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: over Washington State as the early pandemic lockdowns take hold.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: M spent a ghost town out there.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Completely empty. If you were standing out there on the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which is this massive towering suspension bridge
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: over the Puget Sound, all you would hear is just
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the howling of this freezing.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Wind, right just totally desolate.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, Washington State trooper Daniel Knox is out on patrol.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: His headlights sweep across the pitch black asphalt, and suddenly
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: they land on a wrecked Chrysler.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Minivan just sitting there in the dark.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Pinned aggressively against the guardrail. All four doors are just
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: flung wide open into the night, shattered glasses sparkling all
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: over the road.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: That is such a chilling image.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It gets weirder. Standing right next to this desolate scene
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: is a man casually holding an open beer and he's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: reaching right into the driver's side of the empty van.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you're the trooper on that bridge. Your
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: immedia instinct is while I'm walking into a drunk driving accident.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, it seems obvious.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: You see the beer, you see the rack, You make
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: an assumption. But the deeper we dig into the official
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: files on this one, the faster, that basic assumption just
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: totally shatters.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly why we're here today. We are taking
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a deep dive into the source material surrounding the death
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of Gwen Hasselquist.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Right. She was a mother of two, and her case
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: was just so rapidly shut down and ruled a suicide.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: To reconstruct what actually happened, here, we're looking at a
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: mountain of source material. We've got the original Washington State
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Patrol accident reports, the medical examiners' autopsy findings, nine to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: one one dispatch logs, and honestly, a highly disturbing digital footprint.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the digital footprint is really what blows this wide open.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Our mission today is to step into the shoes of
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: an investigator and look at what happens when a system
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: is operating under unpressed done it stress.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And we really want you listening right now to sit
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: beside us that detect his desk and keep track of
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: these details.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Because when you actually lay the evidence out, you're looking
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: at a timeline riddled with missing hours and frankly, physical impossibilities.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: A narrative that completely contradicts the actual science. It shows
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: how quickly a life can just be reduced to a
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: closed file when nobody is looking closely enough.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: We have to follow the physical evidence here rather than
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: just the story that was handed to the police. And well,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: the first story handed to them came from that guy
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: on the bridge, the one with the beer right, his
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: name is Demetrius Jackson. When Trooper Knox starts questioning him,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the narrative, Demetrius offers as just entirely chaotic.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Chaotic, How like, what did he actually say?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: So first, he claims the minivan isn't his. He states
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: he was just you know, walking home when a woman
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: pulled over and offered him a ride.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: On empty bridge in the middle of the night, exactly.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: And then he mentions this mystery third person sitting in
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the back, though he claims he couldn't describe them at all.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Very convenient.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And then, according to Demetrius, the woman driving randomly stops
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the van in the middle of this massive bridge, gets out,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: wanders towards the railing and just vanishes. Okay, let me
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: just play Devil's advocate for a second.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Here, go for it.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: You have a guy standing there with an open beer
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: at midnight. Is it possible Demetrius was just like a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: panicked good Samaritan? How do you mean, like maybe he
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: stumbled onto this horrific scene, realized he was intoxicated or
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: maybe had a record, got incredibly scared of being blamed,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and just made up a dumb, panicky story to explain
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: why he was standing there.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is a fair theory, sure, but it
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: completely falls apart when you look at his subsequent actions
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: and how his story.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Evolved, because he wasn't just standing there right, No, he.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Was actively reaching into the car, And when the trooper
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: asked why, he actually said that because the woman was gone.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: He assumed she wanted him to have the minivan. Wait
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: what Yeah, so he just decided to take it, but
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: he didn't have the keys, so he was literally trying
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: to push this heavy vehicle down the bridge.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: That is such an absurd leap of logic. That's like
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: finding someone's dropped wallet on the sidewalk and deciding, well,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I guess I legally own their identity and their bank accounts.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Now exactly. It defies all common sense, especially.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Since a Chrysler minivan weighs what over four thousand pounds. Yeah,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: you aren't just going to push that home by yourself.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Precisely, and while sitting in the back of the patrol car.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Later Demetrius changed his story entirely. He claimed he never
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: even got inside the van at all.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Because the story's already shifting, right.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: He then said he saw a dark figure by the
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: railing that suddenly disappeared. Yet, despite being caught with a
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: wrecked vehicle that wasn't his and giving this wildly shifting narrative,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: the police didn't push hard to identify this so called
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: mystery third person.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: They just let him go.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: They let him walk away. And if we look at
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: the public records regarding Demetrius, he had a heavily documented
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: history of severe domes violence, assault, and violating restraining orders.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Wow, so not exactly a reliable narrator, not at all.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Weeks after this incident, he was actually arrested for assaulting
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: an ex girlfriend, and a judge eventually deemed him incompetent
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: to stand trial.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: But on that specific night on the bridge, law enforcement
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: just took his confusing word at face value.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: They really did.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: So you have this incredibly chaotic scene on the bridge,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: but you know, a wrecked car has a license plate.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: It's an immediate thread to pull the.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Most basic police work.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when Trooper Knox runs those plates, the focus of
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the investigation shifts instantly from this stranger on a bridge
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to a house about twenty minutes away. The plates come
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: back to a man named Eric.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Casselquist, Gwen's husband.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Right, it is now one point zero am. An officer
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: drives to the Hasselequist residence and knocks on the door
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: in the dead of night, and two young children eight
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: and ten years old answered the door completely alone.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Which I mean that should be a massive red flag
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: for any first responder right now.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, but it gets stranger. In the drive way, the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: family second car is just sitting there with the door
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: flung wide open and the interior.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Lights blazing, just sitting empty, just sitting empty.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Eventually, the father, Eric yells from another room and finally
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: emerges to speak with the officer. The officer informs Eric
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that his primary family vehicle is sitting totaled on.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: A bridge, and how does he react to that?
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: His response is incredibly subdued. He acts as though it
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: is barely a mild inconvenience, just.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Totally unbothered that his van is smashed up miles.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Away exactly, And to explain the missing van, Eric pulls
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: out his phone and shows the officer a screen shot
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: from his ring doorbell camera.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Just a screen shot, yeah, and.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: The timestamp on the image is ten one nine pm.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Eric claims this shows his wife Gwen leaving the house.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, so she took the van.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: But then, in the very same breath, he tells the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: officer that Gwen actually came back and is currently inside
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: the house, resting in a bedroom. Wait, resting, Yeah, he says.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: She is terrified. She has contracted COVID nineteen, so she's
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: isolating in the bedroom.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to wrap my head around this timeline. Eric
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: tells a police officer at one zero am that his
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: wife is safely asleep in the house.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: But then just one hour later, at two am, Eric
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: calls nine to one one to report Gwen missing. Yeah,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: it makes no sense, he tells dispatch. He went to
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: check on her, she was gone. She left her phone
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: and wallet, but she took a bottle of her anxiety
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: medication KLINAZPAM.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: The glaring question for me is why the officer who
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: was standing right there on that porch at one am
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: didn't ask the lay eyes on Gwen to verify she
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: was actually safe.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Well, to understand that, we really have to look at
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: the mechanics of the early.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Pandemic, the lockdown protocols exactly.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: March twenty twenty was a time of intense, unprecedented fear
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: regarding transmission. Social distancing protocols were strict mandates back then,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: not just casual guideline right.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Nobody knew how it was spreading yet.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Because Eric stated she was isolating and awaiting a COVID test,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: the officer intentionally did not step foot inside the house.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Wow. So the pandemic literally created this invisible physical barrier
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: that halted fundamental police work.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: It really did. The officer just accepted Eric's narrative, filed
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: a stolen vehicle report, and left the premises.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: That protocol decision becomes an absolute tragedy when you look
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: at the math of that night.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: The timeline is just impossible.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: It's like claiming you baked a three tier cake from
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: scratch in five minutes. The ingredients might all be sitting
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: there on the counter, But the fundamental physics of time
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: make your story impossible.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Break down the math for us. Okay, So Eric claims
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Gwen left the house at ten nineteen pm. The drive
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: from their house to the bridge takes about twenty minutes, right,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: so she should be there by ten point forty.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: But Trooper Knox wasn't dispatched to the wrecked van until
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: just after midnight.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: So where was the van exactly? Yeah?
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Where was that mini van for that missing hour and
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: forty minutes in the dead or night.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: That missing block of time remains a total black hole
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: until the next afternoon. At two nineteen pm, a kayaker
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: in the puge It Sound makes a devastating discovery.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: They found her.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, Gwen's body is found in the water seven miles
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: away from the bridge, and.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: The physical state of her body is incredibly important.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Here, Oh it's crucial. She is found wearing workout clothes.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: The medical examiner details a broken arm, a deep tear
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: on her hand and wrist, and multiple rib fractures.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: And she had something in her pocket.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: She did she had the minivan keys in her pocket.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: So the immediate assumption by law enforcement upon seeing the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: injuries in the keys. Is that this just confirms Eric's narrative.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they theorized she drove the van, crashed it into
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: the guardrail on the bridge, and jumped. They quickly ruled
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: it a suicide because of the fall in the drugs,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: right right, citing the fall in the presence of high
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: levels of a klonozama PAM metabolite in her system.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: But hold on, let's break down the signs of that
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: toxicology report for a second. What exactly is a metabolite
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: and why does it matter so much for the timeline.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Well, a metabolite isn't just the raw drug itself. When
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: you take a pill like klanasipam, it doesn't instantly perme
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: ate your bloodstream in that exact form.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Your body has to break it down.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: First, Exactly, Your digestive system has to break the pill
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: down and your liver has to process it that chemical
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: byproduct that is the metabolite.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, So finding high levels of it means we.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Finding high levels of a metabolite means her body was
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: actively digesting and processing that drug for a significant amount
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: of time before she died.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: So she couldn't have just taken it right before jumping out.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: No, this fundamentally contradicts a timeline where a person might
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: impulsively swallow a handful of pills right before jumping off
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: a bridge. It means the drug was actively in her
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: system for hours.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Which brings us back to that ring camera video.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, the video is haunting.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Initially, Eric only showed the officer a still screenshot timestamped
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: ten to one ten pm, but later on he actually
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: posted the full video file to Facebook, and.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: When you watch the actual footage, the narrative just fractures
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: even further.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: It is pitch dark outside, Gwen is out on the
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: stoop and she is noticeably staggering.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: It looks heavily impaired.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: She is fumbling severely with her keys, completely missing the
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: handle of the door, and crucially, she is not wearing
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: her glasses.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge detail. Friends and family confirmed she
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: absolutely needed those glasses to drive. Her vision was notoriously
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: poor without them.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I mean she was legally required to wear them to
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: operate a vehicle.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Right, Yes, so we are looking at a woman who
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: appears heavily impaired. Perhaps she's actively metabolizing that colonossopam at
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: that very moment, stumbling in the dark without the visual
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: aid she requires.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: And we are supposed to believe she successfully navigated a
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: fifteen mile dark, curving, tree lined root to the bridge
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: in twenty minutes.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: It's just highly improbable. But the physics of the crash
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: make that drive even more impossible to believe.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the crash scene. The police
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: theory relies on Gwen driving the van and crashing it.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: On the bridge, but the physical evidence says otherwise.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: The medical examiner found tiny shards of broken safety glass
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: stuck deep into Gwen's clothes and even inside her bra.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: So if she was driving, how does she get covered
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: in shattered glass?
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly? Because windshields are made of laminated glass, which is
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: designed to spider web and stay intact when struck, doesn't
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: shatter into a million.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Pieces, Right, it's the side windows.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: That do that. Yes, the side windows are made of
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: tempered glass, which is designed to explode into tiny, relatively
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: harmless cubes upon impact.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: And that distinction is absolutely vital here because all the
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: blown out windows on that minivan were on the passenger side.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So how does a driver get showered by tempered glass
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: blowing inward? From the opposite side of the vehicle.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: They don't.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: You only get covered in that specific glass if you're
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: sitting in the passenger seat when the impact happens.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: The physical evidence points completely away from the driver's seat,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: and it actually points entirely away from the bridge itself.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Wait away from the bridge.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Yes. When investigators later spoke to Trooper Knox, he dropped
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: an absolute bombshell regarding the accident scene.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: The damage to the minivan was wildly incan assistant with
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: scraping against a concrete bridge guardrail. Knox documented that there
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: was wood debris embedded deep into the van's damage.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Wood debris. There are no wooden structures or guardrails on
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the Tacoma Narrows Bridge none.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: It is entirely concrete and steel.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, Knox noted the scraping and denting on the van
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: was physically higher than the guardrail itself, and there was
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: zero paint transfer from the van onto the bridge's concrete.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: So the van didn't hit the bridge at all.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: When you synthesize the tempered glass in her clothes, the
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: wood debris, and the height of the damage, there's only
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: one logical conclusion.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: The crash did not happen on the bridge.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: It happened somewhere else, entirely likely impacting a wooden signpost
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: or a tree, blowing out the passenger window over whoever
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: was sitting in that seat, And.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: It happened during those missing two hours exactly.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: And this is where basic investigative procedure completely failed.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Because of the toll booth right right.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: To get onto the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a vehicle has
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: to pass through a toll booth equipped with cameras. That
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: footage could have definitively proven who was actually sitting in
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: the driver's seat.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Did they ever pull that footage?
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Police never requested that tollby footage. They just accepted the
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: narrative provided by the husband, and the case was closed.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: We really need to analyze Eric's behavior in the aftermath,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: because as the official investigation was quietly wrapping up, his
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: actions raised massive glaring red flags.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: His behavior is incredibly unsettling.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: When the police chaplain arrived at the house to inform
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Eric that his wife's body had been pulled from the
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Puges Sound, the chaplain officially noted that Eric showed zero emotion.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: He was completely unfazed by the news.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Right and earlier that day, while professional search and rescue
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: teams were actively combing the freezing waters, Eric just stayed home.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: He didn't go out to look for her.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: No, according to Gwen's stepsister, who was present, he took
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: a shot of liquor and repeatedly passed out at the
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: kitchen table.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: And it gets worse. Before Gwen's body was even officially
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: recovered or confirmed dead, Eric was texting a former coworker.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: What did the text say?
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: The message read, and I quote Gwen's gone, I'm a
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: single dad.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Now, I really want to pause on that. That is
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: an active erasure of a human being before the facts
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: are even established.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: He had already moved on.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: The ink on the missing person's report wasn't even dry,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and he is declaring his new status. And that erasure
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: escalated terrifyingly fast within a week. Within a week of
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: her death, Eric took Gwen's clothing and her personal photographs,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: carried them into the backyard and burned them in a bonfire.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: While his young children watched. Yes, I mean the psychological
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: impact of that action is profound. It isn't a normal
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: grief response at all. It is the act of destruction
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: of a legacy.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: And this pattern of erratic behavior extended to the family
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: dog too.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Right, Eric suddenly claimed the dog died of COVID nineteen.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Which, while technically possible in extremely rare cases, he didn't
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: take the animal to a veterinarian for conforta. He allegedly
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: disposed of the dog's body by just tossing it deep
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: into the woods.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: The timeline of his so called grief just keeps accelerating
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: in ways that defy belief.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: By May thirtieth, barely two months after Gwen died, he
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: is posting on Facebook that he is ready to date.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Again, claiming his elementary school aged kids were pushing him
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: to meet a new.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Mother and we are still in the middle of a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: global lockdown at this point. Nobody is dating, but.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: He was because by June twelfth, less than three months
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: after losing his wife, he posts a YouTube video of
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: his wedding to a woman from Kenya he.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Met online less than three months.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and sources close to the family reported that he
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: immediately demanded his young children call this brand new woman mom.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: And what were they supposed to call Gwen?
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: He instructed them to refer to their deceased mother simply
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: by her first name, Gwen.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: The complete lack of empathy is just staggering. And when
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: you combine that behavior with Eric's documented history, a very
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: very dark pattern emerges.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: During his time stationed a military base between twenty eleven
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: and twenty fourteen, there were multiple domestic violence allegations against Gwen. Yes,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: he allegedly assaulted Gwen physically after threatening to die by
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: suicide himself.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And this behavior hasn't stopped. No.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Fast forward to June twenty twenty four, Eric was arrested
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: at his parents' house. He registered a zero point two
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: four to four blood alcohol content that is.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Three times the legal driving limit.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Right, and while intoxicated, he violently attacked his own father.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: So we are looking at a documented history of severe
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: alcohol abuse and violence. Yet he is the one who
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: spun the narrative that Gwen, who was a trained medical
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: professional by the way, was so paralyzed by the fear
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: of having COVID that she took her own life.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: And the final collapse of his narrative happened recently when
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: reporters actually confronted him, Oh how did he react? They
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: pointed out that his story about Gren's intense COVID anxiety
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: didn't align with the timeline. Eric's response was to completely
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: change his story on the spot, What did you say?
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: He claimed he lied to the police about her being
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: terrified of COVID. He stated he made that up because
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: he was trying to hide the fact that she died
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: by suicide.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: But that lie completely contradicts his own digital footprint. Literally
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: days after she went missing, Eric was publicly posting on
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Facebook that she was depressed and had lost her will
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: to live.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: He was actively broadcasting the suicide theory to his entire
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: social network.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: He wasn't hiding it at all.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: The story just shifts whenever pressure is applied, Much like
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Demetrius Jackson on the bridge, the narrative adapts to deflect
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: any real scrutiny.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Let's just pull all these threads together for a second.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: This is a case that was slammed shet out of
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: sheer pandemic convenience.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: The world was terrified, human contact was minimized, and it
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: was devastatingly easy for a system under stress to just
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: stamp aphile closed.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: But they left a mountain of physical impossibilities behind. We
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: have an hour and forty minute gap in the middle of.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: The night, a mini van damaged on the passenger side,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: embedded with woodships not we have.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: A victim covered in tempered glass, possessing a heavily metabolized
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: sedative in her system, who couldn't even see in the dark.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: And we have a husband whose timeline of grief defies
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: all human logic, actively burning evidence in his backyard.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: It forces you to re evaluate every single piece of
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: that opening scene on the bridge.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: It really does. The crash didn't happen there. The evidence
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: strongly suggests the vehicle was brought to that location after
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: the fact, like a setup. Exactly. The bridge was a
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: stage set, and the freezing waters below were utilized for disposal.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Not a tragic choice.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: The implications of that are terrifying, and it brings us
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: to a final, incredibly unsettling thought to leave you with today.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: It's something you really have to wonder about.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: If the global lockdowns of March twenty twenty created a
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: physical barrier that prevented a police officer from simply walking
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: into a house to verify a woman was alive, how
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: many other files were closed that month?
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: We always think of the pandemic in terms of the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: lives it took directly, but this case forces U to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: ask a much darker question. How many open and shutcases
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: are sitting in archive boxes right now, hiding in plain
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: sight because the pandemic provided the ultimate alibi.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: It's a chilling thought.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: If the physical evidence degrades and the system used COVID
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: as an excuse not to investigate, the greatest accomplice to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: a crime might just be a world that was too
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: afraid to knock on the door. Thank you for joining
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: us on this deep dive into the source material. It
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: is a stark reminder to always question the official narrative.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep your eyes open.