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Unsolved Mysteries the FBI Still Can’t Crack · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to be on infographics the dive where we skip
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the surface level stuff and get right into the complex
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: reality hiding in the footnotes of history's biggest mysteries.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Today, we are really taking on a huge mission. We're
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: bridging more than a century of you know, forensic and
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: investigative history.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we really are. And it's all to understand how
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: some crimes go cold, and not necessarily because the investigators failed,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: but because the structure, or the law or even just
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the technology, well it just didn't exist to get justice
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: at the time.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: That structural framework is absolutely the key. We're looking at
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: a journey from total structural incompetence and these huge legal
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: gaps to today where you have hyper focused you know,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: pin needle sized DNA analysis.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: An incredible contrast. We're going to start with this, this
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: colossal act of foreign sabotage on US soil that happened
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: decade before Pearl Harbor. It's almost forgotten out, and will
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: trace the line from that moment of chaos all the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: way to modern forensic genealogy. This wild science that can
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: idea killer through the D and I of their fifth cousin.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: It's a wild riot from a world with no real
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: tools to a world where the tools are so powerful
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: we're debating the ethics of even using them.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And if you appreciate this kind of deep, intricate look
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: at how policy meets puzzle solving, please take just a
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: moment right now and rate Beyond Infographics five stars. It
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: really helps us keep bringing you these analyzes.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: So let's start our journey at the beginning, at the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: point where modern American security really started to be defined
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: by crisis. I'm talking about the Black Tom Explosion of
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: This is a textbook case, a perfect example of how
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: a structural vacuum, and in this case, a total lack
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: of legislation and centralized intelligence can just open the door
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: for an unprecedented act of well foreign terrorism.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: And the date was July thirtieighth, nineteen sixteen.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: What happened, Jersey City was just rocked by one of
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the largest non nuclear explosions ever recorded on US soil.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: The location was Black Tom Island.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Which at the time was this crucial peninsula right there
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: in the New York day.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you could see the Statue of Liberty from it.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't just an island, it was essentially a
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: massive floating munition depot.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: So you have barges, freight cars, warehouses.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: All of it just packed to the gills with dynamite
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: and ammunition, and it was all destined for the Allied
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: powers fighting in World War One.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: The estimates are just staggering, something like two million pounds
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: of munitions exploded at least.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: The force was just monumental. The shock wave was felt
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: over one hundred miles away.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Its shattered windows all across Manhattan and Brooklyn. I read
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the concussion wave was so powerful it literally knocked the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: hands off the clock on the Queard Line Building's tower.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and pieces of shrapnelso weighing over one hundred pounds.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: They found them embedded in the Statue of Liberty. They
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: had to do repairs costing nearly a hundred one thousand dollars.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Back then it was an active war, absolutely.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: But here's the kicker. The US was officially neutral.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And that neutrality, that's the central structural failure we were
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: talking about.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because the US wasn't officially at war, there were,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: and this is critical, no federal statutes that specifically addressed
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: peacetime sabotage or spying.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So wait, you could have foreign agents blowing up your
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: infrastructure and there was no specific law to prosecute them for.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: It, not for espionage or sabotage. No, we had laws about,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: you know, the safe transport of explosives, but nothing covering
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: intentional destruction on US soil if the goal was to
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: hurt a foreign war effort.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: So the existing agencies, like the Secret Service, they were
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: just out of their depth completely.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Their mandate was narrow counterfeiting presidential protection. They didn't have
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: the training, the resources, or even the legal authority to
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  Speaker 2: deal with this new kind of threat, the organized covert
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: enemy within.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And the initial investigation just went nowhere because of this right.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: The local officials thought it was maybe catastrophic negligence by
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the railroad. A few people were arrested, but they were released.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: The commissioner, Edgar Clark, he told President Wilson himself that
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: no violation federal law had been found.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Because the laws just weren't on the wooks precisely.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: The evidence, though, it quickly started pointing toward German agents,
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: figures like Michael Christoff who was involved in planting the
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: incendiary devices. But even when they caught him, the prosecution failed.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: No law to stick it to and the.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Germans clearly saw this weakness and just pushed it even further.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Oh they did. Just a few months later, January nineteen seventeen,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: German agents recruited a man named Theodore Wozniek and.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: He started that disastrous fire at the Kingslynn munition plant
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: in New Jersey.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Another one, this one caused seventeen million dollars in damage.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: That's what over three hundred million in today's money.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: They were actually lucky. There though, a half million artillery
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: shells burst into the air, but they hadn't been fitted
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: with the detonators yet, so unlike Black Tom where people died,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: no one was killed or seriously injured.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: But the pattern was undeniable. Targeted foreign sabotage was working
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: because US law enforcement was just totally ill equipped.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: And the legal fallout from this. The journey to get
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: any kind of resolution was just it was painfully slow.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Geologic is the word that comes to mind. A peace
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: treaty was signed in nineteen twenty one, and that led
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: to the Nixed Claims.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Commission right, which was set up to sort out claims
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: between the US and Germany. But you have to imagine
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: the difficulty you're trying to gather forensic evidence for an
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: act of sabotage that happened years ago. Witnesses have died
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: or vanished.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: It took nearly eighteen years of just exhaustive legal.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Work, eighteen years, over forty insurance companies and a small
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: army of lawyers just to convince the Commission in nineteen
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: thirty nine that yes, this was definitely German sabotage.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And even then getting paid was another battle.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Entirely an agonizingly slow one. Germany finally agreed to pay
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: the victims ninety seven and a half million dollars in
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifty three fifty three, and the final installment, the
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: very last payment, wasn't made until nineteen seventy nine, sixty.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Three years after the explosion. That's a whole lifetime, it.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Is, and it perfectly illustrates why that structural change was
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: so critical. The legacy of Black Tom and Kingsland was
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: the complete overhaul of US security policy.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: It led directly to the Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Which finally gave them the legal tools they needed, and
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: it forced this radical restructuring and expansion of intelligence agencies,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: especially the Bureau of Investigation, which you know later became
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the FBI.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Giving them the power to finally combat this concept of
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the enemy within exactly. So that's the invisible foreign enemy.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Now let's shift to the enemy and plain sight organized crime.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: We're jumping forward to nineteen fifty and the Great Brinks
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: robbery in Boston.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: At the time, this was the single largest robbery in
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: US history. A gang of disguised men stole over one
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: point two million in cash and another one point five
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: five insecurities.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And what makes this case such a great example of
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: an enduring cold case problem is that they almost got
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: away with it just through sheer discipline.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: They did well. What really stands out is the preparation.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: This was not some quick smashing grab.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: No, the thieves had intimate inside knowledge of the building,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the routines, everything.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: They weren't just watching from across the street. The sources
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: show they repeatedly entered the building covertly in the months
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: leading up to the heist.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Wait, they were just going in out of the building beforehand, yep.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And their goal wasn't just to scope it out. They
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: were actively compromising the security. They physically removed the lock
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: cylinders from five different.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Doors, including the main Print Street entrance.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Right. They took them to a key shop, had duplicate
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: keys made, and then put the original cylinders back.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: That's not a robbery, that's a high stakes office invasion. Yeah,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the level of audacity is just chillin.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: It shows you how confident they were and frankly, how
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: lacks the security procedures were at Brinks on the night
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: of the robbery, they just moved through the building with
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: total ease.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: But even with such a high profile crime, the investigation
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: just hit a wall immediately.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: It did few witnesses, no fingerprints, no hard evidence. The
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: FBI had to rely almost entirely on, you know, chasing
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: underworld rumors and trying to cultivate informance.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Which eventually led them to key figures like Anthony Pino
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: and Joseph SPEC's O'Keeffe. Right.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting Pino was actually fighting deportation at the time,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: but had managed to get a pardon from the acting
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: governor in nineteen forty nine. It shows you the kind
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: of political poll these guys had.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: But the real breakthrough didn't come from brilliant detective work.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: It came from the oldest story in the book for organized.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Crime, Internal Conflict, Greed, and Betrayal.
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  Speaker 1: The crew had agreed to wait six years before spending
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the money, right to let the heat die.
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  Speaker 2: Dout exactly, but specs o'cuef. He ended up in jail
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania on some unrelated charges, and from inside he
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: starts hearing that his associates are breaking the pact, living
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: it up with the loot while he's stuck in his cell.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Spark this bitter resentment.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: A profound resentment, and that resentment turned deadly when O'Keefe
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: survived an assassination attempt in June nineteen fifty.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Four, hired by his own associates to shut him up.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Allegedly yes, and that was it. The gang's loyalty was
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: completely fractured. O'Keeffe, after being arrested again on a pearl violation,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: just decided he had nothing left.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: To lose, so he became the star witness.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: The principal witness before the Suffolk County Grand jury in
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifty six, and that led to indictments against eleven
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: members of the gang. It's a key insight for cold cases.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Sometimes the answer isn't in a lab, it's in a
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: relationship that finally breaks.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And the recovery of the loot itself is just a
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: fantastic story. It feels like something out of a movie.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: It really does. So. In June nineteen fifty six, some
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: small time Boston hoodlam is passing a musty, worn out
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: ten dollars bill at an arcade in Baltimore.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: And a local cop just happens to notice it.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he notices the bill looks unusually old, like it's
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: been stored somewhere damp for a long long time. So
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: they checked the.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Serial numbers and it's a match.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: A direct match to the brinksloot, and that one.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Ten dollars bill led them all the way back to.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Boston, right back to the office of one of the
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: po conspirators, a guy they called Fat John. They find
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: this hidden wall partition and behind it a picnic cooler
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: with over.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Fifty seven thousand dollars inside identified as Brins money.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: A huge victory for sure. But here's the critical cold
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: case kicker and why the story still matters.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Most of the money was still gone.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Stone cold O'Keefe didn't know where the others hid their shares,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: and the rest of the gang wasn't talking. More than
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: two point seven million dollars, including over a million in cash,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: just vanished into thin air.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: The criminal case was closed, but the asset trail was completely.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Cold, and it still is.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: All right, let's move forward to nineteen eighty two. We're
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: looking at a case that's a total failure in terms
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of criminal closure, but an unparalleled success in systemic policy reform.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: The Island All murders.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: This tragedy just redefined public health safety in America. It
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: started when Thailand all capsules in the Chicago area were
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: laced with potassium cyanide.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Resulting in the horrifying deaths of at least seven people.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: The investigation became this frantic multi agency effort. They were
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: finding tampered bottles in different stores, different distribution centers. It
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: was chaos.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And here's the enduring failure of this case. Four decades later,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: no one has ever been charged or convicted of the poisonings.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Not for the murders themselves. The closest they ever got
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: to any kind of justice was convicting a man named
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: James William Lewis for extortion.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: He sent a letter to Johnson and Johnson demanding a
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: million dollars to stop the killings right.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: He served time for that, but years later when they
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: tested his DNA against samples from the tainted bottles, there
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: was no match.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: No, he wasn't the guy, it seems not.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: They even looked at Ted Kasinski the unobomber, given the
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: timing and his proximity to Chicago, but he denied having
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: cyanide and the evidence was purely circumstantial.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: It's one of the most persistent puzzles in FB history,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and they tried some really innovative tactics at the time.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: They did in an early attempt at psychological profiling, they
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: asked a prominent Chicago columnist to publish the address and
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: grave location of the first victim, a little girl named
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Mary Kellerman.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: The idea being that the killer might be drawn back
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: to the.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Site exactly, driven by guilt or a need to relive
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the crime. They wanted to surveil the location, but the
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: killer never.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Showed up, So a total failure on the criminal side.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: But the structural and policy impact that followed was just
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: It was monumental.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Absolutely driven by Johnson and Johnson's response, they immediately issued warnings,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: a nationwide recall of thirty one million bottles of tailanol.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: That's one hundred million dollar decision in retail value at
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the time.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: An enormous corporate decision that really set a new gold
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: standard for crisis management. They basically saved the brand by
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: prioritizing public safety over profit.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And the legacy is something we see every single day
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: in every pharmacy.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: It is. This case led to directly to the end
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: of powder filled capsules for over the counter drugs. It
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: mandated the creation of tamper evident packaging the seals and
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: containers we all take for granted.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Now, and it led to federal anti tampering laws. So
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: a failure in justice led to this sweeping success in public.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Safety, and law enforcement's persistence here is also really notable.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: This is a cold case that never really freezes over.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: They renewed the investigation in two thousand and nine. They've
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: collected DNA from persons of interest as recently as twenty
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: twenty two. Evidence has been resubmitted for modern forensic testing.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: It's still an active case.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: That historical context is so important. It shows how these crises,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: you know, from sabotage to product tampering, they really forced
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: law enforcement to evolve. So let's bring that forward to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: today's landscape. Okay, when we say cold case, we usually
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: picture some dusty old murder file. But the modern definition
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: is actually much broader, isn't it.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, The experts, like Detective Sergeant Jason Moran, they're
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: very clear on this. A cold case today isn't just
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: an old unsolved murder. It includes missing persons, unidentified bodies,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: undetermined deaths, and criminal sexual assaults as long.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: As the initial investigation has exhausted all its leads.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Right, and the scale of this problem is, it's just sobering.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: The sources estimate that roughly forty percent of US homicides
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: between nineteen eighty and twenty sixteen are still unsolved.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: That's an estimated two hundred and forty two thousand cases.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: A stunning number, it is.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: And it necessitates a structured approach. There's this moral imperative
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: that Moran talks about. Agencies have to bring these cases
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: to a contemporary status. An old victim is, in his words,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: no less important than a new one.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So let's break down the key strategies that successful agencies
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: are using today to get clearances. The first one is
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: all about technology.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Number one is leverage forensic science and technology. It's pretty straightforward.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: You pull old evidence that came back with no hits
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: years ago, and you resubmit.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: It because today's DNA testing is just exponentially more sensitive.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly, a sample that was too small or too degraded
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: fifteen years ago might yield a full profile today. This
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: also means using resources like namius for missing persons, facial recognition,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: and of course the big one, forensic genealogy.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: And the next couple of points are more about organization.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Organize information logically and encourage interagency communication.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: The communication piece is so critical, especially for serial cases.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: If you don't have systems for sharing intelligence across county
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: and state lines, you just miss the patterns that link
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: what seemed to be isolated crimes.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And the fourth is a surprisingly human one, a new
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: set of eyes.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: I love this one. It's so important. Cold cases oftenstall
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: because the original investigators just get too close to the material.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: They develop tunnel vision, a fresh perspective someone new coming
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: in can be crucial for spotting those missed connections.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: And the fifth is maybe the hardest one.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Persistence it is it's about resources. It's the simple but
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: constant act of reviewing cases, resubmitting evidence as technology improves,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: and just making sure everything is entered into the national
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: databases correctly. Without that, a solvable case just sits there cold.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: This leads us right to the specialized units that define
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the modern landscape, specifically the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, the BAU.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: The DAU has been around since nineteen seventy two, originally
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: as the Behavioral Science Unit. What they do what people
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: used to call criminal profiling, has evolved into what's now
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: called criminal investigative analysis.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And their core functions are pretty extensive. They consult on
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: complex violent cases, providing analysis on what motivation, victim selection,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: sequence of events.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: All of that. They also help develop airview strategies using
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: behavioral science to guide interrogations, and they offer investigative strategy
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: which helps local agencies prioritize where to spend their very
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: limited resources.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: In Central to all of this is ViCAP.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: ViCAP the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. It was set up
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty five, and it's not just a database.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: It's the nation's central repository for all these violent crime
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: cases homicide, sexual assaults, missing person.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: And its main job is to facilitate case linkage to find.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: The patterns precisely. It helps investigators see the mo of victimology,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: the geography, all the little details that might suggest a
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: single serial offender is operating across multiple jurisdictions. It's the
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: engine that links cold cases together.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: And this is a good point to talk about how
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the field itself has changed. For years, the public was
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: obsessed with the idea of the organized versus disorganized killer.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Thanks to pop culture. Yes, it was a neat little narrative,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: but the FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: the NCVC, has pretty much abandoned that approach.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: So that distinction. Was it ever really practical for solving cases.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It always felt like it was trying to shove incredibly
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: complex human behavior into one of two boxes.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly why it was so limited. The NCAAVC
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: hasn't used that typology for over ten years because very
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: few offenders fit neatly into one box. Most show traits
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: of both depending on the circumstances, and.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: The original research they those types was flawed.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Right deeply flawed. It had sampling biases, it relied way
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: too heavily on self reported accounts from convicted killers who
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: might lie, and it used really small sample sizes, it
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: just wasn't reliable for active cases. It sent investigators down
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: these blind alleys.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: So instead of these abstract psychological profile the modern approach
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: is to focus on observable, quantifiable crime scene actions.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Right, and the new framework they use is much more practical.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: It's based on body disposal pathways.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: So just focusing on what the perpetrator physically did with
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the victims.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Of body exactly, it's observable. It provides spatial data. Based
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: on a big analysis of hundreds of cases, they identified
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: four distinct pathways, and each one offers clues about the
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: offender's mindset, their risk tolerance, maybe even where they live.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's break those down.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: First, you have transported from the murder site and concealed.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: That's about nineteen percent of cases. This takes planning. It
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: suggests the offender is confident and might live near either
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: the murder site or the disposal site.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Then you have transported from the murder site and.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Dumped a bit more common, about twenty five percent. Here
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: the body is moved but left openly, which suggests the
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: offender is confident, there's no link between them and the victim,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: or they just ran out of time or nerve to hide.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: It okay, And the most common one.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Left as is at the murder site. That's almost forty
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: four percent of cases. The murder and disposal happened in
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: the same spot, no concealment. This often points to impulsivity
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: or maybe an intimate relationship where the killer felt comfortable
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: leaving the body in a known space.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: And the last one is the rarest left at.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: The murder site and concealed only about six percent. This
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: was mostly seen in offenders who were learning or adapting
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: their methods over time.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: This all feels so much more actionable for law enforcement,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: but behavior analysis also gets into victimology, and this is
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: where we have to talk about the really difficult human
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: side of it all. The concept of victim risk victim risk.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Levels low, moderate, high are determined by looking at an
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: individ us lifestyle, their habits, their neighborhood. It helps investigators
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: understand what might have increased their probability of being victimized.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: But let's look at the dark side of that, the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: idea of the ideal victim. Is it really true that
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: police priorities can shift based on things like media pressure
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: or public sympathy.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: It's a harsh reality, but the data suggests it's true.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: The sources highlight that marginalized groups like female sex workers,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: face homicide rates eighteen times higher than other women eighteen
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: times yet because of social stigmas, they are often considered
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: quote non ideal victims.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: And that has a direct impact on resource allocation.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: It does. The research indicates police might put more resources
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: into cases involving high status or ideal victims, maybe because
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: of media coverage or public outcry, and that disparity is
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: a huge reason why cases involving marginalized people go cold
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: in the first place.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: The stats also show that Clarence odds are higher for
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: younger victims, white victims, victims in a relationship. It's a
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: really sobering thought that social perception directly influences the likelihood
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of getting justice.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: It reinforces the idea that structural bias, even if it's unintentional,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: creates cold cases.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, so now we shift from behavioral science to the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: hard science. The technological revolution that has completely transformed cold casework,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and the absolute backbone of this entire system is CODIS.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: CODIS is the gold standard, the combined DNA index system.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: It started as a pilot project back in nineteen ninety
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: and was formally established as the National DNA Index System
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety four. It's massive, well.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Over one hundred and ninety public labs in the US
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: participate plus international.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Labs exactly, and its power has just grown and grown.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: When it started, it used thirteen core str.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Low SI short tandem repeats the parts of our DNA
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: that vary a lot between.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: People, and that number is always being expanded to increased discrimination.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Since twenty seventeen they require an additional seven low size,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: so you're looking at twenty or more markers. This is
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: huge for getting more precise matches and for sharing data internationally.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: The future of CODIS is all about enhancing kinship analysis.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: What does that mean for cold cases?
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: It means making the system better at identifying missing persons
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: through partial matches like finding a missing child based on
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: a parent's DNA, And of course, quality control is paramount.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Every lab has to follow these incredibly strict standards to
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: maintain the integrity of the whole system.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So CODIS is the official federally regulated structure. But that
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: regulation is what brings us to the biggest game changer
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of the last decade, which operates mostly outside.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Of CODIS Forensic Genetic Genealogy FGGS, right, and.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: The difference in power between the two is just staggering.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: It really is. Traditional CODIS searching uses those twenty somethingter
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: STR markers. If a crime scene sample doesn't get a
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: direct hit in the criminal database, well you're at a
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: dead end within the government system.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: But that's where if GGS comes in. Explain the technical
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: difference for us, because this is why it's so revolutionary.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: It's a huge distinction. STRs are rate for a one
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: to one match, like a high tech fingerprint, but they're
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: not great for showing familial relationships beyond a parent or sibling. FGGS,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: on the other hand, uses private labs to analyze over
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: half a million SNPs.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Single nucleotide polymorphisms, so half a million markers versus twenty.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly, it's an exponential difference. SNPs are single base pair
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: variations in your genome. By comparing hundreds of thousands of them,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: the software can detect these incredibly small shared blocks of DNA,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: and those shared blocks are what you use to infer
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: family relationships even out to a third, fourth, or fifth cousin.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So the process is you take the crime scene DNA,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: generate this huge SMP profile, and then you search it
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in a public database.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Not a government database. No, you search it in public
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: open data, personal genomics databases like ged match, or direct
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: to consumer services that allow law enforcement access. The algorithm
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: finds a distant relative and.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Then the genealogists get to work building a family tree
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: backwards until they narrow it down to a single suspect.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: That's the genealogy part. The poster child for this, of course,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: is the identification of California's Golden State Killer in twenty eighteen.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: It took a decades old impossible case and made it solvable,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: all because a distant relative uploaded their DNA to a
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: website and we.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Can connect this right back to the Tailenyl murders. They're
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: using this technology now absolutely.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: When state crime labs hit their limit, agencies are turning
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: to specialized private companies like Authrum. They're working on the
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Tailenol evidence right now, and.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Authorum specializes in getting DNA from tiny or degraded samples.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Right They can analyze profiles from a sample smaller than
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: the head of a pin, even if the evidence has
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: been handled a thousand times or sat in an evidence
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: locker for forty years.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: That's why these cases are never truly cold anymore. If
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: biological evidence exists, there's always a chance.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Always. But the very success of FGGS and the fact
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: that it relies on consumer data creates this massive tension.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: It's the double edged sword of this technology.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: It brings us right back to structural roadblocks, but this
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: time they're not from a lack of law, but from
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: competing laws and policies about privacy.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: This is hugely controversial. A lot of people who uploaded
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: their DNA to a genealogy service did it to find
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: their great ant, not to unwittingly join a massive, unregulated police.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Database, and some states are starting to legislate this correct.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: States like Maryland and Utah are trying to draw clear
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: lines to restrict how law enforcement can use these consumer
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: genetic services.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: And this controversy is perfectly reflected in the FBI's own
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: policy for its official database CODIS.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: The FBI is crystal clear on this familial searching is
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: not conducted at the federal level within CODIS. This is
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: a major structural limitation they've chosen to impose on themselves.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: So even if the government database could potentially point to
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a killer's brother or father. They choose not to look.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: That's the ethical line they won't cross with CODIS to
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: protect civil liberties. But the Department of Justice has an
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: interim policy for the private sphere for FGGS. It requires investigators, labs,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: and prosecutors to all work together.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And there's a crucial safeguard. A suspect cannot be arrested
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: just because of a distant genetic match from a genealogy site.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: That's right. The genetic let is only a tip. You
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: still have to get a new DNA sample from the
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: suspect and confirm it with traditional str typing through CODIS
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: to prove it in court.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: And there's a legal firewall, a hard firewall.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: The policy says FGGS profiles and data from commercial services
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: cannot be uploaded, searched, or kept in any CODIS index.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: They are keeping those two worlds completely separate to protect
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: that privacy line.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: That tension between technology that gives you almost godlike investigative
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: power and the policy designed to protect our fundamental liberties.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: That is the defining story of modern cold case work.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: So we've established that technology can solve old mysteries. It
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: can identify perpetrators, but identifying the killer doesn't always mean
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you get justice.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: And this brings us to that crucial distinction between a
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: case that is investigatively solved we know who did it,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: and one that is legally unsolved or unprosecutable.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: A structural roadblock where the facts are known, but the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: legal framework just prevents any kind of punitive action. We
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: see this so clearly in the Civil Rights Cold Case Initiative.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: This was launched by the FBI and DOJ back in
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: two thousand and six, formalized by the Emmett Till Act,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: and the law mandates the investigation of these old civil
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: rights violations that resulted in death before nineteen seventy nine.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: It was this necessary acknowledgment of historical systemic failure where
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: local justices often protected perpetrators. But it runs headfirst into
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: a huge legal barrier.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: The statute of limitations.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Right, for anyone listening, can you just define that clearly?
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Why is it such a problem here?
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: The Statute of limitations just sets the maximum time after
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: a crime within which you can start legal proceedings. It
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: exists for fairness. Over time, evidence is lost, memories fade
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: you can't ask someone to defend themselves against a charge
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: decades later, and for many federal crime time that window
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: is just five years.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: The case of Emmett Till, murdered in nineteen fifty five
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: is the perfect tragic illustration. His killers were acquitted by
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: an all white jury and then later confessed in gruesome
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: detail to a magazine.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: But when the FBI reopened the case under the new law,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: they confirmed the legal barrier. The five year statute of
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: limitations for any federal civil rights violation had expired decades ago,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: and both killers were already dead.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: So the case is solved, but legally it's dead.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: And this force is a fundamental shift in the government's goal.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: The DOJ openly acknowledges that few, if any, of these
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: hundreds of cases will ever be prosecutable.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: So the goal shifts away from punitive justice entirely.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: It moves toward restorative justice, seeking historical truth, documenting the
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: failures of the past, acknowledging the families, and just making
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: sure the historical record is accurate even if no one
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: can go to jail.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: And this isn't just limited to civil rights cases. The
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: statute of limitations also defines the saga of the largest
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: property crime in US history, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: A classic example the theft of thirteen priceless works of
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: art in Boston in nineteen ninety. The FBI announced in
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: twenty thirteen that they knew who did it. They've identified
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: the thieves.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: But the statute of limitations for the theft itself expired
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety five, just five years after the crime.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: So because criminal prosecution is impossible, the entire investigative strategy
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: has shifted to asset retrieval. That's it. The only goal
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: left is getting the art back. The museum offers a
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: ten million dollar reward and prosecutors promise not to prosecute
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: anyone who returns the items.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: It's this irreconcilable gap where the facts are known but
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: legal punishment is just completely impossible.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: A similar thing happened with Felix Block, a diplomat suspected
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: of Cold War espionage in nineteen eighty nine. The circumstantial
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: evidence was damning meetings with a KGB spy a mysterious
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: black bag, but they never recovered the bag. Without that
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: material evidence, proving guilt in court.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Was just too difficult, so the case is unre though
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: he did lose his job and his pension.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Right. It shows that even the most sophisticated investigation can
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: still be defeated by a calendar or a missing piece
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: of evidence, which brings us.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: To the last really pragmatic question, what actually predicts success
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: when a cold case is reopened.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Well, a study that analyzed this found it all comes
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: down to tangible leads. The biggest predictors of clearance are
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: either new information from witnesses or informants who finally decide
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: to talk, or the availability of new physical evidence like
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: DNA or fingerprints that can be tested with modern tech.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: In cases that are reopened just because of a family
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: request or routine protocol, While that's important for restorative justice,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: they have a much lower chance of being cleared.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: It shows that successful outcomes are lead driven, not mandate driven,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: and when you look specifically at DNA hit cases and
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: sexual assaults, the odds of a conviction go way up
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: if a few factors align.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Victim has to be willing to cooperate, they can't have
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: a criminal record, the attacker was a stranger.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Right, all things that strengthen the case in court, but
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: one finding was really surprising.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: The timing of the report.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, conviction odds are actually lessened when a victim reports
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: the assault after the day it occurred, which suggests that
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: even with ironclad DNA evidence from a database hit, the
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: timing of the report still influences a jury.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And finally, success nearly always comes down to collaboration, high.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Level collaboration, assigning senior investigators, giving them full access to databases,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: and critically working with outside experts academics, journalists, forensic specialists.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: It brings in that new set of eyes.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and it means investigators have to work closely with
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: prosecutors from the very beginning to figure out which cases
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: aren't just solvable, but are actually prosecutable.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: We have covered a huge amount of ground today on
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: beyond infographics. We've gone from the policy vacuum that allowed
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the Black Tom explosion to the public safety successes that
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: came out of the tile All murders, and all.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: The way to today where we see this intense tension
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: between hutting edge technology and these self imposed policy constraints.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have tools like forendic genetic genealogy that can
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: trace a killer through a distant relative but the federal
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: government maintains a strict firewall. It prohibits familial searching in
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: its own codeis database to protect civil liberties.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: And then you have the cases that are conceptually solved
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: but legally dead. The Gardner heist thieves are known, but
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: the statute of limitations is long past, so the goal
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: shifts from justice to retrieval.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: The core distinction remains paramount cases that are investigatively solved
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: versus those that are legally unsolved or just plain unprosecutable.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: It's the central challenge.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: So that leaves us with a final provocative thought for
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: you to consider. Given that the ultimate goal here isn't
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: just solving a puzzle for the history books, but about
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: conviction and protecting society, should we as a society maybe
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: reconsider the legal framework that gives a crime a life span.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: It's a huge question. Should policymakers think about perpetual statutes
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: of limitations for crimes of high national significance like the
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Gardener hest to prioritize accountability long after the normal legal
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: window closes.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Or on the other side, should the federal policy on
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: familial DNA searching within CODIS be re examined when public
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: safety is clearly at stake. Does the potential for justice
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: outweigh the current focus on civil liberty concerns in those
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: government databases.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate debate between safety and privacy played out
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: across hundreds of thousands of cold cases.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Something for you to mull over until our next beyond infographics.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you for diving deep with us.