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Wisconsin Teacher Disappears After Heated Fight with Boyfriend · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to take a second and just look
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: down at your wrist right now or maybe reach into
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your pocket and feel the cold glass of your smartphone.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we all have them on us all the time.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And I want you to imagine just for a
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: moment that your entire life, your deepest secrets, your physical movements,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your ultimate alibis is entirely dependent on that little piece
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of plastic and silicon.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a terrifying thought.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It really is. Imagine that your freedom Your literal ability
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to stay out of a concrete cell for the rest
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: of your natural life hinges entirely on a tiny sensor
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: tracking your heartbeat or, you know, your footsteps.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Right, because when you strip away the convenience factor, it's wild.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, we use these devices to count calories or
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: check messages, maybe track a morning jog.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't look at it and think it's a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: legal defense.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. We do not look at our smartwatch and think,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: you know, this is my airtight defense in a murder trial.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: But the reality of modern life is that these devices
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: are silent digital witnesses to every second of our existence.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Or the new eyewitnesses.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And unlike human beings, they don't get confused, they
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: don't hold grudges, and they don't lie.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: And that is exactly where we are heading in our
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: deep dive today. We are going to dissect a truly
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: harrowing true crime case out of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: It is a phenomenal case study.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's a case where Modern technology completely
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: upended a murder investigation. But we aren't just going to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: look at the facts of the case. We're going to
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: pull back the curtain on how circumstantial evidence, the kind
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of evidence juries have convicted people on for decades, can
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: build a completely false narrative.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: A flawless, logical, but completely false narrative.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Right. We're going to look at how human behavior is
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: rarely straightforward and how the digital footprints we leave behind
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: are are fundamentally rewriting the justice system.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: It is a profound story, but to really understand the
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: gravity of how this all unfolded, we have to look
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: at the environment where it happened, which is Green Bay, Wisconsin.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Right, the frozen tundra.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for a lot of people listening, Green Bay means
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: one thing, the Packers.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: The Cheeseheads, Lambeau Field, all of that. It has this
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: reputation as this fiercely loyal, tight-knit, almost idyllic Midwestern community.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: It does. It actually holds the title of being the
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: smallest city in the world, to host a professional sports team.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: It feels like a place where everyone knows everyone, where
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: doors stay unlocked.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It definitely projects that atmosphere. But geographically and statistically, there
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: is a much darker undercurrent to this region. I mean,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Green Bay... sits right on an inlet of Lake Michigan.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Which is massive. Huge.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: It's the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: and it is a massive, incredibly powerful, and historically unforgiving
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: body of water. Oh, yeah.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: If you've never been, it looks like an ocean when
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you're standing on the shore. You can't even see the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: other side.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Right. And it's estimated that Lake Michigan has claimed roughly 30,000
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: lives over the centuries. It's beautiful, but it demands respect
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: because it's inherently dangerous.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: And that stark reality is kind of mirrored in the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: local statistics, right? Yeah.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: It is. According to the sources we're analyzing today, residents
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: of Green Bay actually have a 1 in 233 chance
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: of becoming a victim of a violent crime.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Wow, that is surprisingly high.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: It's higher than the violent crime rate for the state
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: of Wisconsin as a whole. So beneath that wholesome, small-town
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: football image, there's a very real gritty reality.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: To the area. Okay, let's unpack this. We have this
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: tight-knit community sitting on the edge of this massive, dark
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: lake with a surprisingly high rate of violence. Our mission
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: today is to head straight into the heart of that reality,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to unravel the May 2016 murder of a 31-year-old woman
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: named Nicole Vander Heiden.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Also known as Nikki.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Right, Nikki. And I have to admit, when I was
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: reading through the source material for this deep dive, I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: had to stop and reread pages, because the twists, I mean,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: you could not write this in a Hollywood script.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Audiences would totally reject it as too unbelievable.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Exactly, because human intuition loves a simple story. We want
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the puzzle pieces to fit perfectly.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: And this case is a masterclass in why investigators, and
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: really all of us, must follow the data rather than
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: our initial assumptions.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: So let's look at the couple at the center of
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: this tragedy. We have Nicole Vander Heiden, Nikki, and her boyfriend,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Douglas Dietry. Who were they?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Well, Nikki was 31 years old. She had grown up
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: in the area, specifically a smaller town nearby called Manitowoc.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And she had a really deep love for the outdoors,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: nature walks, hiking, that sort of thing. She went to
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, earned a double major in
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: science and education, and ended up working as a substitute
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: teacher for the local public school system.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: She seems like someone who was deeply embedded in the
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: community fabric. I mean, she had been married previously, right
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: after high school, and had two children from that marriage,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Michaela and Tyler.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Right. They were 10 and 9 years old at the
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: time of our story.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And she and her ex-husband shared custody. So the older
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: kids were with her during the week.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: And then we have Douglas Dietry, who goes by Doug.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: He was also a local, born and raised in Green Bay.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: He was a contractor deeply involved in his family's contracting
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: firm that his grandfather had actually started back in 1955.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So real established local roots.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Very much so. He built houses, managed rental properties. He
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: was a very hardworking, hands-on, blue-collar kind of guy.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And the way they met is so good. Quintessentially Wisconsin.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: It's January 2015, freezing cold outside, an NFL playoff weekend.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Of course. Right.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: They're both at a local bar called Jimmy C's, catching
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the games, they catch each other's eye, have a drink,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and it is just a total whirlwind.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: It was incredibly fast. Just one month after they met
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: in that bar, Nikki became pregnant. Wow.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: One month. Yeah.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: By the end of the summer of 2015, Nikki and
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: her two older children had moved into a home that
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Doug and his family firm had built. In October of
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: that year, their son, Dylan, was born.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, let me stop you there, because we really need
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to look at the psychology of that timeline. Within the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: span of about 10 months, they go from strangers in
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: a bar to living together, trying to blend a family
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: with two older kids, and bringing a newborn baby into
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the mix.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: It's intense.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: That is the literal definition of a psychological pressure cooker.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. The realities of life were hitting them hard and fast.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: The honeymoon phase was obliterated by practical stress. Nikki had
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: stopped working as a substitute teacher to stay home and
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: look after little Dylan.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: So they're suddenly down in income.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Doug had taken some time off after the birth,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: but was now back to working long, uncertain hours as
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: a contractor. On top of that, Nikki was in the
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: process of transitioning Dylan from breastfeeding, which causes massive hormonal shifts.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: And physical exhaustion.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she was dealing with some depression. It was a
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: highly combustible environment.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And we have actual text messages from that time that
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: show just how volatile things were getting, don't we?
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: We do. Just 10 days before the main events of
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: our story, on May 10th, Doug texted his own mother saying,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I'm very seriously thinking about telling Nikki and the kids
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: they have to move. I'm not cut out for this
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: life one bit.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Wow. A couple days before that, Nikki texted Doug saying,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: thanks for making me feel like a piece of, well,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I won't say the word, but a piece of garbage
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: every day. Right.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: If we look at this from a behavioral science perspective,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: this couple is deeply entrenched in what relationship psychologists call
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: the power struggle or stress phase.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: But it's amplified by the newborn.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Right. They are exhausted, financially stressed, and they are actively
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: resenting each other. Doug later tried to downplay that text
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: to his mom, to the police, saying he was just
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: having a downer day and didn't truly mean it.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: But you don't send a text like that unless the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: friction is palpable.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: You really don't.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to Friday, May 20, 2016. Despite all
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: this underlying tension, or maybe because they desperately needed an
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: escape from it, they decide to have a night out.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Get a babysitter for the kids.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Right. They hit a McDonald's drive-thru for some quick food,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: and they meet up with a group of friends at
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: a venue called The Watering Hole.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Their plan was to see a band called Steel Panther.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: For those who aren't familiar, Steel Panther is a comedic,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: glam metal band.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're wild.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an homage to the 80s hair metal scene. Loud, raucous,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: meant to be a goofy, high-energy party atmosphere. And according
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: to witnesses, the night actually started off great.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, an old high school friend of Doug's, a guy
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: named Aaron Kalinsky, was there. He told investigators that the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: mood early on was incredibly upbeat. Everyone was happy, excited
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: to watch the concert.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Nikki was having a good time.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there were no outward signs of the tension we
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: just talked about.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: But as the night progresses, the dynamic fractures. Between roughly 9.00 p.m.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: and 10.00 p.m., the group is watching the show, but
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Doug and another friend, Greg Mathis, wander off.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: As you do at a concert. Right.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: They end up in a smoking section, catching up with
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: an old female classmate from high school, and they completely
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: lose track of time.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: We have all been out in a crowded venue, and
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: it is so easy to get separated. But what happens
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: next is where the cracks really start to show. Around 11.30 p.m.,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the concert is winding down and the main group decides
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: they want to keep the party going.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: They want to move to another bar called the Sardine Can.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Right. But Doug and Greg are still nowhere to be found.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: The group doesn't want to leave Nikki standing around alone
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: waiting for her boyfriend who is, you know, off chatting somewhere.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So they take her with them to the Sardine Can.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And they arrive around 11.30 p.m. Right.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: And Nikki is interacting with the bartender. Chatting with people.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: And according to Erin Kalinsky, she still doesn't seem overly
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: upset at this point.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: But the clock keeps ticking. It gets to be around
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: 1230 a.m. They've been at the sardine can for an hour.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Doug is still not there. Nikki tries to call him.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: No answer.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And here is where it gets incredibly tense. Yeah. Another
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: friend in their group, a woman named Angela, pulls out
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: her phone. and calls Doug. And he picks up immediately.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, man. You can imagine the immediate psychological reaction to that.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Nikki's boyfriend is ignoring her calls. But the moment another
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: woman in their friend group calls, he answers.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. For Nikki, who is already dealing with postpartum stress,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: feeling disconnected from Doug and having a few drinks in
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: her system... This is the absolute breaking point.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: If you were listening to this, you probably felt that
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: flash of anger when you realize you're being deliberately ignored.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: But what Nikki does next is a massive escalation. She
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: storms out of the bar into the night alone.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Like, why didn't anyone stop her? She has three kids
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: at home. She's furious. She's been drinking. Why let her
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: just walk out into a dark city?
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Well, someone did try. Aaron Kalinsky actually followed her out
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: of the bar onto the street. He... tried to reason
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: with her. He offered to just put her in a
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: car and take her home to her kids. But Nikki
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: was past the point of logical reasoning. She was in
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: a state of pure emotional overwhelm.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: According to Aaron, she became physically combative.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: She did what he described as a deadweight drop. Right.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: If you've ever dealt with a toddler having a tantrum,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: you know this move. Yeah. Just collapsing to the ground
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: so your center of gravity is makes it impossible for
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: someone to lift or move you.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, she was crying, screaming at the top of her
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: lungs on the public street, and actively hitting Aaron's legs
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: to get him away from her. It's a classic fight-or-flight
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: panic response. She feels entirely out of control of her
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: emotional situation with Doug, so she is aggressively taking control
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: of her physical space.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Aaron is standing there with his friend's girlfriend, screaming and
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: hitting him. It's drawing attention. He realizes he can't physically
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: force her into a car without it looking like an
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: abduction or an assault to anyone walking by.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Right. How does that look to a passing car? So
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: he backs off. He yells after her, trying to guilt
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: her into coming home, shouting about getting back to her child.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: And he yells this very specific phrase. He says, you're
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a babe in the woods.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: He's basically telling her she is vulnerable out here on
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: her own.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: But she doesn't turn around. She just keeps walking off
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: into the dark, staring at her phone.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: That is the last time Aaron, or anyone in that
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: friend group, ever saw Nicole Vander Heiden. Aaron goes back
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: inside the sardine can, the group calls an Uber, and
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: they all leave.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: So where the hell is Doug during all this?
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Doug and his friend Greg Mathis finally arrive at the
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: sardine can at 1.00 a.m.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Half an hour after Nikki stormed off.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And this is crucial context. According to Greg, they
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: had not only been drinking all night, but they had
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: also snorted some Adderall that Doug had provided.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Let's actually talk about that combination for a second because
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: we can't gloss over it. Adderall on alcohol. Why is
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: that specific mix so detrimental to a person's behavior?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: It's a dangerous pharmacological clash. Adderall is a central nervous
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: system stimulant. It floods the brain with dopamine and norepinephrine.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Alcohol is a depressant functioning primarily as a GABA agonist,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: which slows down brain activity.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they're fighting each other.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Right. When you mix them, the Adderall masks the sedative
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: effects of the alcohol, so you don't feel as drunk
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: as you actually are, you lose your perception of time,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: your emotional regulation is completely compromised, and you are prone
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: to intense irritability and impulsivity.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: You have the confidence and energy of the stimulant combined
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: with the poor judgment of the alcohol.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Precisely. And while they were on their way over, around 12.36 a.m.,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Doug finally called Nikki.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: By this point, she is already out on the street alone.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Greg says she was slurring her words, she was furious,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: and she didn't even believe it was Doug on the phone.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: She thought it was a trick. The call disconnected, and
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Greg assumed her battery died.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: But meanwhile, Nikki had been firing off angry text messages
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: to Doug. She texted, And Doug's response....
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: He texts back, LOL, stop and be good. I'll see
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: you at the sardine can.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: LOL. Yeah, that text is going to become a major
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: point of contention. Doug later claimed he was just trying
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: to diffuse the situation, trying to calm her down because
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: she was acting irrationally.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: But in an early police interview, his friend Greg painted
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: a different picture.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: He did. He said Doug was actually yelling at her
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: over the phone, saying things like, don't be stupid. Go
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: back to the sardine can. What the hell are you doing?
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Whatever his tone was, they arrive at the sardine can
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: at 1.00 a.m., and she isn't there. Their friends are gone.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Do they mount a massive search party? No.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: They look up and down the street a bit, can't
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: find her, so they go into the bar and do
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: a few more shots.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, of course.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: They finally leave at 2.15 a.m., head back to Doug
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: and Nikki's house, and she is not there. The babysitter leaves,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Greg leaves, and Doug goes to sleep, assuming she'll sleep
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: it off at a friend's house and come home in
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: the morning.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And this is where the narrative sharply pivots.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: We're moving from what looks like a messy, drunken relationship drama,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you know, the kind of bad night many couples have
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: unfortunately experienced, to a horrific reality.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Saturday afternoon arrives. It's the next day, May 21st. Two
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: teenage boys are out in a farm field on Hoffman
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Road in a neighboring village called Bellevue.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: They're doing chores, clearing rocks from the field.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Right, and they look over and see something lying in
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: the dirt. At first, they think it's a dead deer.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: But as they get closer, the reality sets in. It
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: is a human body, the body of a woman. Now,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I need to warn you, the details of this discovery
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: are incredibly grim, but they are absolutely vital to understanding
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the forensic puzzle of this case.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: They are crucial.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: The body was completely naked, except for one single sock
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: and a concert bracelet, a pink bracelet from the Steel
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Panther concert the night before. There was a distinct patterned
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: shoe footprint stamped directly onto the victim's bare back.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: And the physical trauma was unimaginable.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: The medical examiner would later document 241 distinct blunt force
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: and strangulation injuries. Her face was beaten so severely it
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: was entirely unrecognizable.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: The boys called the police at 1.54 p.m. The area
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: is immediately secured as a major crime scene. But remember,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: the police out in this field don't immediately know who
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: this is. Because of the extreme facial trauma, she is
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: initially classified as a Jane Doe. Right.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: And meanwhile, back at Doug's house, it's 4.30 a.m., Nikki
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: hasn't come home. Doug finally calls the police to report
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: her missing.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: An officer is dispatched to Doug's house to take a
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: standard missing persons report. When she arrives, she notes that
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Doug looks pale and extremely hungover. He is cooperative.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: He describes exactly what Nikki was wearing the night before, right?
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a black and gray striped shirt, black capri pants,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: and high heels. And critically, he mentions the concert bracelet.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Now, the officer taking this report doesn't explicitly tell Doug
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: that a body matching this exact description has just been
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: found a few miles away. She keeps it standard, asking
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: about their relationship, trying to get a baseline, and Doug
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: starts airing all their dirty laundry.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: He tells the officer that they have a history of conflict,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: especially when Nikki drinks. He recounts a specific incident from
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: a few months prior, in January, after an Arizona playoff game.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: He claims Nikki started screaming at him in a bar,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: actually hit him, and ran out into freezing zero-degree weather.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: He said he had to chase her down, and the
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: police actually had to put her in the back of
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: a squad car because she was so belligerent. Wow.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So he is actively, whether intentionally or not, painting a
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: picture of a woman who is highly erratic, prone to
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: sudden violent outbursts, and has a history of running off
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: into the night.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: He even mentions she has had struggles with depression and
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: had mentioned suicide in the past, though she wasn't currently
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: on medication.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: But the officer taking the notes knows this isn't a suicide.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: The body in the field was brutally murdered.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: And behind the scenes, the investigative team is gathering other
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: information that paints Doug in a very suspicious light.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: They speak to Nikki's mother, Victoria Meyer.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: And Victoria is frantic. And she drops some heavy allegations.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: She tells police she suspected there were drugs in the house,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: specifically cocaine. More damningly, she claims that Nikki had recently
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: confided in her that Doug had hit her.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about how a detective's brain works
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: in this moment. We have a concept called confirmation bias.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: When you are a detective, your brain naturally wants to
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: build a cohesive narrative. You have the frustrated boyfriend, the
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: financial stress, the newborn baby, the allegations of abuse, the
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: explosive argument at the bar.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: If you're investigating, every single piece of information you receive
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: is starting to perfectly fit into the angry boyfriend snaps narrative.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's the most common statistical reality in domestic homicides.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: By midnight on Saturday, the police have enough suspicion that
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: they go back to Doug's house and ask him to
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: come down to the station.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And during this interview, they finally drop the bomb. They
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: tell him they found a body down the street. And
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: while it's not 100 percent identified, it has a lot
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: of similarities to Nicky.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Doug's reaction is intense. He starts freaking out, saying, can
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: you tell me it's not her? He breaks down. He
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: swears to the police. I'm going to talk to everybody
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: on that freaking street in that neighborhood. I swear to God,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: the guy who did this.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: He is vowing to find the killer. The police release
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: him around 3.00 a.m., but he is officially their prime suspect.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: And two days later, on May 23rd, the circumstantial evidence
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: against Doug shifts from suspicious to seemingly insurmountable.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: What happened?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: A neighbor who lives right near Doug and Nikki's house
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: had been mowing his lawn on Saturday morning before anyone
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: knew Nikki was dead. He had noticed a pool of
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: what looked like blood near the grass line on the street.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: He assumed an animal had been hit by a car.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: He also found a black electronic charging cord lying nearby,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: which he just tossed onto the sidewalk, not thinking much.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Of it. But by Monday, the news is out that
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Nikki was murdered, and this neighbor realizes what he saw
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: might be important. He calls the police. They rush over
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: to secure the scene. They find dried blood spatters on
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the street. Stuck in that blood are clumps of blonde hair.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: They find the black charging cord.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Suddenly, the police have a primary crime scene. Nikki wasn't
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: killed out in their farm field. She was killed right
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: outside her own house, essentially on Doug's doorstep.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: And the hits keep coming for Doug. Police find Nikki's
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: bloodied clothes dumped on a highway off-ramp leading toward the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: farm field. They execute a search warrant on Doug's house
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: and garage.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: They find what appears to be blood on the floor
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: of the garage near Nikki's car.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: They seize a pair of Doug's Air Jordan sneakers that
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: have possible blood spots on them. And here's the kicker.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Those Air Jordans have a herringbone tread pattern on the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: sole that visually appears to be a direct match to
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the footprint found stamped onto Nikki's bare back.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Based on the autopsy, the medical examiner determined the causes
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: of death were strangulation and blunt force trauma. The police
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: theorized that the black charging cord found in the neighbor's
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: yard was the exact murder weapon used to strangle her.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: OK, let's look at this from a bird's eye view.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: If I am the prosecutor, I am looking at a
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: slam dunk case. I have a fighting couple. The girlfriend
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: storms off and texts him that he is abusive.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: He is frustrated and texts his mom he wants out
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of the relationship. Her body is found brutally beaten. I
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: have a murder scene literally feet from his front door.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I have a suspected murder weapon. I have what looks
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: like blood in his garage. I have what looks like
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: blood on his shoes. And the tread on his shoes
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: matches the footprint on her body. Why wouldn't a jury
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: convict on this? Historically, people have been sent to death row.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: on far less.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: It is the absolute definition of a circumstantial trap. We
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: place so much faith in our ability to observe a
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: scene and deduce the story. At 7 p.m. on May 23rd,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: the police arrest Douglas Detry.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: They tell him he's being taken into custody for the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: homicide investigation.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: They are confident they have their man. They just need
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: the forensic lab to rubber stamp the physical and DNA
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: evidence to make it official for trial.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to the twist. The moment where
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: human eyes, circumstantial logic, and confirmation bias build a perfect
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: narrative only for cold, hard data to completely shatter it
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: into a million pieces.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: It takes a couple of weeks for the lab results
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: to come back. On June 10th, the reports hit the
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: detectives' desks, and it is a massive curveball.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: The suspected blood in Doug's garage.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: It wasn't human blood at all. It was blood from
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: a wild turkey that Doug had shot while hunting weeks prior.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Wait, what about the blood spots on the Air Jordans?
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: The ones with the matching herringbone footprint?
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Not blood, just ordinary stains, maybe mud or food. Furthermore,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: while the blood and hair found in the neighbor's yard
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: were absolutely confirmed to be Nikki's, there was not a
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: single microscopic trace of Doug's DNA anywhere in that yard.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, but what about the charging cord, the murder weapon?
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Surely the person who pulled that cord left DNA on it.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: They did. The lab tested the cord. It tested positive
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: for Nikki's DNA, as expected. But the other DNA profile
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: on that cord, the DNA of the person holding it,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: pulling it tight, was not Doug Detry. It was the
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: DNA of an unknown male.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: This is staggering. In a matter of hours, the entire
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: physical case against Doug evaporates.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Completely vanishes.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: But as we know from the history of the justice system,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: lack of DNA doesn't always stop a prosecution. A prosecutor
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: could argue Doug wore gloves or cleaned up perfectly, relying
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: on that mountain of circumstantial evidence. But it's actually a
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: piece of digital evidence that provides the ultimate, undeniable exoneration
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: for Doug. And this is where we get back to
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the device on your wrist.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We have to talk about the Fitbit, specifically a
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Fitbit One device. Ironically, this was a gift that Nikki
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: had purchased for Doug to track his activity. Investigators pulled
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: the digital data from Doug's Fitbit account for the night
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: of the murder.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the time of death first. How firmly
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: did the medical examiner establish when Nikki was killed?
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Very firmly. The medical examiner established the time of death
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: window between 3.0 a.m. and 4.0 a.m. And for the listeners,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: it's important to understand how they do this. It's not
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: just guesswork.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Right. It's science.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: They look at gastric emptying, you know, how far the
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: McDonald's food had digested in her stomach. They look at
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: algor mortis, which is the cooling of the body temperature
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: based on the ambient weather that night. And crucially... They
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: look at liver mortis or lividity.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: What exactly is lividity?
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: When a person's heart stops pumping, gravity takes over. The
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: blood begins to settle and pool in the lowest points
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: of the body, creating a purplish discoloration. Forensic pathologists perform
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: a blanching test. If you press on the discolored skin
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and it turns white, the blood hasn't fully congealed yet.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: By measuring the state of lividity along with digestion and temperature,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: they can confidently narrow the window. Nikki died between 3.00 a.m.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: and 4.00 a.m.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we have a rock-solid time of death. Now,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: let's look at Doug's Fitbit data.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: When investigators looked at the step counter on Doug's Fitbit
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: for that exact window, the data was incredibly clear. Between 3.10 a.m.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: and 6.10 a.m., Doug's Fitbit registered exactly 12 steps.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: 12 steps over a three-hour period. But wait, let me
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: play devil's advocate here. If you're investigating this, couldn't you
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: argue that maybe the Fitbit didn't register his movements accurately?
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: What if he was dragging a 150-pound body and his
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: arms weren't swinging like a normal walk? Are you telling
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: me a wrist-worn tracker wouldn't accidentally miss that? How does
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the Fitbit actually know what a step is?
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: It's a great question, and to answer it, we have
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: to look at the microtechnology inside these devices. A Fitbit
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: uses a three-axis accelerometer. It contains microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, MEMS. What do those do?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: These are microscopic structures that physically bend under the force
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: of gravity and movement, creating electrical signals. The device tracks
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: movement forward and backward, side to side, and up and down.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: So it's not just a simple pedometer that clicks when
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: shaken like the old ones.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The software algorithms are specifically designed to look for
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: the distinct rhythmic wave pattern of bipedal walking. It actively
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: filters out hand movements like steering a wheel, brushing your teeth.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Or morbidly swinging a weapon or dragging a heavyweight. Right.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Even if he was dragging a body, the physical exertion,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: the shifting of weight, the scrambling around a crime scene,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: loading a body into a car that creates chaotic high
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: acceleration spikes across all three axes.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Think about the nature of this crime. Nikki suffered 241
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: separate injuries. She was beaten so severely her face was unrecognizable.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: She was strangled with a cord, her body was lifted,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: loaded into a vehicle, driven miles away, dragged into a field,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: and dumped. That is an intensely physical, violently active sequence
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: of events. It requires massive physical exertion and elevated heart rates.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: It is physiologically and technologically impossible to commit that level
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: of physical violence, transport a body, clean up a scene,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: and only register 12 isolated steps on a three-axis accelerometer
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: over three hours. The Fitbit data proved, with absolute mathematical certainty,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: that Doug was essentially motionless, asleep in his bed, while
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: his girlfriend was being murdered outside his house.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: It is a profound irony. The very gift that Nikki
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: gave him, this little piece of wearable fitness tech meant
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to track his health, is the only thing that stood
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: between Doug and a potential life sentence in prison for
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: a murder he didn't commit. It provided an objective, unimpeachable
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: alibi that human intuition could never provide.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Doug Detry is cleared and released. The police apologized to him.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: But now the investigators have a massive problem. They have
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: a brutally murdered mother of three, an unknown male DNA
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: profile on the murder weapon, and absolutely zero leads. The
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: investigation risks going completely cold.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: So where does a local police department even go from
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: there when the narrative completely collapses?
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: They turn back to the data. They take the unknown
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: male DNA profile found on the charging cord and the
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: single sock, and they input it into CODIS.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Let's define that for the listeners. What is CODIS and
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: what actually constitutes a match? Because we see this on
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: TV all the time, you know, running through the system.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: But what is the science behind it?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: CODIS stands for the Combined DNA Index System. It's a
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: national database maintained by the FBI. When forensic scientists look
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: at DNA, they aren't looking at the entire genome. They
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: look at specific DNA. non-coding regions of DNA called short
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: tandem repeats, or STRs.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, STRs.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Right. They look at 20 specific locations, or loci, on
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: the chromosomes. At each locus, you inherit one allele from
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: your mother and one from your father.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: So it's basically creating a unique numerical barcode for an individual.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The chances of two unrelated people having the exact
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: same STR profile across all 20 loci are essentially one
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: in several billion. The investigators uploaded this barcode into CODIS,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: hoping it would ping against a known offender. For months,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: there was nothing, just silence. But then, in August 2016,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: three months after the murder, they get a hit.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: The record matches. It matches a 39-year-old man named George
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Stephen Birch.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about George Stephen Birch, because his profile is startling,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: both physically and historically. First of all, his physical stature.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Birch stood at 6'7'' tall and weighed 250 pounds. Wow,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: that is a huge guy. Yeah. He had been a
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: football linebacker in his youth, and since the age of six,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: he had carried the nickname Big Country because of his
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: sheer imposing size.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: And his background was just as imposing. Birch was originally
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: from Hampton, Virginia, and he had a lengthy and violent
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: criminal history. Back in 1997, when he was just 19
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: years old, he was accused of a gang-related murder. He
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: allegedly shot a rival gang member in the head. Right.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: He actually went to trial for it, but he was
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: acquitted because the forensic evidence at the time was weak,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: multiple guns were fired in an alley, and they couldn't
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: definitively tie the fatal bullet to his specific weapon.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: He managed to avoid prison for that murder, but he
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: didn't stay out of trouble. In January 2016, just months
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: before Nikki's death, He received a suspended sentence for grand
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: larceny in Virginia. He also had pending charges for heroin possession.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Knowing he was likely facing serious prison time, Birch violated
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: his release conditions and fled Virginia, becoming a fugitive from justice.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: He fled a thousand miles away to Green Bay, Wisconsin.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: He called up an old friend there, a guy named
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Edward Jackson, and asked for a place to crash, saying
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: he and his wife in New York were having problems
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and he needed a fresh start. Jackson agreed to take
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: him in, charging him $ 100 a week in rent to
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: sleep on his couch.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Birch got a job at a restaurant, then a landscaping firm,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: but he kept falling behind on his rent.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So Birch is living in Green Bay, under the radar,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: when Nikki is murdered in May. But how did the
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Green Bay police get his DNA into the system to
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: match the CODIS aid in August? This is where the
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: story takes another bizarre turn involving a completely separate, seemingly
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: minor crime. Right.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: In June of 2016, a few weeks after Nikki's murder,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Edward Jackson's wife had her SUV stolen, a red Chevy Blazer.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: That same night, the SUV was involved in a hit-and-run
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: accident and was later found abandoned and set on fire
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: a few blocks from the Jackson's house.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: The local police suspected Birch was involved in stealing and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: torching his roommate's wife's car. They bring him in for
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: questioning about the SUV. Birch denies it. He claims he
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: has a solid alibi. He says he was at a
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: bar texting a woman he had just met. And to
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: prove his innocence, he voluntarily hands his cell phone over
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to the police so they can read the text.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: The police take the phone and they perform a digital extraction.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: And I want to pause here because this isn't just
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: taking screenshots of text messages.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Right. What does a forensic phone cloning actually entail?
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: It's a massive invasion of digital privacy, which we'll discuss later.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Police use software, often a program called Celebrate, to perform
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: what's called a physical extraction. They aren't just looking at
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: the files you can see on the screen. A physical
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: extraction creates a bit by bit identical copy of the
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: entire flash memory chip inside the phone.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: So it's like making a perfect frozen in time mold
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: of a room where even the dust in the corners
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: is preserved exactly as it was.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: That's a perfect analogy because it copies everything. It also
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: copies the unallocated space, the areas of the hard drive
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: where you have deleted files, deleted texts, deleted search histories.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: The phone's operating system marks those files as deleted so
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: they can be overwritten later. but until they are overwritten,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: they are still physically there.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Wow, so nothing is really gone.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: No, the police copy all of it, hand the physical
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: phone back to Birch, and send him on his way
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: because they don't have enough to charge him with the
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: car theft, but they keep the cloned data in their server.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Two months later, the DNA hit comes back on Nikki's murder.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: The police realize that George Birch is the DNA match,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and an detective suddenly remembers, wait, we have this guy's
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: completely cloned cell phone sitting in our evidence server from
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: that SUV fire back in June.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: This is the second time digital evidence blows this case
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: wide open. The forensic analysts dive into the data they
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: pulled from Birch's phone and what they find are the
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: undeniable digital breadcrumbs of a killer.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Let's start with the search history. According to the extracted data,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: aside from looking at pornography, Birch's only internet searches in
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the days following May 20th were obsessively looking up local
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: news stories about the discovery of Nicole Vander Heiden's body.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: He searched for news about her on May 22nd, 24th, 25th, 26th,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: June 5th, and June 6th.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: He is literally Googling his own crime over and over again,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: reading about the investigation on a device he then willfully
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: handed over to the police a few weeks later.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: That is wild.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: But the search history isn't even the most damning part.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: The absolute smoking gun is the geolocation data.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: We hear the term geolocation thrown around a lot. People say, oh,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: you're phone pinging cell towers. But how precise is this data, really?
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Can it prove exactly where someone was standing?
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: It can be terrifyingly precise. There are two main ways
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: your phone tracks your location. The first is cell tower triangulation.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Your phone is constantly reaching out to nearby towers to
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: maintain a signal. By measuring the time of flight, exactly
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: how many milliseconds it takes for a signal to bounce
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: from your phone to three different towers, the network can
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: calculate your position.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: But the second method is even more precise, and that's
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: the GPS chip.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Right, global positioning system.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. GPS relies on a network of satellites orbiting the Earth,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: each carrying an atomic clock. Your phone receives signals from
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: these satellites. By calculating the microscopic differences in the time
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: it takes those signals to reach your phone, the device
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: can pinpoint your location to within a few meters.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Even if you aren't using maps?
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Yes. Your phone logs this data constantly, even if you
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: aren't using a map app, in order to optimize battery
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: life and network switching.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: So the police look at this GPS data for Birch's
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: phone on the night of the murder. The data showed
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: that Birch had been at a bar called Richard Cranium's
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: that night. Richard Cranium's is located just half a mile
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: away from the sardine can where Nikki had stormed out.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: The phone data shows Birch leaving Richard Cranium's at 2.30 a.m.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: It tracks him moving through the streets. And where does
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: he go? He doesn't go back to his friend Jackson's house.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: The GPS data puts his phone exactly at Nikki and
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Doug's house from 3.01 a.m. to 3.52 a.m.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Which perfectly aligns with the 3.0 a.m. to 4.0 a.m.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: window the medical examiner established for the time of the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: murder using the lividity and digestion data.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: But the map doesn't stop there. After 3.52 a.m., the
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: phone's geolocation tracks Birch moving from the house to the
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: specific highway off-ramp where Nikki's bloody clothes were dumped. And
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: then it tracks him driving directly to the remote farm
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: field on Hoffman Road in Bellevue. where her body was discovered.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: My God.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Finally, the phone data shows him returning to his friend's
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: house at 4.22 a.m.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: It is an unbroken digital timeline connecting the suspect to
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the initial encounter, the murder scene, the disposal of the evidence,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: and the dumping of the body. It's like he drew
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: a treasure map connecting himself to every single crime scene,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: but forgot he was holding the pen. He literally mapped
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: out his own murder route in the pocket of his jeans.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Armed with the DNA on the murder weapon and this
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: irrefutable digital map, The police arrest George Stephen Birch for
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: the murder of Nicole Vander Heiden. They bring him into
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: the interrogation room, sit him down, and tell him they
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: are investigating a homicide. Birch, likely relying on his past
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: experience with the criminal justice system in Virginia, immediately invokes
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: his right to an attorney. He lawyers up and refuses
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: to speak.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Now, if you are listening to this, you are probably thinking, OK,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: they have his DNA on a murder weapon. They have
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: his GPS at every single location. They have him obsessively
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Googling the victim. This trial is going to last five minutes.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: He's going to plead guilty.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: But he doesn't. No.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Birch isn't going down without a fight. He and his
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: defense team introduce one of the most bizarre, wildly convoluted
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: defense strategies in true crime history. They decide to force
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: the jury to choose between two completely different narratives that
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: fit the exact same data points.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: When the trial begins in March 2018, Birch takes the
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: stand in his own defense. He doesn't deny being with
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Nikki that night. He can't. The DNA and the GPS
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: prove he was exactly where the state says he was. Instead,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: he tries to explain why he was there.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Birch claims that he was at Richard Cranium's bar, and
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: he noticed an attractive blonde woman standing next to him.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: He claims it was Nikki, who had wandered over after
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: storming away from the sardine can. Birch says they started talking, laughing,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: doing some light touching, basically flirting. He claims she was
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: very much into him.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: According to Birch's testimony, they decided to leave together. He
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: says he drove her to the house he was staying at,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: the Jackson residence, but when they got there, Jackson's father
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: was awake on the couch and it killed the mood.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: So Birch claims Nikki gave him directions to her own house.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: He says they pull up outside Nikki and Doug's house,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: but they can't go inside because the babysitter's still there. Now,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: as a quick side note, Birch never really explains why
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: an adult woman who lives in the house couldn't just
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: dismiss the babysitter.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: Right, that's weird.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: But regardless, Birch claims they stay outside in his truck...
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and they have fully consensual sex.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: This is where his story takes a massive leap into
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: the absurd. Birch claims that right after they finished having
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: consensual intercourse, he was suddenly struck in the head from
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: behind and not completely unconscious.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: He testifies that the next thing he remembers is waking
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: up laying on the grass near the curb. He looks up,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: and he sees Doug Detry standing over him holding a gun.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: And according to Birch, Doug has just brutally murdered Nikki
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: in a jealous rage right there on the lawn. Birch
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: says he saw a lot of blood on her face
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: and coming out of her mouth, and she wasn't moving.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: So Birch is claiming that Doug caught them in the act,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: knocked Birch out, and beat his own girlfriend to death.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: But it gets even wilder. Birch claims that Doug then
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: pointed the gun at him and ordered Birch to carry
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Nikki's dead body to the car and drive it to
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: a ditch to dispose of it.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Let me stop right here, because we have to apply
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: some critical thinking to this. If you're listening to this
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: in your car right now, you are probably screaming at
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: your dashboard. Let's walk through this logic. If Doug caught
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend sleeping with another man right outside his house,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: and he had a gun, and he was enraged enough
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: to brutally beat the mother of his newborn child to
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: death with 241 separate injuries, why on earth would he
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: let the guy she was sleeping with live?
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: It makes no sense.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't he just shoot Birch?
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: It absolutely shreds the bounds of logic. Furthermore, look at
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: the physical mismatch we established earlier. Birch is 6 foot
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: 7 inches tall and weighs 250 pounds. He is a
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: former linebacker who goes by Big Country and has a
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: history of gang violence. On the other hand, Doug is
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: a regular-sized contractor who had been drinking alcohol all night
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: and snorting Adderall. The idea that a hungover Doug could
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: sneak up on a 250-pound giant, knock him out cold
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: with a single blow, and then successfully hold him at
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: gunpoint to do manual labor is incredibly hard to believe.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: But Birch stuck to the story. He claimed he followed
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Doug's orders at gunpoint, carried the body, drove it to
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: the field, and then while Doug was distracted, Birch said
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: he lunged at him and pushed him as hard as
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: he possibly could, ran back to his truck, and escaped.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: He claimed he found Nikki's clothes still in his truck
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: and just threw them out the window on the highway
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: ramp out of sheer panic.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: That was the defense's narrative. A framed job by a
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: jealous boyfriend who used the real killer's fear to make
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: him dispose of the evidence. But the prosecution had a
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: much simpler, far more brutal theory of the crime, the
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: rejection theory.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: The prosecution argued that Birch did indeed pick Nikki up
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: on the street when she was highly vulnerable, intoxicated, and
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: furious at her boyfriend. He drove her 20 miles around town,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: fully expecting that this was going to end in sex.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: But when they finally arrived at her house, the reality
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: set in for Nikki. She was home. She was a mother.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Her baby was inside. She refused him.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: The prosecutor hammered this point on cross-examination. They argued that
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: when it became clear Nikki was not going to have
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: sex with him and attempted to go into her house,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Birch's mood instantly changed. He felt rejected, he felt entitled,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: and in a mass of physical rage, he attacked her.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: The prosecution stated that Birch raped her, beat her viciously,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: grabbed that charging cord from the yard to strangle her,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: and then realizing he had just murdered a woman on
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: a residential street, he panicked. He loaded her body into
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: his vehicle and drove out to the darkest, most secluded
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: farm field he could find on his GPS to dump
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: her body and avoid detection.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: It was a clash of two very different narratives built
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: around the exact same GPS coordinates, and the trial became
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: highly emotionally charged. Birch was trying to portray himself as
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: a victim of circumstance, a gentle giant who was bullied
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: at gunpoint. But the prosecution successfully cracked that facade. Right.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: At one point during cross-examination, the prosecutor challenged Birch about
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: how he handled Nikki's body, suggesting he dragged her. Birch
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: actually lost his temper on the stand. His demeanor completely
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: shifted and he snapped back aggressively. I told you before,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and I will say it one more time for you, sir,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I was carrying her. It was a flash of the
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: exact kind of violent anger the prosecution argued led to
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the murder in the first place.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Despite Birch's massive size and his unbelievable story, you can
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: never truly predict what a jury is going to do
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: when presented with an alternate narrative. And there was a
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: moment of real tension during deliberations. After 45 minutes, the
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: jury sent a note to the judge. They asked to
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: see the charging cord used to strangle Nikki, and they
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: wanted to compare it side by side with other random
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: cords that police had collected from Doug's garage during that
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: initial search warrant.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: That request is significant. It tells us that at least
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: some members of the jury were seriously considering Birch's story.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: They were looking at the physical evidence, trying to see
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: if Doug could have supplied the murder weapon from his
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: own garage, trying to see if the framed job theory
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: held any water.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: But the digital data was just too strong. Doug's Fitbit
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: proved he only took 12 steps, making it physically impossible
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: for him to be the one committing the violence. Birch's
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: DNA was explicitly on the murder weapon. Birch's phone tracked
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: him to every single crime scene. After about three hours
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: of total deliberation, the jury returned to the courtroom, the
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: verdict guilty of first-degree intentional homicide.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: The sentencing judge didn't hold back. When sentencing George Stephen
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Birch to life in prison without the possibility of parole,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: The judge described the killing as the most brutal murder
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: that has ever been committed by one person in the
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: history of Brown County.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: It brings a sense of justice for Nikki and her family.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: But the legal ripples of the technology used in this
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: case are still being felt in the appellate courts. And
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: the ongoing reality for the survivors is far more complex
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: than a neat Hollywood ending.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Let's dive into that legal precedent, because in 2021, George
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Birch filed an appeal and his defense team brought up
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a massive constitutional issue regarding the Fourth Amendment.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: This is where the case transitions from a true crime
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: story to a fundamental debate about digital privacy and constitutional law.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Birch's defense team argued that the police only had permission,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: a narrow scope of consent, to clone and search his
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: phone data in relation to the stolen SUV and hit-and-run
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: investigation back in June.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: So their argument was, I gave you my phone to
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: prove I didn't steal a car. You cannot legally hold
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: on to that digital clone for months and then retroactively
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: search it for a completely unrelated murder investigation.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It touches on the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: If the search of the clone data for the murder
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: was unconstitutional, then the GPS data and search history should
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: be thrown out. This is a huge legal philosophy question.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Does police possession of your data for crime A give
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: them a blank check to search it for crime B
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: at any point in the future? Do citizens retain an
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: expectation of privacy in data they voluntarily hand over for
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: a specific purpose?
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: They also attacked the Fitbit data, didn't they? They argued
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: that the prosecution presented the Fitbit step count as flawless
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: scientific evidence. But they didn't bring in an expert witness
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: from Fitbit to validate the technology or explain how the
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: MIMS accelerometers might glitch or miscalculate.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: The defense was essentially arguing that novel technology needs strict
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: scientific validation in courts similar to a breathalyzer. However, the
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: appellate court ultimately rejected both arguments. They ruled that once
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Birch voluntarily consented to the full extraction of his phone,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: he lost his expectation of privacy in that data for
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: law enforcement purposes. They upheld his conviction and life sentence.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: But it cemented a legal precedent in that jurisdiction regarding
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: how much access the state has to our digital lives
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: once we hand over a device.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: So Birch is locked away forever. You would think the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: story ends there, with Doug completely exonerated, raising his son,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: a tragic victim of a horrible circumstance. But we promise
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: at the beginning to look at how human behavior is
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: rarely straightforward. And we have to talk about the epilogue
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: of Doug Dietrich, because Real Life isn't a movie where
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: the exonerated innocent party is a flawless hero.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: No, it is not. Human beings are deeply complicated. In
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: February 2017, less than a year after Nikki was murdered,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Doug found himself in serious legal trouble again. Nikki's sister
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: had moved in or was spending significant time with Doug
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: to help him raise little Dylan, who was a toddler
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: at this point.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: According to the police reports, Doug and Nikki's sister went
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: out to a birthday party together. While Doug was driving
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: them back, she alleged that he reached over and touched
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: her leg inappropriately. She told him to stop. This apparently
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: angered Doug.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: The allegations state that Doug suddenly accelerated the vehicle, ran
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: a red light, and refused to let her out of
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: a car. He essentially trapped her in the moving vehicle
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: until she became so desperate she physically kicked the windshield
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: of the car from the passenger seat.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Doug was arrested. He ultimately pleaded no contest to two
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: domestic violence felonies, second-degree recklessly endangering safety, and false imprisonment.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: He also pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: negligent operation of a vehicle. He was ordered to pay
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: a fine and stay out of trouble until October 2019.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: to have the felonies dismissed.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: It is a highly unsettling epilogue. It forces us to
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: reconcile a very difficult psychological truth. A man can be
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: 100 percent innocent of a horrific murder, completely victimized by
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: a false circumstantial narrative, and yet still be capable of
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: deeply troubling abusive behavior toward women in his life.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: It makes you look back at Nikki's final text calling
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: him abusive on the night she died and her mother's
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: claims that he had hit her in the past. in
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: a very different, much grayer light. It absolutely does not
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: make him a murderer. The digital data physically proves that.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: But it shatters the illusion of the perfect grieving partner.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: On the financial side, in August 2018, Doug and Nikki's
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: family did win a $ 269, 000 restitution judgment against George Birch. Furthermore,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: a stipulation was put in place that prevents Birch from
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: ever profiting from any books, movies, or media made about
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: the murder. Any money generated would go directly to Nikki's family...
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: and to Doug, who continues to raise his and Nikki's son, Dylan.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: It is an incredibly heavy, complicated legacy to leave for
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: a child.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: It truly is. It's a legacy built on the collision
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: of human frailty and cold, unforgiving data.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: So let's connect this all back. This case presents an incredible,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: almost unbelievable duality. On one side, you have a man
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: who was literally saved from a life behind bars by
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: a 12-step count on a piece of microscopic fitness technology
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: that his murdered girlfriend bought for him. On the other side,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: you have a brutal killer who was caught entirely because
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: he could not stop Googling his own crime on a
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: smartphone that he voluntarily handed over to the police, leaving
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: an unbroken atomic clock precise trail of GPS coordinates directly
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: to the victim's body.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: It perfectly encapsulates the double-edged sword of the digital age.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Our devices are constantly watching, constantly recording. They are completely
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: devoid of human emotion, confirmation bias, or prejudice. They don't
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: try to build a narrative. They just record the data.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: And that brings me back to the thought I want
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: to leave you with today. We spend so much time
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: in our modern society fearing the technology we carry. We
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: worry that our phones are listening to our conversations to
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: sell us targeted ads. We worry that our smartwatches are
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: tracking our health data to sell to insurance companies. We
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: constantly fear that our devices are spying on us, slowly
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: stripping away our fundamental rights to privacy. But I want
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: you to think about Doug Detri sitting in that interrogation room,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: pale and hungover, with all the human logic and circumstantial
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: evidence in the world pointing directly to his guilt. In
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: a world where human prejudice, bad timing, and an investigator's
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: desire for a cohesive narrative can so easily build a
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: perfectly false story that locks you away forever, could that
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: terrifying total lack of privacy in your pocket be the
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: exact singular thing that one day saves your life?
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: It is a question that completely reframes our relationship with
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: the technology we carry every single day.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us for this deep dive.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: The next time you strap that piece of plastic to
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: your wrist or slip that glass screen into your pocket,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: take a second to acknowledge the silent digital witnesses walking
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: alongside you. We'll see you next time.