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The Murder of Haley Anderson · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: You know, when we think about the footprint we leave
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behind in the world today, there's this there's this expectation
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of absolute, undeniable precision.
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Speaker 2: Right, like a digital breadcrumb trail.
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Speaker 1: Exactly like you curR a smartphone and a satellite literally
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hovering in space can pinpoint your exact location down to
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like a specific room in a specific house.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's binary, right, it's.
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Speaker 1: Clean, it's comforting. You know, you open an app, you
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see a little dot on a map, and you just
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assume you have the whole picture of reality.
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Speaker 2: Well, the paradox of the information age is that we
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confuse visibility with transparency. Oh, that's a good way to
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put it, right, because we've engineered a society where a
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mystery feels like a technical glitch. Like the technology might
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tell us the exact longitude and latitude of where someone
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is standing, but it tells us absolutely nothing about the
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emotional or physical danger they are standing in. Yeah, the
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satellite completely loses its signal the moment you step into
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the landscape of human intimacy or possessiveness and try. I
1:00
mean that landscape is incredibly.
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Speaker 1: Murky, and stepping into that exact murky landscape is what
1:07
we are doing today because Okay, I want you to
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imagine being a college senior. You're twenty two years old,
1:16
You're literally months away from graduation. You have your absolute
1:19
dream job already lined up, like the kind of job
1:22
you spent the last four years pulling all nighters.
1:25
Speaker 2: To secure chayoff face well, right, the payoff.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're looking at the rest of your life with
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just nothing but optimism and then your own deep seated compassion,
1:34
like the very empathy that makes you exceptional is weaponized
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against you.
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Speaker 2: It is a devastating reality. And to understand the mechanics
1:41
of this, we really have to look closely at the
1:43
tragic murder of Hailey Anderson. Yeah, and you know, the
1:46
goal here today isn't simply to recount a timeline of
1:49
a tragedy. Going through this extensive stack of public records,
1:53
court documents, news reports, and the interviews from the forty
1:55
eight Hours investigation, what emerges is.
1:58
Speaker 1: A blueprint, a really dark loop.
2:00
Speaker 2: Exactly. We need to examine the psychological architecture of possessiveness,
2:05
the incredibly tangled, almost impenetrable legal complexities of international extradition.
2:10
Speaker 1: Which is wild. By the way, we'll get to that it.
2:12
Speaker 2: Really is, and of course the vital warning signs of
2:15
intimate partner violence that hide in plain sight because well,
2:18
our society actively normalizes them.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because before we get to the
2:23
groundbreaking international teletrial or the desperate flight to Nicaragua, we
2:28
really need to understand who Hailey Anderson was.
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Speaker 2: Yes, her personality isn't just background information here.
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Speaker 1: No, not at all. It's like the central access of
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how this entire situation unfolded. So, Hailey was born in
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May of nineteen ninety five in Westbury, New York. That's
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down on Long Island, and her mother, Karen, described her
2:45
using a phrase that really really stuck with me.
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Speaker 2: What was it?
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Speaker 1: She called Hailey a millennial hippie.
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Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, that phrase captures a very specific, recognizable
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archetype I think, right, it implies someone who is friendly,
2:58
fiercely hardworking, but fundamentally anchored by an incredibly deep, almost
3:02
gravitational empathy for other people.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, she was highly social, she loved music, and she
3:07
just had this innate desire to care for those around her,
3:11
which is what pushed her into the medical field in
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the first place.
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Speaker 2: Right, And by March of twenty eighteen. She's a fifth
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year senior at Binghamton University up in the Suny System.
3:20
She had transferred into the Decker School of Nursing, which
3:24
I mean requires navigating a brutally rigorous academic load, clinicals, practicums,
3:30
pharmacology exams.
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Speaker 1: It's a gauntlet. It really is a nursing gauntlet. And
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while surviving that, she was also working part time at
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Jasmine's the coffee shop, Yeah, the main on campus coffee shop.
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She worked there for over three years. And if you've
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ever spent time on a college campus, you know that
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the people working at the central coffee shop are basically
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the unofficial mayors of the student body.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, they see everyone. They interact with thousands of students
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a week exactly.
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Speaker 1: And her friends and classmates consistently noted that she just
3:58
lit up rooms. She was independent. She dated, but she
4:02
never let those relationships define her identity, you know, or
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derail her ambitions.
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Speaker 2: Her trajectory was incredibly clear. Graduation was literally weeks away.
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She had already secured an er position at Northwell Health
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right near her hometown.
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Speaker 1: On Long Island, which is huge.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, her family was already organizing the graduation celebrations. Her
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father Gordon would ultimately have to walk across that stage
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and accept her nursing diploma on her behalf.
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Speaker 1: God, that's just it's devastating.
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Speaker 2: Her mother, Karen said it best. She said, there was
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so much more of life for Haley to live. She's
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never coming home and that is the saddest part.
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Speaker 1: I am struggling to understand something though. If someone is
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that socially engaged, like that emotionally intelligent, shouldn't they instinctively
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repel toxic behavior? You would think so, right, Yeah, But
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shouldn't her empathy give her a better radar for people
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who might want to take advantage of her Instead? It
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really seems like her kindness actually drew the danger closer.
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Speaker 2: Well, it's a common misconce that empathy acts as a shield.
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Really yeah, if we connect this to the bigger picture.
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In the context of manipulative individuals, empathy without rigid boundaries
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is actually a beacon.
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Speaker 1: A beacon. Wow.
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Speaker 2: Manipulative people, particularly those with covert, narcissistic, or highly possessive traits,
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they actively scan for individuals with a high capacity for compassion.
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Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
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Speaker 2: If you have a high tolerance for other people's pain
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and a strong desire to alleviate it. You're the ideal
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target for someone who uses their own persive suffering as
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a mechanism for control.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack that. Because her roommate Josie Artin mentioned
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that Haley never stood people up, she always responded right,
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and another friend, Jesse Bua, said Haley always wanted to
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stay friends with her exes. She believed in giving people
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second chances. She had what I can only describe as
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an emotional open door policy.
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Speaker 2: That's a great analogy.
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Speaker 1: It's like she left the front door of her life
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wide open because she just assumed everyone walks by had
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good intentions, which is beautiful in theory, but dangerous if
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you don't install a screen to keep the bugs out,
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you know, like, is it common for manipulative people to
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specifically target those who are highly empathetic?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, And if you leave the door open, eventually someone
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will walk in who intends to dismantle the house. Oof.
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We see this explicitly in the source material. Friends recalled
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how Haley would frequently fall for sob stories. Another friend,
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Melanie Heeney, specifically noted that the individual who targeted. Haley
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had this talent for spinning his own life into a
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tragic narrative. He would present himself as a victim of circumstance,
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someone who desperately needed Haley's specific brand of comfort.
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Speaker 1: So the pity basically becomes a weapon.
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Speaker 2: Precisely, pity is a remarkably effective tool for bypassing a
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person's boundaries. When a manipulator makes you feel sorry for them,
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the whole dynamic shifts. Oh well, it stops being about
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their inappropriate or toxic behavior and it becomes entirely about
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their alleged emotional pain. They use the victim's own goodness,
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their own moral compass, as a tether to keep them attached.
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The victim stays because they feel responsible for the manipulator's
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well being.
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Speaker 1: I want you to think about your own friendships or
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relationships for a second. How often do we excuse objectively
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terrible behavior just because we feel sorry for the person
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doing it?
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Speaker 2: All? Right?
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Speaker 1: We say, oh, they just have a lot of trauma,
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or they don't mean to be suffocating, they're just going
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through a hard time.
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Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
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Speaker 1: We use our own empathy to justify someone else's toxicity,
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and that dynamic is exactly what Orlando and Riki Trissara
7:34
Moreno exploited.
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Speaker 2: We have to examine Tressera's background to understand how he
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fit into this puzzle. He was born in Miami, Florida,
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but he was raised partly in Nicaragua.
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Speaker 1: Which becomes incredibly important, hugely important.
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Speaker 2: This gave him dual United States and Nicaraguan's citizenship. That's
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a legal reality that will become the massive thought point
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of the entire investigation later on. But back on the
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Binghamton campus, he just appeared to be another stressed out
8:00
nursing student.
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Speaker 1: Outwardly, there was no obvious monster. He was in Haley's cohort.
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He was hard working. He had this whole narrative that
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he was aspiring to follow in the footsteps of his
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late father, who had been a doctor. So since Drassiro's
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path led to nursing, he framed it as carrying on
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his father's medical legacy. And he and Haley met through
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the nursing program around their sophomore year, and that friendship
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eventually morphed into a very turbulent, poorly defined romantic relationship
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that dragged on for about.
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Speaker 2: A year and a half, and the instability of that
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dynamic was glaring to everyone around them. I mean Crossera's
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own roommate, Jesse Bua, observed these extreme erratic cycles. Oh yeah,
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they would be bickering and fighting one day, laughing hysterically
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the next, and then completely icing each other out. This
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wasn't a healthy partnership. It was an emotional roller coaster
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driven by an imbalance of attachment.
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Speaker 1: Josie Artin, Haley's roommate, made a really sharp observation about this.
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She said to Sarah was clearly quote weirdly possessive of Haley,
9:02
even though they weren't in an officially committed relationship. Right, Like,
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he would drive by her house uninvited, He would text
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her relentlessly. If she asks him to leave her porch,
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he would just refuse.
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Speaker 2: He dig his heels in.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he would spin those elaborate sob stories to force
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her to engage with him. But I don't understand why,
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as a society, we see a guy driving by a
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girl's house uninvited or texting her fifty times a night,
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and we just roll our eyes and call it college drama.
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I know, why don't we recognize that as a massive
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red flag, Like as stalking.
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Speaker 2: Because cultural narratives have spent decades romanticizing possessiveness.
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Speaker 1: Oh, that's true.
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Speaker 2: We are conditioned by movies, music literature to view relentless
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pursuit as an indicator of profound love, the idea that
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someone can't live without you, that they are so consumed
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by you that they act irrationally. It's sold to us
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as passion.
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Speaker 1: The whole boombox outside the window trop.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, but clinically it is not passion. It is a
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control reflex. It is a demand for ownership. The statistical
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risk of violence skyrockets the moment a woman attempts to
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assert her independence from that control, which.
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Speaker 1: Is exactly what happens in September of twenty seventeen. So
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this is the beginning of their senior year. Hailey is
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actively seeking her independence. She is pulling away from Tso,
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and she is reconnected with a mutual friend and ex
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boyfriend named Kevin.
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Speaker 2: O'campbo Andtersaro completely short circuits at the loss of control completely.
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Speaker 1: The breaking point hits on September fifteenth, Hailey goes to
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a party Attersaro's Residencetersarro confronts her about Kevin. He literally
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starts shouting at her in front of people.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 1: And then right after screaming at her, he immediately tries
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to offer her a drink to reconcile.
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Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that this is the cycle of
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abuse compressed into a single hour. Really Yeah, rage and
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intimidation followed immediately by an attempt to soothe and re
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establish dominance. But Hailey didn't comply. She didn't fall back
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into the subservient role he demanded good for her right.
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So the very next day, September sixteenth, someone slashes the
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tire on Haley's car, causing hundreds of dollars in damage.
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Her friends immediately suspected to Sero. Of course they did,
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and he predictably denied any involvement.
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Speaker 1: It's like a blaring check engine light on a dashboard. Yes,
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but she didn't press charges, and her reasoning is just
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it's heartbreaking. She didn't go to the police because she
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knew a felony property damage charge could get him expelled
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from the nursing program.
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Speaker 2: The empathy trap again.
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Speaker 1: Exactly, even while he was trying to sabotage her life,
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she was protecting his future. Ignoring that tire slashing was
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like ignoring a blaring check engine light because you don't
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want to inconvenience the mechanic. You think, well, the car's
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still running, it's fine, I can manage this. But the
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engine is literally failing.
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Speaker 2: And the transition from emotional manipulation to property damage is
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a critical escalation marker in intimate partner violence. How so well,
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when an abuser realizes that their emotional tactics, you know,
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the guilt trips, the shouting, the sob stories, are no
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longer effective at controlling the victim, they escalate to physical intimidation.
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Destroying a car is a proxy, a proxy for what.
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It's a way of saying, I have the capacity to
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destroy things you care about. I can reach you, I
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can disrupt your ability to move and function. It is
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a demonstration of physical capability without directly laying a hand
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on the victim.
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Speaker 1: Yet, God, that's chilling, and the normalization of that behavior
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gave him the cover he needed to maintain his proximity
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to her. Her mother, Karen, later expressed immense regret and
12:30
anger that she didn't push harder for an arrest when
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the tires were slashed. Understandably, Buttersro stayed in her orbit.
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He maintained the obsession and that unchecked escalation leads directly
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to Thursday, March eighth, twenty eighteen.
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Speaker 2: The timeline in March eighth really marks the transition from
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historical red flags to fatal violence. Haley had plans that
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evening she was supposed to attend to poetry reading. She
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was out with friends, and investigators determined she had been
12:56
consuming alcohol sometime in the early morning hours. Surveillance footage
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from outside twenty three Oak Street, which ister Sarah's apartment building,
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captures the two of them walking inside together. She never
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leaves that apartment alive.
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Speaker 1: Because of her intoxication. She likely fell asleep shortly after
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they went inside, and the brutality of what happened in
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that room completely destroys any defense narrative that this was
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some sort of tragic, momentary accident.
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Speaker 2: It does. The autopsy conducted by doctor James Terzian was definitive.
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The cause of death was asphyxiation, but the specific method
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is vital to understanding the psychology of the crime. Yeah
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Tresso used a combination of manual strangulation meaning compressing her
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neck with his bare hands, and ligature strangulation using the necklace.
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Speaker 1: She was actually wearing, Oh my god.
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Speaker 2: The autopsy also revealed severe bruising on her neck and arms,
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indicating a violent, desperate struggle.
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Speaker 1: She fought back. Strangulation is such a uniquely terrifying form
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of violence. It requires immense physical proximity. It is not
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a pull trigger from across a room where you can
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detach yourself from the immedia.
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Speaker 2: No, it's deeply intimate.
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Speaker 1: You have to physically overpower someone, look at them, and
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sustain that force for minutes while you watch the life
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leave their body. The prosecution argued this was pure distilled jealousy.
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She rejected him, and he decided to execut her for it.
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But his behavior immediately after the murder is so bizarre.
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It's this chilling mix of cold calculation and theatrical self pity.
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Speaker 2: The surveillance footage captures him leaving the apartment multiple times
14:29
while her body is still in his bed. He performs
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mundane tasks. He takes the garbage out to the driveway. Later,
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he is seen heading toward the basement of the building
14:38
with a bandage on his head. When police eventually search
14:41
that basement, they find blood on the floor and a
14:44
necktie hanging from a doorway, which indicated a failed suicide
14:48
attempt by hanging. He also goes to local pharmacy and
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purchases zisquill and melatonin.
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Speaker 1: But the centerpiece of his psychological state is the handwritten
14:58
note he left behind in Spanish. The translation reads, I'm
15:01
really sorry about this. I never felt I could be
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capable of doing this.
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Speaker 2: Poppy deveo bronto, meaning father, I'll see you soon.
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Speaker 1: Right. His father had died five years earlier. Why leave
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a note like that? It sounds like he's apologizing, but
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it feels incredibly hollow.
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Speaker 2: It feels hollow because it is a textbook manifestation of
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a psychological framework known as darvo.
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Speaker 1: Wait, darvo, What does that stand for?
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Speaker 2: It stands for deny attack and reverse victim and offender.
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While he isn't denying the act outright here, he is
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utilizing the core mechanism of reversing the victim and offender.
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Speaker 1: Roles, reversing them right.
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Speaker 2: Look closely at the phrasing I never felt I could
15:39
be capable of doing this. He is expressing shock at
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his own actions, linguistically framing the murder as something that
15:46
happened to him rather than an atrocity. He committed against her.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow. He is centering his own emotional experience over
15:53
the fact that he just ended a human.
15:54
Speaker 2: Life exactly by bringing his deceased father into the narrative
15:58
Poppy teveo Pronto, he is filtering his lethal violence through
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the lens of his own historical grief. He is demanding
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that whoever finds the note view him as a tragic,
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suffering figure who is driven to extremes by his own pain,
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rather than a jealous, controlling abuser.
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Speaker 1: That's sick.
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Speaker 2: It is the ultimate evolution of the SOB story tactic
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he used on Haley for a year and a half.
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Even in the aftermath of a homicide, he is demanding pity,
16:23
but his.
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Speaker 1: Supposed desire to join his father in the afterlife completely
16:27
vanishes the moment survival instinct kicks in, the calculation just
16:31
takes over. He bandages his head, gets in his car
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and drives over three hours from upstate New York down
16:37
to John F. Kennedy International Airport in.
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Speaker 2: Queens, a very intentional drive.
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Speaker 1: Very he arrives he has luggage, meaning he actually took
16:45
the time to pack, and he boards a flight to Monagua, Nicaragua.
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He leverages his dual citizenship to initiate an international escape.
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He lands in Central America on Friday, March ninth at
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three point five to five.
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Speaker 2: Pm, and this creates a devastating split screen effect in
17:01
the narrative. While Treserro is successfully touching down in a
17:04
foreign country executing a highly premeditated evasion of justice. Back
17:08
in Binghamton, the realization that something is wrong is only
17:11
just beginning to crystallize.
17:13
Speaker 1: Because initially there was no panic roomade. Josie Artin was
17:16
very candid about this. When she didn't hear from Haley
17:18
on Thursday night or Friday morning, her first thought wasn't
17:21
murder and why would it be right? It is a
17:23
Thursday night on a college campus. Students crash on friends, couches,
17:27
their phones die, they sleep through their morning classes. A
17:30
twelve hour radio silence isn't a crisis. It's a typical Friday.
17:34
Speaker 2: But as Friday afternoon approached, Haley missed her commitments, the
17:38
ambient noise of college life faded and the silence became alarming.
17:42
And this brings us back to the technological footprint we
17:44
discussed at the beginning. They didn't initiate a standard missing
17:47
person's protocol, which often requires waiting twenty four hours and
17:50
filling out paperwork. They leveraged the digital tether.
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Speaker 1: A roommate pulls out their iPhone and opens the Apple
17:56
Find my Friend's app and there is the dot on
17:59
the map. The GPS satellite pinpoints Haley's phone directly at
18:04
twenty three Oak Street, Tercira's apartment. Yes, Josie Artin and
18:08
another friend, Michele at Topolly immediately drive over there. They
18:11
bang on the door, silence. They walk around the perimeter
18:14
of the house, look through a window, and they can
18:16
physically see Haley's phone sitting inside the apartment.
18:19
Speaker 2: The instinct that something catastrophic has occurred just takes over completely.
18:23
The door is locked, but they managed to find an
18:25
unlocked window.
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Speaker 1: The sheer courage it takes to do what they did
18:29
next is astonishing. Jody boosted Michelle up and they climbed
18:33
through the window into the apartment. Josie later described the
18:36
horror of that moment. She walked into Sara's bedroom and
18:40
saw Haley tucked into his bed. Oh. She noted how
18:43
terribly pale Haley was, and she saw the visible signs
18:47
of trauma. It was immediately apparent that she was gone.
18:50
They dialed nine one one at twelve point five to
18:53
three pm.
18:53
Speaker 2: And the timeline of that nine to one to one
18:55
call introduces one of the most frustrating legal realities of
18:59
the entire case.
19:00
Speaker 1: I am still furious about this detail. The police respond
19:02
to the roommate's nine to one one call at twelve
19:04
point five three pm, but the records show the police
19:06
had already been to that exact apartment earlier that very
19:09
same morning, before the roommates ever showed up.
19:12
Speaker 2: Yes, while Csarah was fleeing, he sent concerning text messages
19:15
and left a voicemail for his sister expressing suicidal ideations.
19:19
His sister, entirely unaware of the murder but terrified for
19:23
her brother's life, called the Binghamton Police and requested a
19:26
welfare check at twenty three Oak Street.
19:29
Speaker 1: So the Binghamton Police drive to the apartment. They walk
19:31
up to the door, they knock, No one answers. They
19:35
note that Tersero's car is missing from the driveway, and
19:38
then they turn around and leave. Yeah, they leave a
19:41
murder victim inside. How is it possible that trained law
19:46
enforcement officers stand outside the door of a crime scene
19:49
and walk away, but a smartphone app and two college
19:52
students are the ones who actually break the case open.
19:55
Speaker 2: It feels like a massive failure of duty, but it
19:57
is actually a demonstration of the strict legal boundaries established
20:01
by the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.
20:03
Speaker 1: The search and seizure stuff right.
20:05
Speaker 2: The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures.
20:09
When police are dispatched for a welfare check, they are
20:12
operating under what is called the community caretaking function. They
20:16
are not investigating a crime. They're checking on a person's health.
20:20
Speaker 1: But shouldn't a report of suicidal ideation give them the
20:22
right to kick the door down? I mean life or
20:24
death right.
20:25
Speaker 2: Only if there are exigent circumstances meaning an immediate articulable emergency. Okay,
20:32
if they hear someone groaning inside, if they see blood
20:35
seeping under the door, or if they look through a
20:38
window and see someone in distress. The Fourth Amendment allows
20:41
them to bypass the warrant requirement and force entry to
20:44
save a life. But in this case, they knocked, heard nothing,
20:48
saw no signs of a struggle from the exterior, and
20:51
saw that the residen's car was gone, So legally, they
20:55
had no probable cause to breach the door. If they
20:58
had kicked it down without exigent circumstance, Dan says, they
21:00
would have been violating constitutional law. Private citizens, however, like
21:04
roommates acting out of desperate panic, are not bound by
21:08
the Fourth Amendment. They don't need a warrant to climb
21:10
through a window.
21:11
Speaker 1: So the legal protection designed to keep the government from
21:13
invading our privacy inadvertently shielded a murderer's crime scene. That
21:18
is brutal irony, It really is. But once the roommates
21:21
make that discovery, the investigation instantly goes from zero to
21:25
one hundred. The next day, the autopsy confirms homicide. Police
21:29
release a statement that a person of interest has fled
21:32
the United States. By March eleven, Terserro is officially named
21:37
the prime suspect.
21:38
Speaker 2: The psychological shockwave that hit the Binghamton campus was profound.
21:42
The university canceled Monday classes for the senior nursing cohort.
21:46
The university president and the Dean of Nursing issued formal
21:50
statements of mourning. The students had to grapple with the
21:53
reality that the guy they shared study guides with, the
21:56
guy who sat next to them in pharmacology lectures was
21:58
a murderer who was now in a different hemisphere.
22:01
Speaker 1: Which launches us into an absolute jurisdictional nightmare because he
22:05
is in Nicaragua, because of his second suicide attempt. Upon
22:08
arriving in the country, Nicaragua authorities easily located him. He
22:12
was hospitalized in the city of Lyon, and just four
22:15
days after fleeing New York, the Nicaragua National Police arrested
22:19
him at the hospital and transferred him to the notorious
22:21
Alchipodi prison in Monagua. So they have him in handcuffs,
22:25
you would assume the next step is simple, put him
22:28
on a plane, fly him back to New York, put
22:30
him on trial in Broome County. But they didn't happen.
22:33
Speaker 2: It didn't happen because of the rigid mechanics of international
22:36
extradition law. The Broome County District Attorney at the time,
22:40
Steve Cornwall, was publicly despondent. He stated that he believed
22:45
they had a snowball's chance in hell of getting a conviction.
22:48
Fearing Tressa had successfully manipulated the system to get away
22:51
with murder, why.
22:53
Speaker 1: Couldn't the US just demand him back he murdered an
22:56
American citizen on American soil.
22:58
Speaker 2: Because international law is governed by treaties, and sovereignty dictates
23:02
how those treaties are enforced, the Nicaraguan Constitution contains a
23:05
strict provision that generally prohibits the extradition of its own
23:09
national citizens to foreign countries. Way really, yes, this isn't
23:13
unique to Nicaragua either. Many countries, particularly in Latin America
23:18
and Europe, have historical constitutional bans on handing their citizens
23:23
over to foreign judicial systems. It's often rooted in a
23:27
historical distrust of foreign courts or a desire to maintain
23:31
absolute sovereign authority over their populace. Since Tersero held Nicaraguan citizenship,
23:36
their constitution shielded him from being forced onto a plane
23:40
to New York.
23:40
Speaker 1: But Nicaragua didn't just let him walk free. They refused
23:44
to extradite him, but they agreed to try him under
23:46
their own laws in Broome County. Tersera was indicted in
23:50
absentia for second degree murder, but the charge he faced
23:53
in Monagua was fundamentally different. He wasn't charged with murder.
23:57
He was charged with a crime called femicide.
23:59
Speaker 2: And this raises that is an important question right. This
24:01
legal distinction is arguably the most profound sociological lesson of
24:05
the entire case. In the New York Penal Code, second
24:08
degree murder is essentially the intentional killing of another human being.
24:12
It is a gender neutral, relationship neutral statute. The law
24:16
treats the intentional killing of a stranger during a bank
24:19
robbery the exact same way it treats the intentional killing
24:22
of an ex girlfriend in a jealous rage. The charge
24:25
is the same. The motive might be discussed in court,
24:28
but the legal framework doesn't differentiate.
24:31
Speaker 1: But the Latin American legal framework does. Yeh. Femicide isn't
24:35
just an academic buzzword. It is a codified criminal statute.
24:40
It specifically defines the killing of a woman because of
24:43
her gender, usually characterized by the extreme possessiveness, misogyny, and
24:47
entitlement of a male partner. Yes, it legally recognizes that
24:50
the murder wasn't a random act of violence, but the
24:53
terminal point of gender based oppression.
24:55
Speaker 2: Precisely to convict her Sero of femicide, the Nicaraguan prosecute
25:00
didn't just have to prove that he asphyxiated Haley Anderson.
25:03
They had to prove the sociological context that he killed
25:06
her as an ultimate assertion of control, essentially disposing of
25:09
her because she dared to assert her independence and reject
25:12
his ownership. Wow, the law itself acknowledges the architecture of
25:16
the obsession we tracked earlier, the stalking, the tire slashing,
25:19
the weaponized pity.
25:20
Speaker 1: I want you to think about the implications of that
25:22
for a moment. Does the United States legal system miss
25:26
a massive crucial layer of context by not having a
25:30
federal equivalent for femicine.
25:32
Speaker 2: It's a huge debate.
25:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like when we just label it murder, do we
25:36
sanitize the very specific, possessive dynamics of men killing their
25:41
female partners. Do we lose the ability to culturally and
25:44
legally track these crimes as a distinct systemic plague rather
25:49
than just isolated incidents of individual anger.
25:52
Speaker 2: Victim advocates in the United States have argued for years
25:54
that we do lose that context. Naming the specific nature
25:58
of the crime femicidealidates the unique reality of gender based
26:02
violence exactly. It forces the judicial system and society at
26:05
large to confront the systemic entitlement that fuels the violence.
26:09
In a deeply unexpected twist, the Latin American legal framework,
26:13
which initially seemed like a shield for the killer, actually
26:16
provided a more accurate legal definition of his crime than
26:18
American law could.
26:20
Speaker 1: Which forces an unprecedented logistical marvel. The landmark teletrial unbelievable
26:25
to watch. So we are in September and October of
26:28
twenty nineteen. If Nicaragua won't send the suspect to the evidence,
26:32
the United States is going to transmit the evidence to
26:34
the suspect. They executed trial spanning three thousand miles.
26:39
Speaker 2: The orchestration required for this was staggering. In a courtroom
26:43
in Monagua, you have a Nicaraguan judge and the defendant
26:46
Ursero over three thousand miles away. In a room in
26:50
Broome County, New York, you have seventeen American witnesses lined
26:54
up to testify via live stream and secure teleconference software.
26:59
Speaker 1: It is hard to fav the psychological weight of that setup.
27:02
You had real time translators bridging the language gap for
27:05
every single question, every single piece of cross examination. You
27:09
had Karen Anderson, Haley's grieving mother, sitting in a room
27:12
in upstate New York steering into a camera lens, testifying
27:15
about the light her daughter brought into the world, knowing
27:17
that the man who strangled her was watching her on
27:20
a monitor in Central America.
27:21
Speaker 2: I can't imagine the strength that took.
27:23
Speaker 1: Jose Arten testified. Kevin o'campo testified. The Binghamton investigators presented
27:29
the digital evidence, the surveillance footage, the pharmacy receipts, the
27:33
photos of the hanging tie in the basement, the darvo
27:36
laden suicide note.
27:37
Speaker 2: And the prosecution methodically laid out the timeline, successfully establishing
27:42
the core element of the femicide charge, that the murder
27:45
was a premeditated reaction to rejection and a manifestation of
27:49
extreme entitled jealousy.
27:52
Speaker 1: And what was the defensive strategy facing that mountain of
27:55
digital and forensic evidence. They tried to claim temporary insanity
27:58
induced by alcohol.
28:00
Speaker 2: Right.
28:00
Speaker 1: They tried to paint a picture of Tersero being so
28:02
black out intoxicated that he lacked the mental capacity to
28:06
understand what he was doing. But I don't understand how
28:08
a defense attorney can even present that argument with a
28:11
straight face given his actions immediately after the murder.
28:14
Speaker 2: They presented it out of desperation, and it completely disintegrated.
28:17
Under basic neurobiological and investigative scrutiny, the prosecutors proved there
28:22
was zero evidence of extreme intoxication. But more importantly, the
28:26
defense's own psychiatric expert failed to confirm any state of
28:30
temporary insanity.
28:31
Speaker 1: Because of his executive functioning right exactly.
28:33
Speaker 2: Executive function is the cognitive process that allows us to plan, focus, attention,
28:38
remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Okay, severe intoxication
28:43
destroys executive function, but look attertersro's post murder behavior. He
28:48
cleans up the scene, he takes up the garbage. He
28:51
navigates a pharmacy to buy specific medications. He writes a coherent,
28:55
emotionally manipulative note in Spanish.
28:58
Speaker 1: That's a lot of steps, it is.
29:00
Speaker 2: He successfully drives a vehicle for over three hours through
29:03
state highways to JFK airport. He navigates an international terminal,
29:07
checks luggage, and boards a flight to a specific country
29:10
where he holds dual citizenship. You cannot execute a highly calculated,
29:14
multi stage international evasion if your brain is incapacitated by
29:19
temporary alcohol induced insanity.
29:22
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? Well, the Nicaraguin judge
29:24
saw right through the defense's smoke screen. On November one,
29:27
ten nineteen, the verdict was delivered. Orlando Tersero was found
29:31
guilty of femicide. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison,
29:34
and under Nicaraguan law, thirty years is the absolute maximum
29:38
sentence allowable.
29:39
Speaker 2: He did attempt to appeal the verdict. In early twenty twenty.
29:42
His legal team sought to have the charge downgraded from
29:45
femicide to simple homicide, which would have stripped away the
29:48
gender based context, and had his sentenced to fifteen years,
29:52
but on March tenth, twenty twenty, the Nicaraguan cords unequivocally
29:56
denied the appeal. He remains incarcerated in Elchipodi, serving out
30:00
his three decades.
30:02
Speaker 1: The relief for Haley's family was palpable, though obviously intertwined
30:06
with the permanence of their grief. Karen Anderson expressed profound
30:10
shock and gratitude that they could successfully collaborate with a
30:14
foreign judicial system to secure a conviction. DA Steve Cornwell,
30:18
who initially thought all was lost, publicly thanked the Nicaraguan
30:21
authorities for their dedication to the process. It was a
30:24
monumental triumph of international legal cooperation.
30:27
Speaker 2: But the gavel coming down does not mean the story ends.
30:30
The legal resolution only marks the beginning of the societal reckoning.
30:34
We have to examine what this tragedy exposed about the
30:36
system's designed to protect young adults.
30:39
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the university's role in this. Bighamton University
30:43
was devastated, but this case exposed a massive systemic blind
30:48
spot in how higher education institute institutions handle off campus
30:52
domestic violence.
30:53
Speaker 2: It really did.
30:54
Speaker 1: When violence happens in a dorm room, the university has
30:56
immediate jurisdiction, but when students move into off campus apartments,
31:01
the jurisdictional and disciplinary lines become incredibly blurry.
31:05
Speaker 2: This is a critical failing related to Title Knights and
31:08
the Cleary Act. Universities are mandated to track and respond
31:12
to gender based violence, but their mechanisms are often heavily
31:15
reactive and geographically limited. If a student is being stalked,
31:20
or if their tires are slashed off campus by another student,
31:23
the university disciplinary apparatus is often entirely unaware, unless the
31:27
victim successfully navigates a convoluted, highly bureaucratic formal reporting.
31:31
Speaker 1: Process, which most don't exactly.
31:34
Speaker 2: Haley's death forced a harsh spotlight on this gap. Institutions
31:38
had to ask themselves, if we are responsible for the
31:41
welfare of our student body, how do we monitor escalating
31:45
threats when the danger isn't a stranger lurking in a
31:47
dark alley, but the person sitting next to the victim
31:50
in a pharmacology lecture. The systems are not designed to
31:53
proactively intervene in the messy drama that we discussed earlier.
31:57
Speaker 1: And that is why Haley's family and friends have channeled
32:00
their unimaginable grief into advocacy. Friends like Melanie Heeney volunteer
32:05
with organizations like RAIN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
32:09
They are doing the grueling work of trying to educate
32:12
young people about these exact red flags. They are trying
32:15
to teach people how to install those screens on their
32:17
emotional open doors.
32:18
Speaker 2: It is also worth noting how the media ecosystem has
32:21
handled this legacy. The true crime genre frequently devolves into
32:24
cheat sensationalism, focusing entirely on the morbid details of the
32:28
killer psychology. We see that all the time, but the
32:30
coverage of Hailey Anderson's case from forty eight hours to
32:33
the various journalistic deep dives has largely succeeded in keeping
32:37
the focus where it belongs, on the systemic normalization of
32:41
possessiveness and on the vibrant, empathetic life that was stolen.
32:45
Speaker 1: We have traced a truly staggering trajectory today, a bright,
32:49
compassionate nursing student whose empathy was met with a lethal
32:53
demand for control. A case was broken why open not
32:56
by the constitutional limits of police protocol, but by modern
32:59
smart phone technology and the sheer determination of her friends,
33:03
and a final resolution achieved through an unprecedented cross border
33:07
legal marvel utilizing a legal framework femicide. It understood the
33:11
crime better than our own laws could. Or Atlanta Churteriro
33:14
sits in a Central American prison for the next thirty years,
33:16
and if he ever steps foot on American soil again,
33:19
a New York warrant for second degree murder is waiting
33:21
for him.
33:22
Speaker 2: It is a profound measure of justice, but it leaves
33:25
us with an uncomfortable philosophical tension about the tools we
33:28
rely on. We opened by discussing the absolute precision of
33:32
the digital footprint. An app can give you an exact
33:35
GPS ping on a map in milliseconds, it can lead
33:39
two terrified roommates directly to a bedroom window.
33:42
Speaker 1: But the technology only works after the tragedy has already occurred.
33:45
Speaker 2: Exactly, we have perfected the technology to track a phone,
33:48
but we are completely failing to track the analog, messy,
33:52
invisible signs of human darkness that operate in plain sight.
33:56
The red flags, the possessiveness, the slash tires, the sobs stories.
34:00
We carry devices in our pockets that can pinpoint our
34:03
exact location anywhere on the globe, but we still fundamentally
34:07
struggle to recognize the psychological warning signs of an abuser
34:10
sitting right across from us at the coffee shop.
34:12
Speaker 1: Wow.
34:13
Speaker 2: This leaves us with a necessary challenge. What societal and
34:16
emotional tools must we build to track the red flags
34:19
before the GPS tracker is the only thing left to find.
34:22
Speaker 1: That is the question you all have to carry forward.
34:24
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep
34:27
asking the hard questions, keep checking the emotional engine lights,
34:30
look out for your friends, and most importantly, stay curious.