Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Texas Mother's 2015 Disappearance Uncovers Auto Shop Murder Plot: "Who Could Do That?"

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Texas Mother's 2015 Disappearance Uncovers Auto Shop Murder Plot: "Who Could Do That?" · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we're stepping away from
• 0:02
  the big city crime stories, heading into well into the
• 0:06
  heart of small town America. Graham, North Texas, twenty fifteen.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Right, Graham is that kind of classic small American town,
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  you know, maybe eight thousand people, about eighty miles out
• 0:17
  from Fort Worth, tight knit community, local businesses. Life moves
• 0:21
  a bit slower, or it seems to.
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  Speaker 1: Seems to exactly, because in June twenty fifteen, that quiet
• 0:28
  was just shattered. A twenty two year old woman, Leah
• 0:31
  Martin vanished.
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  Speaker 2: And Leo wasn't just anyone. She was, by all accounts,
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  this incredibly vibrant young mom worked as a receptionist at
• 0:38
  a local place. Blair's autobody really well liked.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And what started, as you know, a missing person case,
• 0:44
  which is terrifying enough in a small town, it don't
• 0:46
  revel really quickly. It turned into this this shocking murder plot.
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  Speaker 2: The plot rooted in secrets, professional jealousy, domestic betrayal, all
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  happening right there inside the walls of the auto shop
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  where she worked.
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  Speaker 1: It's churing. The conspiracy was hatched.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Right there, absolutely, and that's what we're digging into. Today.
• 1:02
  How did things go so wrong? How did personal lives
• 1:05
  and work lives get so tangled up that it led
• 1:07
  to murder. We're using investigator accounts, family interviews, source material
• 1:12
  like the Oxygen show Buried in the Backyard.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Our goal is to really break down that anatomy of betrayal,
• 1:18
  to understand how an idyllic, small town setting could hide
• 1:21
  something so calculated. The question everyone in Graham was asking,
• 1:25
  the one we're asking today is just how could this happen?
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  Who could do something like that?
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  Speaker 2: We want to give you, the listener, a really detailed look,
• 1:33
  not just the what, but the how and the why.
• 1:36
  Understand the mechanics of trust and well greed that allowed
• 1:39
  this to unfold. What are those warning signs when a
• 1:42
  community seems tight but maybe isn't.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, So first, let's talk about Leah Martin herself. To
• 1:48
  get the impact, you really need a sense of who
• 1:50
  she was, not just a name but a person.
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  Speaker 1: Her mom, Stagney Martin, described her so beautifully. She called
• 1:56
  her beauty and light and summer sunshine, birds and butterflies.
• 2:00
  Just paints a picture, doesn't it.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: It really does. A free spirit love dancing in the rain, wildflowers,
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  you know, that kind of energy, but grounded too. She
• 2:09
  was only twenty two, but really embracing being a mom
• 2:12
  to her little girl, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: A toddler daughter. That was the core of her life,
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  trying to build something for her, and she brought that
• 2:19
  positive energy to her job at Blair's Autobody.
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  Speaker 2: And Blair's wasn't just some anonymous garage. It was like
• 2:25
  a landmark in Graham. E. C. Blair the owner, he
• 2:28
  was a fixture. People would stop by just to chat,
• 2:31
  grab coffee. It was that kind of place, a.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Real community hub. And Leah steps into this in early
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  twenty fifteen as the receptionist and apparently she fit right in,
• 2:40
  became the friendly face, organizing barbecues for the staff, keeping
• 2:44
  things running.
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  Speaker 2: She really did. But here's where it gets complicated. She
• 2:47
  wasn't just an employee. She was also dating the owner's son,
• 2:50
  Aaron Blair, right, Aaron.
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  Speaker 1: Blair, father of her daughter. They lived together, trying to make.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It work, yeah, trying sources adjust. There was tension there though.
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  Aaron was maybe a bit immature, struggling with the responsibility,
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  while Leo was really looking for stability for her daughter.
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  You know that classic young family dynamic, but with added pressure.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And then the other Blair E C. Blair, Yeah, the owner, the.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Patriot exactly, he hired Leah. He's this described as burly
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  man in his fifties, definitely the boss, in control of
• 3:21
  the shop, his family, everything.
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  Speaker 1: And this is where the lines get incredibly blurred. Leah
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  maybe seeking that stability she wasn't getting from Aaron, maybe
• 3:29
  something else. She starts an affair with E. C.
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  Speaker 2: Blair, her boss, her partner's father.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, that is a minefield professionally, personally, just why it's a.
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  Speaker 2: Huge breach of boundaries. Think about the power dynamic. He's
• 3:43
  the owner, she's the receptionist, and she's involved with his son.
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  It's incredibly messy.
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  Speaker 1: Did people know or is it totally secret?
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  Speaker 2: It seems it started secretively, flirty banter maybe, but it escalated.
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  Her mom Stackney actually found emails after Leah disappeared that
• 3:58
  confirmed it. She said Leah was young in love, or
• 4:01
  at least thought she was.
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  Speaker 1: That's heartbreaking, young, we mean naive, caught up in something
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  way over her head with this powerful older figure. Was
• 4:08
  she looking for love or maybe security stability that Ec represented.
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  Speaker 2: That's a really key question. I think was it about
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  love or was it about what easy could offer? This stability,
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  the provider role that maybe she felt Aaron couldn't. We
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  don't know for sure, but that dynamic is crucial and it.
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  Speaker 1: Didn't stay secret forever. Right Aaron found out.
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  Speaker 2: He did, and when he found out his own father
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  was having an affair with the mother of his child,
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  well you can imagine the arguments were apparently huge, loud,
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  right there in the shop.
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  Speaker 1: So this wasn't some quiet family drama hidden away. It
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  was playing out at work in front of everyone.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly echoing through the service bay, the reception area. Everyone knew,
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  and that includes the other employees.
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  Speaker 1: Which brings us to two key figures, Ross Helms and.
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  Speaker 2: Billy Minkley, right, longtime employees. Hellams was the sort of reliable,
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  handyman type Menkly a bit more volatile, had some minor
• 5:01
  run ins with the law before, but both were deeply
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  embedded in the shop like extended family to the Blairs, almost, so.
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  Speaker 1: They're watching all this unfold, this affair, the arguments, They're
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  right in.
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  Speaker 2: The middle of it, completely immersed and their loyalty, their livelihood,
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  it's all tied up with ec Blair and that kind
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  of close knit, almost claustrophobic environment. It turned out to
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  be the perfect breeding ground for what happened next.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go to the day she disappeared, Thursday, June eighteenth,
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  twenty fifteen. What did that day look like?
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  Speaker 2: Initially started pretty normally. Actually, Leah got to work around
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  eight am, logged calls, dealt with customers, the usual routine.
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  She was even texting Aarin midday during a smoke break,
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  something about picking up their daughter later.
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  Speaker 1: So nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the afternoon.
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  Speaker 2: Right around two PM. That's when things changed. She clocked
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  out early, told a coworker she had a really bad headache,
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  needed to run an errand the time was specific like
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  two point zero.
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  Speaker 1: Five pm an errand vague. That was it. That was
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  the last time anyone saw her, the last.
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  Speaker 2: Time anyone admitted seeing her alive at the charp. Yes,
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  and the first big red flag popped up almost immediately.
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  What was that her car? Her faded blue sedan. It
• 6:11
  was still sitting in the shop parking lot.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, that's weird is she left to run an Errand.
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  Speaker 2: Weirder still, the keys were in the ignition.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, Wow, Okay, no, that's not just weird, that's alarming.
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  A young mom supposedly leaving to run an errand and
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  pick up her kid. She wouldn't just leave her car
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  unlocked with the keys.
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  Speaker 2: In it exactly. That detail alone made investigator suspicious right away,
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  even before she was officially missing. It just didn't fit.
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  Speaker 1: So the alarm bells really started ringing that evening.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, when she didn't show up to get her daughter,
• 6:43
  Aaron knew something was wrong. He called Stackney Leah's mom, panic,
• 6:47
  said him pretty fast. They filed the missing person report
• 6:50
  that same.
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  Speaker 1: Night, and the police response in a small town like Graham.
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  Speaker 2: Alten, Jason Smith took the lead, and he said later
• 6:57
  they treated it as suspicious from the jump. I didn't
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  waste time thinking should just run off the car. The
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  sudden silence from a devoted mom, it pointed to foul play.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: What about the search? I imagine the community pulled together.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Oh massively, Volunteers everywhere searching fields, woods, divers went into
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  the Brazos River, a place Leah liked where she took
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  her daughter for picnics, helicopters, local news hashtag Finallee Martin
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  hashtag on social media the whole town was looking.
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  Speaker 1: That must have been agonizing for the family, especially her little.
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  Speaker 2: Girl, unimaginably so there are reports, you know, of her
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  toddler asking where's my mommy, holding a little stuffed bear
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  Leah had made for her, just heartbreaking.
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  Speaker 1: Did the initial search turn up anything, an he.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Leads frustratingly, No leads dread up fast. Her phone's last
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  ping was near the auto shop, but then nothing, no
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  trace of where she went after clocking out. It strongly
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  suggested whatever happened happened right there or very close by.
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  Speaker 1: So the focus inevitably swings back to the people at
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  the shop, to the Blairs.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Aaron was questioned right away. He was apparently quite
• 8:01
  open about the affair, about his anger, his jealousy. He
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  had motive, for sure, but his worry for Lea seemed
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  genuine to the police.
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  Speaker 1: What about e c the father, the boss, the other
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  man in the affair, He was different.
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  Speaker 2: Investigators described him as evasive cag He tried to downplay everything,
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  claimed Lea just got mad, quit on the spot and
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  stormed off.
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  Speaker 1: Trying to create distance make it seem like it wasn't.
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  Speaker 2: His problem exactly. He seemed more worried about the shop's
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  reputation than finding Leah. Wouldn't make eye contact. Very stone
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  faced was the description. His lack of cooperation definitely raised flags.
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  Speaker 1: But then came something really concrete. Something had appointed to premeditation.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, a huge piece of the puzzle. Lea's dad, Billy Martin.
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  He came forward told police about these anonymous calls he'd
• 8:48
  been getting in the weeks before Leah vanished.
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  Speaker 1: Anonymous calls threatening.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, vicious stuff from a woman using a burner phone,
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  warning Leah threw her dad to stay away from what's mine.
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  Speaker 1: Explicit threats, Wow, stay away from what's mine. That sounds like, well,
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  it could be ECI's wife or someone connected to her,
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  someone trying to protect the Blair family status quo.
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  Speaker 2: That was the immediate thought. Police trace the Berner phone
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  to Wichita Falls, confirming it was external but likely connected.
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  It meant someone was actively deliberately trying to get Leah
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  out of the picture before she disappeared. This wasn't spontaneous,
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  it was planned.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So the burner phone threats add this whole layer
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  of premeditation. The police know something bad happened, likely near
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  the shop, and now they know someone wanted Leah gone.
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  Where do they focus next?
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  Speaker 2: Back to that inner circle at the shop, with ec
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  being evasive and Aaron seemingly genuinely distraught but still a
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  potential suspect. They look hard at the employees who saw everything,
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  Hellam's and Minkley.
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  Speaker 1: The handyman and the more volatile guy. What did they find?
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  Speaker 2: They started digging into their movements, their communications. Small detail
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  started adding up, like Hellam's had apparently had a pretty
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  heated argument with Leah just days before she vanished, so
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  there was friction there too.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, but an argument isn't proof of murder.
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  Speaker 2: No, But then came the phone records that night June eighteenth,
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  after Leah disappeared, Hellams and Minkley called each other frantically
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  more than a dozen times in just one hour.
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  Speaker 1: A dozen calls in an hour. That's not normal shop talk.
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  That sounds like panic coordination exactly.
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  Speaker 2: That level of communication screams something urgent was happening between them.
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  And then surveillance footage What did that show? Took some
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  painstaking work, but investigators lt. Catlan specifically mentioned finding footage
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  from a gas station, grainy but clear enough, it showed
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  a truck matching Hellams pulling away around three.
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  Speaker 1: Am that night, three am, hours after she vanished. Where
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  was it headed.
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  Speaker 2: Toward rural Young County. Remote? Yeah, sparsely populated, the kind
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  of place you'd go if you needed to dispose of something.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So the pieces are starting to fit. EC has
• 10:52
  a moto protect his marriage, business reputation. Helm's and Minkley
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  are acting suspiciously, communicating intensely, and hellm truck is seen
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  heading to a remote area late at night.
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  Speaker 2: Right as Lt. Catlan put it, EC might have had
• 11:06
  the why, but Hellam's he was the handyman at the
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  shop that could probably do the job. He had the means,
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  the access, the loyalty.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe to EC it's a strong circumstantial case, but they
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  still need something more concrete, especially for murder charges.
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  Speaker 2: They did, and the break came in July twenty fifteen,
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  and it came from inside Hellams's own family, really his
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  cousin Arminique Jefferson. She went to the police, said Ross
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  was acting well, completely freaked out, nervous, erratic, kept muttering
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  about having fixed a problem for the Blair.
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  Speaker 1: Fixed a problem, chilling euphemism.
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  Speaker 2: And then the clincher he talked about burying a package.
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  Speaker 1: A package, dehumanizing Lea like that.
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  Speaker 2: Wow. So what did the police do with this information?
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  Speaker 1: They realized Jefferson was their key. They wired her up,
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  got her to talk to Helms again, recording the conversation.
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  Speaker 2: And he confessed on tape he did spilled the whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't a crime of passion, not jealousy. It was
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  transactional greed, misplaced loyalty, maybe fear.
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  Speaker 2: Of ec So what were the mechanics? How did they
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  actually do it?
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  Speaker 1: It was brutal and calculated. Hellam's admitted luring Lea to
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  a backlot near the shop the excuse he needed help
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  with a flat tire, something she wouldn't question coming from a.
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  Speaker 2: Coworker, a setup, using the everyday environment of the shop
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  against her. Exactly, once she was isolated back there, Minkly
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  ambushed her, hit her in the head with a tire.
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  Speaker 1: Iron, a tire iron, a tool from the shop.
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  Speaker 2: God while Hellam's held her down. It was quick, brutal,
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  and planned, and.
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  Speaker 1: The motive was confirmed. Why did they do it?
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  Speaker 2: Money? Helen's confessed Easy Blair paid them five thousand dollars
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  to handle Leah.
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  Speaker 1: Five thousand dollars. That's it. To end someone's life.
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  Speaker 2: That figure is just staggering in its coldness, isn't it.
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  Ecy was terrified she'd expose the affair, maybe sue for
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  child support, destroy his marriage. His business is standing in Graham,
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  and he apparently thought five thousand dollars was enough to
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  buy her silence permanently.
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  Speaker 1: And Helm said Easy specifically told them how to do it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the instruction was clear. Make it look like she
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  ran off stage of the scene, make her disappear.
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  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. Five thousand dollars for two employees he'd known for
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  years to commit murder for him.
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  Speaker 2: With that confession on tape, the police had what they needed.
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  They raided the shop, raited Hellam's property, and in a
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  tool shed on Hellam's property they found it. Praises of
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  Lea's blood her DNA.
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  Speaker 1: That's it. Then the case is blown wide open. It's
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  no longer a missing person case. It's a murder conspiracy.
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  All they needed now was to find Leah herself.
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  Speaker 2: So they had the confession, the physical evidence, But then
• 13:36
  things take another really dark turn, completely unrelated, but it
• 13:40
  ends up being pivotal. What happened in August twenty fifteen,
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  Billy Minkley, the guy who Hellam said delivered the fatal
• 13:47
  blow with the tire iron. He gets linked to a
• 13:49
  different crime entirely, a really violent one.
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  Speaker 1: Another crime, what was it?
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  Speaker 2: A triple homicide in Fort Worth from back in twenty fourteen,
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  a botched robbery that left three people dead. Minkly becomes
• 14:01
  a prime suspect.
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  Speaker 1: Wait, so the guy involved in Leah's murder might also
• 14:04
  be a suspect and a triple.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Murder exactly, And this changes everything for the investigators in Graham.
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  Suddenly Minkley isn't just facing charges for Leah's murder. He's
• 14:13
  potentially looking at the death penalty multiple times over in
• 14:16
  Terren County.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: That puts incredible pressure on him, immense pressure.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Interrogation footage reportedly shows him just falling apart, crying, yelling,
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  the weight of it all crashing down. He confessed to
• 14:28
  the Fort Worth's shootings.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And confessing to that it kind of solidified his capacity
• 14:34
  for violence, didn't it?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Elson Smith said, as much. It proved Minkly could have
• 14:38
  no problem killing Leah. He wasn't just some guy who
• 14:41
  got talked into something. He was capable of extreme violence.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So, facing the death penalty for the triple homicide, did
• 14:48
  he try to make a deal.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, That's his only leverage to avoid execution for the
• 14:54
  Fort Worth murders. He offers up everything he knows about
• 14:57
  the gram plot. He flips decides to testify against Helen's
• 15:00
  and crucially against E. C.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Blair. So he corroborated Hellam's confession and added more.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Detail, Yes, excruciating detail. He confirmed Easy approached them back
• 15:09
  in May twenty fifteen, right after Lea had apparently threatened
• 15:12
  to expose the affair. He laid out the whole plan,
• 15:15
  the payment, everything.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Did he tell him where Leo was?
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: He did? That was the final piece. He described taking
• 15:20
  her body out to that remote area in Young County,
• 15:23
  and the way he described it, it was chilling. How So,
• 15:26
  he apparently bragged about it in a weird way, said,
• 15:28
  I dug the nicest hole I could, Like he took
• 15:31
  some kind of perverse pride in the concealment. He told
• 15:33
  them exactly where under a mesquite tree, shallow grave.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Oh my god. So they finally found her.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: On August fifteenth, twenty fifteen. Following Minkley's directions, they unearthed
• 15:43
  her remains. Finally, after months of searching an uncertainty, her
• 15:47
  family had her back, even in the worst possible way.
• 15:50
  What did the autopsy show confirmed what the confessions indicated?
• 15:55
  Blunt forced trauma to the head, consistent with the tire iron. Importantly,
• 15:59
  there were no signs of sexual assault. This reinforced the motive.
• 16:03
  It wasn't about sexual violence. Who was about silencing her,
• 16:05
  controlling the situation.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: So with the body recovered, the confessions the physical evidence,
• 16:12
  arrests followed quickly.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Immediately, Hellams and Minkley were charged with capital murder. E. C.
• 16:17
  Blair was arrested for solicitation of capital murder hiring them
• 16:20
  to do it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And Aaron Leah's boyfriend, e ci Son, he.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Was officially cleared. Investigators determined he wasn't involved in the plot,
• 16:29
  just the devastated boyfriend caught in this horrifying family betrayal.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it moves to the courts. What happened at
• 16:35
  the trials? This must have been huge news in Graham.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Huge The trials took place over the next couple of
• 16:41
  years twenty sixteen twenty seventeen. Minkley was the star witness
• 16:45
  for the prosecution, testifying against both Hellam's and E. C. Blair.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the outcomes. What sentences did they get?
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Star with Hellams Ross Hellams, the handyman who lured Leah
• 16:57
  and held her down. He was convicted of capital murder.
• 17:00
  He got twenty years for that, plus another twenty years
• 17:02
  for tampering with evidence the burial, so forty years total.
• 17:05
  He's serving it now at the Alred unit.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Okay and Minkley, the one who used the tire iron,
• 17:10
  confessed to the triple murder.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Because he testified, he avoided the death penalty. He pleaded guilty.
• 17:15
  As part of the deal received life without parole. The
• 17:18
  fort Worth charges were essentially rolled into that breez. He's
• 17:21
  at the Telford unit.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Life without parole. That seems appropriate given everything. Now what
• 17:26
  about E. C. Blair, the man who paid for it all?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: This was the most contentious trial the community. Leah's family.
• 17:33
  They saw him as the ultimate villain, the architect. His
• 17:36
  defense tried to argue entrapment, basically saying Minkly, this known killer,
• 17:41
  framed E. C. To save himself.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Did that argument hold any water? Not?
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Really, the evidence was too strong. You had Jefferson's wiretap
• 17:49
  recording Hellms talking about the payment before Minkley was even
• 17:53
  arrested for the triple homicide. You had the phone records
• 17:56
  showing Ecy's frantic calls to both men that night. The
• 17:59
  jury didn't by the entrapment.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Defense, so he was convicted of solicitation.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, convicted of solicitation of capital murder. But the sentence,
• 18:07
  this is what caused the outrage. He only received ten years.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Ten years for hiring two men to murder the mother
• 18:14
  of his grandchild, compared to forty years for Helm's and
• 18:17
  life for.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Minkley, exactly ten years. The disparity was just shocking to
• 18:22
  many people. Solicitation carries a lesser maximum sentence than capital
• 18:26
  murder legally, but emotionally ethically, it felt deeply unjust to
• 18:31
  the community and especially to Leah's family.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine that quote from Stagney Martin Leea's mom.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: It says it all. She told the court Ecy bought
• 18:39
  her life like it was a used part. That just
• 18:41
  cuts right to the bone, doesn't it. The callousness, the transactionality,
• 18:45
  and a ten year sentence felt like the system almost
• 18:48
  agreed with that valuation.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: So E. C. Blair gets ten years Hellams gets forties,
• 18:53
  Minkly gets life. What happens in Graham after the dust settles?
• 18:57
  What's the immediate fallout?
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Well, first, Blair's autobody couldn't survive this, the place where
• 19:03
  it all happened, It became toxic. It closed down pretty
• 19:06
  soon after ECI's conviction. Just sits there now, apparently like
• 19:09
  a reminder, silent ghosts of the past, as one source
• 19:12
  put it, a.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Constant visible scar on the town. And what about Lea's daughter?
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Hmmmm, and Aaron, that's the real human tragedy ongoing. Aarin
• 19:21
  understandably was devastated, filled with guilt, grief. He needed to
• 19:25
  get away from the Blair name, the town, gossip, everything.
• 19:27
  He relocated with his daughter.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Old would she be now?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: She'd be a preteen now, growing up without her mom?
• 19:32
  Just with photos stories, Aarin apparently makes a real effort
• 19:35
  to keep Lea's memory alive for her, especially on birthdays holidays,
• 19:39
  tells her stories about her mom.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: That's incredibly sad. Does the community feel like justice was
• 19:44
  truly served even with convictions?
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: There's definitely a sense of incompletion, lingering, questions, whispers that
• 19:53
  never quite went away, Like what well for one the
• 19:56
  question not aarin. Officially he was cleared, but some people
• 19:59
  in town I still wonder was he completely innocent? Did
• 20:03
  his anger, his jealousy about the affair somehow contribute to
• 20:06
  ECI's desperation even if he wasn't in on the murder
• 20:10
  planet itself. It's that idea of, you know, moral complicity
• 20:13
  even without direct action.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: That's a heavy shadow for him to live under, even
• 20:17
  if he moved away.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: What else the informant Armonique Jefferson, the cousin who wore
• 20:22
  the wire. She was crucial, but she disappeared from Graham
• 20:25
  not long after the trial. Disappeared Why There were rumors
• 20:28
  of threats against her and also speculation did she get
• 20:32
  a cut of the original five thousand dollars payoff somehow,
• 20:35
  or maybe paid off later to keep quiet about anything
• 20:37
  else she knew. Her sudden absence leaves this kind of
• 20:40
  unsettling loose.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: End and easie Blair himself with a ten year sentence.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: He didn't serve the full ten He was out on
• 20:46
  parole by twenty twenty three, out already. Yeah. He apparently
• 20:50
  lives quietly now on the edge of Graham, but sources
• 20:53
  say he's basically an outcast shunned by former friends, business contacts.
• 20:58
  The legal sentence might be over, but the social sentence
• 21:01
  in a town like Graham that lasts a lifetime.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: It circles back to what Stagney Martin said, justice, it's
• 21:07
  a word, but Lee is gone. No sentence changes that
• 21:11
  fundamental loss exactly.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: But the tragedy did have some impact beyond the sentences.
• 21:16
  It really shook Graham to.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Its core in what way.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: There was a noticeable increase in community watch programs afterwards.
• 21:22
  People became more vigilant, and really importantly, there was a
• 21:25
  push for more domestic violence awareness programs, a recognition that
• 21:29
  danger isn't always external. Sometimes it's right next door behind
• 21:32
  a familiar face.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: A hard lesson learned. What about l Ten Smith, the
• 21:36
  lead investigator.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: He actually got promoted after handling this case. He speaks
• 21:40
  about it now, sometimes using it as a warning about
• 21:43
  unchecked secrets. He called the murder pointedly a failure of
• 21:47
  those around her to speak up, a failure of the community,
• 21:49
  maybe the employees to intervene before it was too late.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: That's a powerful statement. Is Leea's memory honored in any way?
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Now? Yes, thankfully, there's a scholarship fund set up in
• 21:59
  her name. It's specifically helps single mothers who are pursuing
• 22:02
  vocational training, trying to provide that stability Leah herself was seeking.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: That's a beautiful tribute practical too.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: And people plant butterfly gardens around town for her, a
• 22:12
  symbol of that light and summer sunshine. Her mother described
• 22:16
  trying to bring something positive out of such darkness hashtag
• 22:19
  tag outro So that's.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Our deep dies into the gram autoshop murder plot, a
• 22:25
  story that just rips away the facade of peaceful small
• 22:28
  town life and exposes how fragile trust can be.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: It really does you see how secrets, professional pressure, and
• 22:34
  family dysfunction can curdle into something deadly right under everyone's noses.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: And the cost is immense. A young life taken, a
• 22:42
  family shattered, a little girl growing up with this huge
• 22:45
  hole in her life, a town left grappling with betrayal
• 22:48
  from within.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: It forces you to confront that question. Leah's mother asked,
• 22:52
  who could do that? And when you learn the answer
• 22:54
  involves longtime employees, a respected business owner, and a payment
• 22:57
  of just five thousand dollars.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Five thousand dollars, it keeps coming back to that number.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: It does. If that's the price put on a life
• 23:04
  to protect reputation and money in a small family business,
• 23:08
  what does that say about loyalty, about greed, About the
• 23:13
  hidden currents running beneath the surface of places we think
• 23:15
  are safe.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: It suggests we need to pay much closer attention. Listen
• 23:19
  to the whispers, notice the cracks, maybe question the surface
• 23:22
  appearance is a bit more even in, or maybe especially
• 23:25
  in the places that seem the most familiar and secure.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: A chilling thought to end on.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Indeed, thank you for joining us for the deep dive.