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Michigan Police Investigate Possible Serial Killer on Trail · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So on August 20th, 2026, police find this 22-year-old man, right,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: stabbed to death on the Lansing River Trail.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a horrific discovery.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Totally. And they actually arrested a suspect pretty quickly.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Which normally makes you think, well, case closed.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Case closed. Except resolving that one specific murder might
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: have accidentally provided cover for, like, a serial killer?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, someone who spent the entire summer bludgeoning older men
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: to death in that exact same spot.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Which is just wild to think about.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: It's terrifying, honestly. And that is the real terrifying reality
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: of pattern recognition in law enforcement. Right. You pull this
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: one thread, you know, hoping to untangle a knot.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And suddenly the whole thing unravels.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You find yourself staring at this completely different, just
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: much darker tapestry.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Wow. Because I feel like human nature desperately wants to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: package isolated incidents into like neat singular resolutions.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, totally. We crave the neat bow, but crime, especially
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: violent crime in these transitional urban spaces, it basically never
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: affords us that luxury.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. Which brings us to the core
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: mission of today's Deep Dive.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We are looking at this developing real-time investigation happening right
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: now in Lansing, Michigan.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: A really complex one.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Super complex. And the source material we're deconstructing for you
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: today is a single, highly detailed article.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, published on October 8, Right.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: By Samira Azma Sadiq for, of all places, People Magazine.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Which is fascinating in itself.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: It really is. So, okay. Let's unpack this. We are
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: looking at a string of five separate killings. Five. Yeah, five.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: All concentrated along the Lansing River Trail, taking place between
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: October 2025 and August 2026.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: That's a very specific window. It is.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: But before we even get into that timeline... before we
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: touch the forensic details of these horrific crimes, we kind
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: of have to talk about the physical footprint of this
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: source text.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Or really the digital footprint.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Because if we connect this to the bigger picture,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the architecture of digital news right now is just, it's surreal.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, it really is. The medium absolutely shapes the message here. Right.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: It surrounds a horrific murder with ads for, like, fall fashion.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: It literally turns human suffering into ambient noise on a screen.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Ambient noise.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: When we analyze a text like this People magazine article,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: we aren't just analyzing police facts.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: No, we're analyzing this societal mirror. It reflects exactly how
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: we consume tragedy today.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the context fundamentally alters how we process it mentally.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, 100%.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Because I was reading this and I found myself experiencing
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: this profound mental whiplash. Just looking at the layout of
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the page.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Just the juxtaposition of it all.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It's insane. We are reading this deeply disturbing report about
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: blunt force murders targeting this incredibly vulnerable unhoused population.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Right. Real human tragedy.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And literally flanking this text baked right into the top
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: site navigation tabs are clickable links for sweepstakes. Oh, yeah.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Sexiest man alive. Royals and shopping sales and deals.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: It's jarring.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: It is so jarring. I have to wonder if this
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: algorithmic packaging fundamentally alters how you and I actually process
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: grief and danger.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Well, it definitely commodifies it.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Does it turn a localized reign of terror into just
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: another piece of consumable lifestyle content?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, arguably, yes. Right in the middle of a
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: paragraph detailing how a 70-year-old man was brutally beaten under
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: a bridge.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, I saw this, yeah.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: The site just injects this italicized prompt.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Right. The newsletter thing.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Yes. It says, want to keep up with the latest
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: crime coverage? Sign up for people's free true crime newsletter.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Right in the middle of the murder details.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Literally in the middle of the text, it treats real
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: world violence the exact same way a culinary blog treats
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: like a new recipe drop.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: That is such a good comparison.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Think about the cognitive dissonance required for you, the reader,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: to navigate that digital space.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: You just have to kind of shut down a part
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: of your empathy, I think. You do.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: The website's architecture categorizes serial killers and cults as standard
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: verticals right alongside food and pets.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Pets and serial killers.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Wow. Right. This commodification speaks volumes about our collective appetite
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: for morbid curiosity.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: We want the thrill, but safely.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We crave the physiological thrill of the mystery. You know,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: that spike of adrenaline.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: But we demand that it be sanitized.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Cleanly packaged and delivered right between updates on the British
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: royal family and, like, discount codes for seasonal footwear.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It effectively numbs the reader to the reality of the violence.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: It really does numb you.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: If a serial killer is just another tab on a
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: menu bar, the victims sort of cease to be real people.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: They just become characters in a serialized drama.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a drama that exists basically for our entertainment during
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: our lunch break.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: And that numbness, it actually extends to the broader environment
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: that law enforcement is forced to operate in.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: No, how so?
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Well, consider the related article headlines that the algorithm automatically
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: generates at the bottom of this exact same web page.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Oh man, yeah, I scroll down to those.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: The Lansing police are trying to conduct this methodical, highly
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: sensitive investigation.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: They need public focus.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Right, they need the public to be alert, to provide tips,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: to actually understand the nuance of this threat.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: But instead they have to communicate through a media ecosystem
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: that is just Screaming for sensational attention.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Screaming for clicks.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Because the related headlines at the bottom of the piece,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: they are just an avalanche of human suffering.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: It's overwhelming.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: There's this one story about a seven-year-old girl fatally stabbed
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: in Chicago.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Right, prominently featuring quotes from her grieving mother.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Just right next to the Lansing story.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Placed immediately next to multiple updates on that sensationalized saga
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: of the American Idol alum who murdered his wife.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that whole circus.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Those articles highlight all these salacious details about mistresses
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: and statements from the victim's father.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: It's treated like a soap opera.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: And then right beside that one, there's a headline detailing
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: a man who brought flowers before pushing his ex-partner and
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: her eight-month-old child off a balcony.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Good lord. When you stack those tragedies on top of
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: each other like that, presented as clickable entertainment... It becomes
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a blur. It does. You realize the completely impossible task
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the Lansing police face here.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: They are operating in a reality that basically demands constant
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: dopamine-triggering updates.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Which real police work just cannot provide. No, never.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Communicating the slow, agonizing process of a complex investigation to
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: a frantic public becomes incredibly difficult.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Because the public is completely conditioned to expect immediate, dramatic
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: resolutions in 45 minutes, like on TV. Right.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Right. Because all that digital noise completely obscures the very
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: real physical backdrop of these crimes.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Let's pull back from the screen for a second. I
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: want to shift our focus to the actual geography of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the Lansing River Trail.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: The physical environment is so important.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: It is. And more importantly, the deeply unsettling timeline of
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the attacks that occurred out there.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: The timeline is basically the spine of any behavioral profile.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: OK, that makes sense.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: And in this instance, the chronological distribution of the attacks
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: is highly irregular and definitely warrants deep analysis.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt to me like looking at a pressure
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: valve or something, like a dormant volcano.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: That's a good analogy.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Because a nine-month gap, that isn't just silence. It feels
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: like a buildup of psychological pressure until the whole mechanism fails.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: That buildup is crucial to understand.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Look at the data provided by the Lansing Police Department.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Right, let's look at the dates.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: There is one recorded attack in October 2025.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Just the one.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: And then absolutely nothing.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Complete silence.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: The trail is entirely quiet for three quarters of a year.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Nine months.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: But suddenly, in July 2026, the mechanism just breaks.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: It shatters.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Between July 9th and August 30th, four bodies are discovered.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Four victims in basically eight weeks.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: That is an absolute explosion of violence compressed into this
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: tiny span of time.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: And that sudden compression of time is the catalyst that
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: forces a massive shift in investigative strategy.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Because they can't ignore it anymore.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In behavioral analysis, a nine-month hiatus is typically referred
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: to as a cooling-off period.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: A cooling-off period. Okay.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: But that specific duration, nine months, is really significant.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Why is that like the time so important?
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: It prompts critical questions about external constraints on the perpetrator.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Like they didn't just choose to stop?
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Often they don't choose. Did they leave the jurisdiction for employment,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: maybe family obligations?
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, like they literally weren't in Lansing.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Right. Or, very commonly, were they incarcerated in a neighboring
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: county for an unrelated lesser offense?
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Wow. Okay. Like what?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Like a DUI, maybe a petty theft, or a minor
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: assault that temporarily removed them from the streets.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: So they were in a cell, physically unable to hunt
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: on the trail.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Or, um.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Is it possible they simply had the psychological fortitude to
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: suppress their violent urges for nine months before something just snapped?
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: And see, that is the more chilling hypothesis.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: The idea of someone just white knuckling it.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: A stressor like job loss, personal rejection, or just a
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: perceived slight could have triggered this catastrophic escalation we saw
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: in July.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Whatever the reason for the gap. The sudden density of
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: the violence in July and August is what ultimately tips
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the scales for law enforcement.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: They had to acknowledge the pattern.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: If you spread five incidents over five years across an
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: entire city, they might just remain different. files in different
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: detectives' filing cabinets.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Right. They'd never talk to each other.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: But four victims in two months in the exact same
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: geographical corridor.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: You can't unsee it.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: The statistical anomaly just becomes undeniable at that point.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Which undeniably brings us to that October 2nd press briefing.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the one streamed on ABC News.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Right. The article notes police chief Robert Backus stepping up
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: to the microphones.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And his phrasing was super interesting to me.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: The language he uses is fascinating.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I noticed that.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: It's almost surgical in its caution.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Why was he being so careful?
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Well, Chief Backus's rhetoric is a master class in risk management.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Let's actually analyze his specific phrasing from the article.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, lay it on me.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: He stated, we look for information, we look for trends,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: we look for patterns. and we have developed some.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Notice the deliberate omission there.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He does not step up to the podium and declare,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: we are hunting a serial killer.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Because if he uses the term serial killer on live television,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I imagine it triggers this massive wave of public panic.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, massive panic.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Which would just overwhelm their tip lines with false leads
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and garbage data, right?
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Panic is certainly a huge factor.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: But the implications actually go much deeper into the tactical
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: reality of the investigation.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: How so?
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Like, legally.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Legally and strategically, the moment law enforcement officially declares a
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: serial killer, they alter the entire landscape.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: The pressure must be insane.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: The political pressure to make an immediate arrest absolutely skyrockets.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Which leads to mistakes.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Right. But more importantly, it signals to the perpetrator that
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the police have decoded their specific methodology.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. It's like showing your hand in poker. Yes.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: A sophisticated offender monitoring the local news might react by
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: fleeing the jurisdiction entirely.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Because they know they're blown.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Or they might fundamentally change their modus operandi, their MO,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: just to evade capture.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: So they start using a different weapon or hunting in
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: a different neighborhood just to mess up the pattern.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. By employing terms like trends and patterns, Chief Backus
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: issues a strategic warning to the community.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Like, hey, keep your head on a swivel.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Right. Heightening their vigilance without showing the department's full hand
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: to the predator they are actually hunting.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: OK, so we've established the when and the where.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: October 2025. the gap than the summer of 2026.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Right. October 2025, a massive nine-month gap, and then an
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: eruption of violence in July and August, all concentrated on
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the Lansing River Trail.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Now we need to look at the who.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Who exactly is out on that trail during these
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: specific windows?
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to victimology. Right.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Before we list the specific victims from the article, define
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: victimology for me. Is that essentially just Profiling in reverse?
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: That's actually an excellent way to frame it.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, cool.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Victimology isn't just a basic list of who was hurt.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: It's the analytical study of why those specific individuals were
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: selected by the offender.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Why them and not someone else?
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It examines the victim's lifestyles, their physical characteristics, their
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: daily routines, and their social environments.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: To understand the selection criteria.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Right. Predators, particularly those operating sequentially, are rarely just completely random.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: They don't just close their eyes and pick?
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: No. They operate on this subconscious or sometimes highly conscious
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: calculus of risk versus reward.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Okay. Risk versus reward. That makes sense.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: They seek targets that fulfill whatever their psychological needs are
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: while minimizing the likelihood of detection, resistance, or immediate intervention.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And when you apply that calculus to this demographic profile...
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: The tragedy of this case just deepens significantly. It really does.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: The police provided highly specific parameters for the five victims.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, very specific.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: All five are male. All five are white.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: They range widely in age, though, spanning from 22 all
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the way up to 70 years old.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: That's a huge age spread.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: It is. But the connecting thread, the detail emphasized repeatedly
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: in the briefing and the People article, is that all
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: of them are believed to be unhoused.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: So I have to ask, is their unhoused status just
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: a descriptive fact for the police report or is it
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the central motivating reason these men were targeted?
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that the unhoused status is the
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: defining vulnerability that makes these specific crimes possible.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Because they're exposed. Right.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: In the study of serial offenders, we focus heavily on
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: target accessibility.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Accessibility.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: The unhoused population is profoundly isolated from the traditional structural
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: safety nets of society.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they just don't have the backup most people have.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Consider the contrast, right? If an individual with a permanent address,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: a corporate job, and a family fails to return home
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: on a Tuesday night.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: The alarm is raised almost instantly.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Police are notified, cell phone data is pulled, search
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: grids are established within hours.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: But if an unhoused individual disappears from their usual encampment
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: or a spot under a bridge.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: The absence might not be noticed for days or even weeks.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Because there is no employer calling to check in on
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Wednesday morning.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, unhoused individuals are systemically forced to exist in these
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: unprotected transitional spaces.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Like the River Trail.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: The Lansing River Trail is a prime example of this
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: geographic vulnerability.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: It's technically a public space, but it's incredibly isolated at night.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: It lacks the natural surveillance of, say, residential neighborhoods or
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: heavily trafficked commercial districts.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: The article highlights a chilling detail regarding the timeline of
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: the attacks that really compounds this vulnerability.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: At the time of day?
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Chief Backus noted the police suspect each victim was attacked
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: early in the morning on the days they were discovered.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Early in the morning is key here. It points toward
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the pre-dawn hours, perhaps 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Which is pitch black.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: And it is a critical tactical choice by the offender.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Why those specific hours?
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: This window represents the absolute lowest ebb of human activity
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: in an urban environment. Right.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: The bars are closed. Everyone's asleep.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: The late night crowds have completely dispersed, but the early
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: morning commuters and joggers haven't arrived yet.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: It's a dead zone.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: The predator is deliberately waiting for this specific window, striking
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: when their targets are in their absolute deepest sleep cycles.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: They're isolated in the dark with virtually zero statistical probability
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: of witnesses passing by.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Right. It is calculated predatory hunting.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Understanding that extreme vulnerability leads us directly into the brutal
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: methodology of the attacker.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: The M.O., the modus operandi?
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Right, the M.O. When I read through the source material,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: one detail completely upended my expectations of how a crime
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: scene like this actually operates.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: The fact that they weren't dead at the scene?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Yes. In four of the five cases, the victims were
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: not found dead at the scene.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Which completely shatters the popular cultural perception of how serial
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: investigations begin.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Because we are so conditioned by TV to expect the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: static tabla.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: The body in the woods.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: The chalk outline. The yellow tape preserving every single leaf
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and footprint.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: The pristine crime scene.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: But here, four of these men were found catastrophically injured,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: just clinging to life.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: It changes everything about the police response.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: They were transported to local hospitals and died days later.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: It's like a slow motion tragedy. It really is. And
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: it creates this devastating paradox. The very actions required to
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: try and save a victim's life are the exact actions
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: that allow their attacker to go free.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: And that paradox is the absolute nightmare of every forensic investigator.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: When a victim is discovered alive, the scene is instantly
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: classified as a medical emergency, not a homicide investigation.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: That makes sense, but it's terrible for evidence.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: The absolute first uncompromising priority of every first responder is
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: the preservation of life.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: As it should be.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Of course. But imagine you're that paramedic arriving under the bridge.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm there.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: You aren't scanning the dirt for shoe impressions.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: No, I'm running to the guy bleeding on the ground.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You are rushing with heavy equipment directly to the patient.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: You are trampling potential footprints in the mud.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, man.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: You are cutting off the victim's clothing to access wounds
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: and administer life-saving measures.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And tossing those clothes aside.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Inadvertently discarding trace evidence like hairs, fibers, or biological material
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: transferred from the attacker.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Because you're just trying to get a heartbeat.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: You are intubating, applying pressure dressings, rapidly moving the victim
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: onto a backboard and a gurney.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: So the crime scene is essentially just destroyed by the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: rescue effort.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Obliterated. By the time the victim tragically succumbs to their
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: injuries in the ICU three or four days later.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: The legal classification changes from aggravated assault to homicide.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: But the physical location on the trail has been compromised
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: beyond repair at that point. Right.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: The tape wasn't up. It has probably been washed by rain,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: walked over by hundreds of pedestrians and joggers.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: And that golden window for forensic collection, that crucial first
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: 48 hours, is permanently closed.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And the specific nature of the attacks makes this lack
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: of forensic preservation even more damaging, I think.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Because of the weapon.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Chief Pack has stated that all but one victim
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: suffered blunt force trauma, traumatic injuries to the facial area.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: But crucially, no weapon has been identified or recovered in
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the area.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: The absence of a specific weapon introduces a massive variable
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: into the investigation.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: It's so vague.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: It is. With a firearm, you have shell casings, ballistics,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: rifling patterns, gunshot residue.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: So much data.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Even with a bladed weapon, pathologists can often determine the length, width,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: and type of blade.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And they look for defensive wounds that indicate the dynamics
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: of the struggle, right?
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But blunt force trauma without a left-behind weapon.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: It's terrifyingly generic.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: It is. It could be a large rock picked up
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: from the riverbank and subsequently tossed into the water.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Just washed away.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: It could be a piece of discarded rebar, a heavy
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: maglite flashlight, or a specialized tool the offender brings to
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: the scene and takes away with them.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Without a weapon, how did the police even differentiate between
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: a targeted serial attack and like a random tragic street altercation?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: That is the exact friction point of the early investigation here.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: We have to acknowledge the harsh reality of the environment
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: these men lived in.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: The streets are rough.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Unhoused individuals live in states of perpetual extreme stress. Right.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Altercations and violence occur frequently over scarce resources, territory, or
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: just as the result of unmanaged mental health crises.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: So when patrol officers discover an unhoused man badly beaten.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Their initial working theory is rarely a sophisticated serial predator.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: It's just sadly assumed to be normal violence.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: The assumption leans heavily toward a robbery gone wrong, a
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: personal dispute, or a random act of street violence.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Because these early cases were classified as medical emergencies rather
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: than homicides, the police were completely blinded to the pattern.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: They couldn't see the forest for the trees.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Let's look at how that blindness actually played out in
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: real time, case by case. through the fog of this investigation.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: It's a really tragic sequence of events.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's start with victim one, way back in October 2025. Right.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Gino Chouinard.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: 54-year-old Gino Chouinard. He's attacked, found alive, and dies days
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: later in the hospital.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: But the article explicitly notes that the medical examiner ruled
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: his cause of death undetermined.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge roadblock.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: How does a man beaten so badly he ends up
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: dying in the hospital get an undetermined ruling?
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Well, an undetermined ruling is a bureaucratic and investigative dead end.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Basically, file closed.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: It means that despite a thorough autopsy and toxicological screening,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: the forensic pathologist cannot definitively state whether the death was
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the result of homicide, suicide, an accident, or natural causes.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: But if he was beaten in the face, wouldn't the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: trauma be super obvious?
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: The initial trauma is obvious, yes, but the proximate cause
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: of death becomes really murky when there is a delay
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: between the injury and the passing.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Because he was in the hospital for days. Exactly.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: When an unhoused individual with a history of rough living
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: and potentially compromised health survives in a hospital for several days,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: these complex medical cascades occur.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, like their body just starts failing in other ways.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. Did he die directly from the neurological damage of
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: the blunt force trauma? Or did he succumb to a
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: secondary issue, like hospital-acquired pneumonia?
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Did he have a pre-existing cardiac condition that triggered a
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: fatal event while under the immense physiological stress of that
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: initial injury?
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So if the medical examiner cannot definitively isolate the beating
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: as the direct primary cause of death.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: They cannot legally check the homicide box on the death certificate.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: And if it's not legally a homicide, the police department
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: can't allocate homicide detectives or resources to investigate it as
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: a murder.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Gino Chonk's undetermined status acted as a veil.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: It hid the pattern before it even started.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: It completely masked the beginning of the pattern. The police
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: weren't looking for a serial killer because, officially, they didn't
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: even have a single murder on the books yet.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Which completely explains the nine-month gap.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Or at least it explains why the police didn't realize
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: they had a recurring threat during that time.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Right. So the clock ticks forward to the eruption in July.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: July 9th, 2026.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: July 9th, 2026. Victim two, 70-year-old Dennis Dunbaker.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: A 70-year-old man. Just awful.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: An officer finds him under a bridge with apparent facial injuries.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: But there is a very grim, very specific detail in
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the report. He was covered in vomit.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: And this incident perfectly illustrates the concept of medical misdirection.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: And the inherent bias of first responders in these situations.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Chief Beck has actually addressed this directly in the presser.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: He stated that medical personnel initially thought the condition could
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: be medical in nature, creating what he called conflicting information
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: at the scene.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, that phrase is very telling.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I really struggle to understand this when reading the article.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: How does a victim of a severe facial beating get
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: mistaken for someone having a natural medical event?
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: You have to reconstruct the sensory reality of that specific
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: moment for the paramedics.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, set the scene.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: It is dark. The environment is a dirty concrete underpass.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: The patient is a 70-year-old man who lives exposed to
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: the elements. Right. He is unresponsive, and he has vomited
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: on himself.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Before a detailed clinical examination can take place under the
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: bright lights of an emergency room, the immediate cognitive leap
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: for a paramedic on the ground often defaults to the
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: most statistically common scenarios for that specific demographic.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: They just play the odds.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The assumption might be severe alcohol poisoning. an opioid overdose,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: a stroke, or maybe a catastrophic diabetic emergency.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: But what about the facial injuries? They were obvious enough
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to note later.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: In the chaotic rush to stabilize the patient, those facial
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: injuries might be hastily contextualized as secondary trauma.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Meaning what?
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Like he fell.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: The assumption is that he suffered a systemic medical episode, collapsed,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: and sustained the facial trauma when his face struck the
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: concrete ground.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: The presence of vomit reinforces the theory of internal systemic
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: failure rather than an external physical assault.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: So once again, the initial data entering the police system
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: is coded as a tragic health event.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Delaying the mobilization of a criminal investigation.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: It's incredibly tragic. These men are essentially falling through the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: cracks of the diagnostic process itself.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: They are.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: But then the timeline compresses drastically and the fog finally
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: begins to lift.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Just four days later.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Just four days after Dennis is found, on July 13,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: we have victim three. Robert Smith, 57 years old.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Found bleeding from his head, unconscious.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: He dies days later, but this time, his manner of
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: death is definitively ruled a homicide.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: And that is the first concrete data point for the police.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: And then, just weeks later on August 30, victim five.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Louis Woodruff.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Louis Woodruff, also 57. Found under a bridge bleeding from
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the head. dies days later, also definitively ruled a homicide.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: This is the exact moment the pattern solidifies for investigators.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: The matching details are crazy.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Look at the variables aligning here. You have Robert Smith
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: and Louis Woodruff, two men identical in age at 57.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Both located in the exact same environmental context.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Right, under a bridge on the river trail.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Both suffering from catastrophic blunt force trauma to the head.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Both experiencing delayed deaths in the hospital.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: And both legally ruled homicides.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Once the Lansing Police Department has these two undeniable, identical
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: data points.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: They can finally engage in retroactive analysis.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: They look backward. They pulled a file on Dennis, the
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: 70-year-old who supposedly had a medical event under a bridge
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: just days before Robert Smith.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And they realize it wasn't a stroke. Right.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: And they pull the file on Gino, the undetermined death
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: from the previous October.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Suddenly, the isolated incidents are overlaid. The misdiagnoses are corrected.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And this terrifying picture of a serial predator emerges. The
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: dots connect perfectly. The MO, the victimology, the geography. It's
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: a perfect horrifying match.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Except for one massive complication. Right.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Wait, I skipped victim four.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: You did.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: And in pattern recognition, the anomaly is often the key
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: to the whole data set.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And the source material here throws a massive curveball right
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: in the middle of this sequence.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Right in the middle of August.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. August 20th. right between
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the homicides of Robert Smith and Louis Woodruff. The police
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: find 22-year-old Daniel Lusk.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: The Lusk case isn't just a curveball. It's the fulcrum
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: on which the entire investigation currently balances.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Because Daniel breaks almost every single rule of the established pattern.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the why behind these deviations. First off, age.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: A huge deviation.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: The other victims were 54, 70, 57, and 57.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Older men.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Daniel Lusk was 22.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: He's practically a kid compared to the others.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Second, the method. The article explicitly states he was the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: only person stabbed.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: No blunt force trauma to the face. A bladed weapon
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: was used.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Third, the outcome. He was the only victim found deceased
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: at the scene.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: There was no delayed hospital death. He died on the trail.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Those are major discrepancies.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Why would a predator who prefers the intimate, brutal, and
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: physically exhausting act of bludgeoning older men suddenly switch to
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the quick, precise mechanics of a bladed weapon on a 22-year-old?
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Psychologically, those are two entirely different profiles.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: They seem profoundly different to me.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: They are. Serial offenders generally develop a signature, a psychological
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: compulsion that dictates how they commit the crime.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Which is different from the M.O., right?
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Yes. The MO is just what is necessary to accomplish
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: the crime. The signature is the psychological need.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Right, okay.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Bludgeoning an older sleeping man to death requires a very
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: specific type of rage, power dynamics, and physical proximity.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: It's very hands-on.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Stabbing a 22-year-old suggests a completely different encounter.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Like a fight.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It might indicate a confrontation, a robbery, or a
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: sudden escalation of a dispute.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: From a behavioral analysis standpoint, is it common for an
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: offender to change their methodologies this drastically?
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: No. It is incredibly rare for an offender to switch
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: up their style in the middle of a concentrated cluster
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: of attacks like this.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: So what does that mean?
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: It forces investigators to entertain the deeply unsettling possibility that
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: there are two separate, unrelated killers operating in the same
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: geographic space at the same time.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Two killers... On the same trail in the same summer.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: It's a statistical nightmare.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: And here is the biggest development in the article. Police
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: actually made an arrest in the Daniel Lust case.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: They did.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: They arrested a man named Edward Joseph Smith. And they
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: hit him with an open murder charge, which seems like
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: a smart move by the Michigan prosecutors.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: It is a very strategic charge.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Because it keeps them locked up while they figure out
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: if it was premeditated first degree or a spontaneous second
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: degree attack, right?
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The open murder charge provides legal flexibility in Michigan.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: It buys them time.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: It secures the suspect in custody and initiates the judicial process,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: allowing investigators time to conduct forensic analysis, interview witnesses, and
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: determine the precise nature of intent.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: All without prematurely committing to a specific degree of murder
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: in the initial charging documents.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Right, which could be hard to walk back later in court.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: But this charge only applies to the stabbing of the 22-year-old,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Daniel Lusk.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Only the stabbing.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: It does not apply to the four blunt force beatings.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Which leaves this massive, heavy question hanging over the Lansing
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Police Department.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: And frankly, over this entire deep dive we're doing right now.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Is Edward Joseph Smith the serial killer who terrorized the trail?
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Or did he just commit a horrific one-off murder that
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: coincidentally happened to occur on the same trail during the
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: same summer?
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: That is the million-dollar question.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: And this is the agonizing reality of complex police work.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Let's look at Chief Backus' quote regarding the suspect because
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: it reveals the immense restraint the department is exercising right now.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, read what he said.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: He said, I've mentioned that we have a suspect in
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: custody for one of these incidents. And so the question
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: that's been posed to us is, is this a suspect
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: for all the incidents?
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: He's directly acknowledging the public's desperation for a neat and
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: tidy ending.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: He knows what everyone is thinking.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Human nature abhors a vacuum. The media, the public,
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: and likely the police themselves desperately want Edward Joseph Smith
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: to be the singular answer to all five murders.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: It would just be so much cleaner.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: It would resolve the panic, tie up the narrative perfectly,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: and restore a sense of safety to the community.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: But forensics do not care about narrative convenience.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: They absolutely do not.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Tying a sharp force stabbing of a 22-year-old to a
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: string of blunt force beatings of older men requires irrefutable, hard,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: physical proof.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. You need DNA evidence linking Smith to the other victims.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Or tech data.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Right. You need cell phone geolocation data placing his device
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: under those specific bridges on those specific nights.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Or a confession.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: A confession. Or you need to actually find the physical,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: blunt object used in the other attacks in his possession.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And the police clearly do not have that definitive proof yet,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: or they would have charged him with the other four murders.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Right. They are... holding the line against immense public pressure,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: refusing to prematurely declare the serial case closed based on
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: circumstantial geography.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Which means they have to operate in two distinct realities simultaneously.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: A very difficult position to be in.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: They have their prime suspect for the anomaly securely in custody.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: But they have to proceed with the agonizing assumption that
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: the main predator, the bludgeoner, is still a ghost.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: It requires a dual-track investigation.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Detectives must meticulously build the homicide case against Smith for
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: the Lusk stabbing.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: While a completely separate investigative effort continues to hunt for
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the perpetrator of the blunt force attacks.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Operating under the premise that Smith might just be a
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: red herring for the broader pattern.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: The cognitive and emotional toll on the detectives managing that
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: dichotomy must be immense.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: It's just an overwhelming amount of information to process for
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: them and for us.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: It really is. We've journeyed from the algorithmic digital noise
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: of a modern magazine website down into the grim physical
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: reality of the Lansing River Trail at 3 a.m.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: It's a stark contrast.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: We've seen how a single carefully reported article reveals the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: immense cascading complexities of a real world police investigation.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Because the police aren't just hunting a killer in a vacuum.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: No, they are battling the inherent biases of medical misdiagnoses
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: at chaotic crime scenes.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: They are dealing with the devastating loss of forensic evidence
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: due to the paradox of emergency medical response.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: They are trying to untangle confusing behavioral anomalies like the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Lusk stabbing.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: And they are trying to decode the psychology of a
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: bizarre nine-month gap in the timeline.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: All while navigating a media landscape that surrounds their pleas
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: for public assistance with ads for fall fashion, celebrity gossip,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: and true crime newsletters.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: It is a highly fragmented, often surreal reality where the
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: pursuit of justice is forced to compete for attention with consumerism.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: And as we wrap up this deep dive into the sources,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: there is a final provocative thought I want to leave
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you with.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: A really unsettling thought.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: A question to ponder when you close this app and
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: go about your day. Okay. We know the police have
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: a suspect, Edward Joseph Smith, in custody for the stabbing
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: of the 22-year-old.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: But they do not have him definitively linked to the
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: blunt force murders.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Right. If the forensics ultimately prove that Edward Joseph Smith
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: is only responsible for the anomaly.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: If he is simply a violent man who committed a single,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: isolated murder on a trail already haunted by someone else.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Does that mean the individual who brutally beat four vulnerable
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: older men in the early morning hours.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: The person who caused that sudden, explosive spike in violence.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Is still out there?
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Have they simply entered another cooling-off period?
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: A new dormant face waiting in the silence as the
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: psychological pressure builds toward the next eruption.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: It brings us right back to the limitations of pattern recognition.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: We want the definitive answer, the closed case, the clear picture.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: But sometimes, despite all the data, the picture just stays dark,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: and the pattern remains incomplete.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Very incomplete.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: We always encourage you to stop the scroll, look beneath
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: the surface of the headlines, and deeply question the context
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: of the information you consume.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: We'll be back next time to unpack another layer of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: the world around us. Stay curious.