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What is he hiding under there ! · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: This story has one of the most bizarre and tragic
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Speaker 1: endings to any story I've ever told. But before we
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Speaker 1: get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark,
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Speaker 1: and mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to
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Speaker 1: the right channel because that's all we do and we
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Speaker 1: our weekly uploads. Alright, let's get into today's story. In 2017,
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Speaker 1: Daniel Beckwith was a 27-year-old genius hacker and prolific Bitcoin
0:44
Speaker 1: day trader. He was living in his modest childhood home
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Speaker 1: in Bethesda, Maryland, with a multi-million dollar fortune to his name.
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Speaker 1: And he was hiding something major in his basement. that
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Speaker 1: when it was discovered by authorities, he would be convicted
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Speaker 1: of one of the rarest criminal charges in the American
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Speaker 1: legal justice system. But to understand this story, we have
1:01
Speaker 1: to go back to the beginning. Daniel was born in
1:04
Speaker 1: 1991 to his eccentric and brilliant parents, Linda and David.
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Speaker 1: He would be their only child. David was a PhD
1:10
Speaker 1: and an accomplished opera singer that had trained under a
1:13
Speaker 1: famous French composer, and he had also performed at the
1:15
Speaker 1: White House. Linda was a Columbia Law School trained lawyer
1:19
Speaker 1: who at one time had been a government attorney but
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Speaker 1: she gave it up because she described it as a
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Speaker 1: scummy profession, and she became a vocalist like her husband.
1:27
Speaker 1: When Daniel was just a toddler, he learned how to read,
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Speaker 1: so it was clear he had unusually high intellect, which
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Speaker 1: Linda guarded fiercely. She decided that public schools were not
1:35
Speaker 1: capable of teaching her son, and so she decided she
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Speaker 1: would homeschool him. By the time Daniel was just five
1:41
Speaker 1: years old, he was consuming entire novels, and shortly after that,
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Speaker 1: he was able to break down and reprogram his PlayStation.
1:48
Speaker 1: But despite his incredible intelligence, Daniel had a really lonely childhood.
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Speaker 1: He was rarely allowed to go outside and play with
1:55
Speaker 1: other kids, and on the rare chance that he was,
1:57
Speaker 1: his parents always hovered around him the entire time. And
2:00
Speaker 1: few playmates, or adults for that matter, ever came inside
2:04
Speaker 1: of Daniel's house because Daniel's parents were big-time hoarders. You
2:08
Speaker 1: couldn't take two steps into that house before knocking into
2:11
Speaker 1: a big stack of papers or books or old food containers.
2:14
Speaker 1: In 2000, when Daniel was nine years old, his father
2:17
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which left Linda, his mother,
2:20
Speaker 1: to take care of both of them. And in that time,
2:22
Speaker 1: Linda became obsessed with protecting their property. And so anytime
2:26
Speaker 1: anyone walked in front of their house, just near their property,
2:30
Speaker 1: would run outside and yell at them until they ran away.
2:32
Speaker 1: But despite their eccentricities, it was clear to anybody that
2:35
Speaker 1: knew the Beckwith family that Linda and David just adored Daniel.
2:39
Speaker 1: They just could not give him any space. One neighbor
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Speaker 1: recalled seeing the three Beckwiths out trick-or-treating one year, all
2:45
Speaker 1: wearing these same matching hamster outfits, and this was well
2:48
Speaker 1: into Daniel's teenage years. Daniel loved his parents, but it
2:51
Speaker 1: was in those later teenage years But he started to
2:54
Speaker 1: realize just how smothering they really were, and so he
2:57
Speaker 1: began looking for other places to connect with new people.
3:00
Speaker 1: And he found a new community on an online forum
3:02
Speaker 1: called 4chan. There, Daniel got to reinvent himself. He adopted
3:06
Speaker 1: this kind of tough guy, genius persona, where he bragged
3:10
Speaker 1: about finishing most of high school by the time he
3:12
Speaker 1: was 15, and that nowadays he just blows stuff up
3:15
Speaker 1: in his backyard to test his chemistry know-how. But over
3:17
Speaker 1: the years of posting on this channel, Daniel would occasionally
3:20
Speaker 1: let his guard down, And he would talk about something
3:23
Speaker 1: that was really close to him that pervaded his thoughts
3:25
Speaker 1: at all times and would ultimately be his downfall. And
3:28
Speaker 1: that was his extreme fear of death. Daniel's isolation looks
3:32
Speaker 1: like it might come to an end in 2010 when
3:35
Speaker 1: he enrolled at the University of Illinois to study computer
3:38
Speaker 1: science and electrical engineering. His parents dropped him off at
3:41
Speaker 1: the Amtrak train station with all of his stuff for college.
3:43
Speaker 1: They said their goodbyes. Daniel hopped on the train and
3:46
Speaker 1: he waved to them as they disappeared. And he likened
3:49
Speaker 1: that experience to being set free. It was the first
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Speaker 1: time he was going to be without his parents for
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Speaker 1: any amount of time. But unfortunately, after only being at
3:56
Speaker 1: school for a couple of months, he had to go
3:58
Speaker 1: right back home again because his mother was diagnosed with
4:01
Speaker 1: cancer and she had hid it from Daniel. In fact,
4:03
Speaker 1: she had hid it from everyone and not even seen
4:05
Speaker 1: a doctor. And so when Daniel got home, she was
4:07
Speaker 1: in really bad shape and she passed away two weeks later.
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Speaker 1: Including Daniel, only three people showed up for her funeral.
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Speaker 1: And so Daniel, with his mismatched clothes and his pants
4:16
Speaker 1: that were too short, he gave his mother's eulogy and
4:19
Speaker 1: in it, he just looked dazed and he actually said,
4:21
Speaker 1: I feel lost. And then shortly after Daniel went back
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Speaker 1: to school, his father began declining rapidly from Parkinson's disease.
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Speaker 1: And so Daniel had to put him into assisted living.
4:30
Speaker 1: And so living by himself at his apartment in college,
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Speaker 1: Daniel was overcome with grief. And now more than ever,
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Speaker 1: he was just terrified of death because now he had
4:39
Speaker 1: seen it up close with his mother and and he
4:41
Speaker 1: was watching his father wither away. And so he went
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Speaker 1: back on 4chan, and he began talking about taking a
4:47
Speaker 1: more defensive position against his own death. What that translated
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Speaker 1: to is Daniel began researching what the most common killers
4:54
Speaker 1: were for people his age, and he discovered that car
4:57
Speaker 1: accidents were a big killer. And so he reinforced all
5:00
Speaker 1: the doors of his car with Kevlar plates, and anytime
5:03
Speaker 1: he drove it, he wore a Kevlar vest, which he
5:05
Speaker 1: believed protected him from blunt force trauma in the event
5:08
Speaker 1: of a crash. Knowing that cancer was a big killer,
5:11
Speaker 1: he went out and removed every mole on his body
5:13
Speaker 1: as a preventative measure. But what Daniel viewed as the
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Speaker 1: biggest threat to his life was not something that statisticians
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Speaker 1: would tell you is something people his age or people
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Speaker 1: in his country should be worried about, and that was
5:25
Speaker 1: a nuclear attack on the United States. Daniel believed it
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Speaker 1: was imminent. Daniel believed the only way he could protect
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Speaker 1: himself was to build a proper fallout shelter, and because
5:34
Speaker 1: his mother had left him a multi-million dollar trust fund,
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Speaker 1: he had the means to construct one. And so he
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Speaker 1: left college and went back to his home. He went
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Speaker 1: down into the basement and he picked a spot right
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Speaker 1: in the middle of the ground and he began digging.
5:46
Speaker 1: Over the next two years, Daniel spent part of his
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Speaker 1: time living at college, being a really good student. And
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Speaker 1: the other half of his time was spent living at
5:53
Speaker 1: his family home, hiring different contractors to come in and
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Speaker 1: dig out this massive labyrinth of tunnels underneath his property.
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Speaker 1: But in 2012, his schoolwork and his tunnel work had
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Speaker 1: to come to a complete stop. because he got in
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Speaker 1: trouble with the law. Professors at Daniel's school began reporting
6:07
Speaker 1: that somebody was sneaking into their office, hacking into their computer,
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Speaker 1: and then sending these really inappropriate and embarrassing emails to
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Speaker 1: everybody in their contact list, which was primarily former and
6:17
Speaker 1: current students and faculty. And then whoever it was that
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Speaker 1: was hacking their computer was then super gluing their door shut.
6:24
Speaker 1: After several months of investigating, the police finally got a
6:26
Speaker 1: suspect when students on campus said, yeah, Daniel Beckwith is
6:30
Speaker 1: actually a prolific hacker. and he just spoke at a
6:33
Speaker 1: hacker conference, so he seems like someone who would be
6:35
Speaker 1: capable of doing this. And so a detective went to
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Speaker 1: Daniel's apartment to pay him a casual visit, but Daniel
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Speaker 1: wasn't there or didn't come to the door, and the
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Speaker 1: detective looked down and saw a package that was sitting
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Speaker 1: there that was addressed to S. Loomis Detweiler. The detective
6:49
Speaker 1: believed this could be an alias for Daniel Beckwith, And
6:52
Speaker 1: so he went back and they ran that name. And
6:54
Speaker 1: sure enough, it was connected to an online persona that
6:57
Speaker 1: had recently been bragging about breaking into their professor's offices
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Speaker 1: and hacking into their emails. So the police used this
7:03
Speaker 1: information to attain a search warrant. They went back to
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Speaker 1: Daniel's apartment. He wasn't there. They used the key they
7:08
Speaker 1: had been given for the unit. They went inside and
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Speaker 1: they're hit with just this ridiculous mess of an apartment.
7:13
Speaker 1: It looked exactly like Daniel's home growing up with stacks
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Speaker 1: of papers and books and wires and computer equipment and
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Speaker 1: trash and old food containers. And there was just this
7:22
Speaker 1: dirty mattress sitting right in the middle of the apartment
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Speaker 1: with no sheets on it. And in the back on
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Speaker 1: top of a mini fridge was Daniel's laptop. It was
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Speaker 1: open and it was unsecured, so they logged into it,
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Speaker 1: cloned his hard drive, and left. And using the information
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Speaker 1: that was contained on this hard drive, detectives were able to,
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Speaker 1: without a doubt, connect Daniel to the vandalism and hacking
7:40
Speaker 1: that had been taking place at his college. Daniel was
7:42
Speaker 1: arrested and charged with a number of serious felonies, but
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Speaker 1: shortly before his trial, Daniel struck a plea deal and
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Speaker 1: then immediately took to Reddit to tell the world that
7:51
Speaker 1: he fully expected the state governor to pardon him because
7:54
Speaker 1: he had made a number of significant contributions to his campaigns.
7:57
Speaker 1: but that pardon never came. However, Daniel's sentence was remarkably light.
8:01
Speaker 1: He was ordered to pay $ 23, 000 in restitution to the
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Speaker 1: college and then was given two years of probation. Daniel
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Speaker 1: was expelled from his school and so he moved back
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Speaker 1: into his childhood home where he lived alone full-time. Once home,
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Speaker 1: Daniel focused his efforts on this bunker he was building
8:15
Speaker 1: in his basement, which by now was a fairly large
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Speaker 1: series of tunnels that zigged and zagged in different directions
8:21
Speaker 1: well beyond his property lines. Once Daniel hired a couple
8:24
Speaker 1: good contractors to continue to expand this bunker, he turned
8:27
Speaker 1: his attention to a new activity, Bitcoin trading. And in
8:30
Speaker 1: relative short order, Daniel became extremely good at this and
8:33
Speaker 1: made millions of dollars. By 2015, Daniel was off probation.
8:37
Speaker 1: His bunker was almost completely built out, although he did
8:40
Speaker 1: have plans at some point to hire more people and
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Speaker 1: continue to expand it. And in terms of Bitcoin day trading,
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Speaker 1: he wasn't doing it as much because he had made
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Speaker 1: so much money. Now he just spent his time sitting
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Speaker 1: inside of his bunker live-streaming on this new website called
8:53
Speaker 1: Blab about his investment prowess. And every time Daniel live-streamed,
8:57
Speaker 1: he was cautious to never reveal his identity. And so
8:59
Speaker 1: he used the username ThreeAlarmLampScooter, and he wore a large
9:04
Speaker 1: fire protection hood over his face, and he used a
9:07
Speaker 1: voice changer. Within his small but avid following on Blab,
9:10
Speaker 1: there was one 19-year-old named Askia Kafra who completely idolized Daniel,
9:15
Speaker 1: even though he only knew him as Three Alarm. Askia
9:18
Speaker 1: was from a middle-class home and he was the son
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Speaker 1: of immigrants from Trinidad. He also lived only 15 minutes
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Speaker 1: away from Daniel, but he didn't know that because Daniel
9:26
Speaker 1: never gave up where he lived because he was so
9:28
Speaker 1: obsessed with protecting himself against a potential nuclear attack. He
9:32
Speaker 1: just told people he lived in some underground bunker in
9:34
Speaker 1: the middle of Virginia somewhere. Askia longed to be successful
9:38
Speaker 1: and rich, which is part of the reason he idolized
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Speaker 1: Daniel so much. When he was 18 years old, he
9:42
Speaker 1: received a $ 100, 000 settlement for a lead poisoning case, and
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Speaker 1: he for a second got to live the life of
9:49
Speaker 1: someone rich and famous, and he blew it immediately on
9:52
Speaker 1: expensive dinners and rented Mercedes and BMW cars, and once
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Speaker 1: the money was all gone, he was certain he could
9:58
Speaker 1: get it all back. And his big plan is he
10:00
Speaker 1: was going to build an app called Equity Shark, which
10:03
Speaker 1: is basically crowdfunding that allowed people to invest small amounts
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Speaker 1: of money into new promising startups. And he believed this
10:10
Speaker 1: app was going to be the way he made not millions,
10:12
Speaker 1: but billions of dollars. But he didn't have any real
10:15
Speaker 1: money to fund this app. And so he and his
10:17
Speaker 1: business partner applied for a $ 100, 000 grant for young entrepreneurs
10:22
Speaker 1: that have dropped out of college, something Askia had just done,
10:25
Speaker 1: and they were certain they were going to get this grant.
10:28
Speaker 1: But despite Askia's confidence, he was far from a sure
10:31
Speaker 1: bet for this money. Because Askia still had many of
10:33
Speaker 1: the blind spots of someone still learning how to become
10:36
Speaker 1: an adult. And one of his biggest blind spots was
10:38
Speaker 1: how quick he was to trust people. And so it
10:40
Speaker 1: was shortly after Askia and his business partner had applied
10:43
Speaker 1: for this $ 100, 000 grant, that Askia came across Daniel on
10:47
Speaker 1: Blab and he was so taken with him and he's
10:49
Speaker 1: got all this money and he's so successful. And that's
10:51
Speaker 1: when Daniel told his followers that he was open to
10:54
Speaker 1: new investments. And so Askia, who wanted to get closer
10:57
Speaker 1: to Daniel and figured he could use some additional money
10:59
Speaker 1: because even when they got this $ 100, 000 grant, they would
11:03
Speaker 1: need more money to build the business. he decided he
11:06
Speaker 1: would ask Daniel if he and his business partner could
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Speaker 1: pitch him on Equity Shark. And Daniel agreed. And so
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Speaker 1: in June of 2016, Askia and his business partner went
11:14
Speaker 1: to this hookah bar that was about 20 minutes away
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Speaker 1: from Askia's home. And there they sat waiting for a
11:20
Speaker 1: three alarm lamp scooter to walk through the door. And
11:22
Speaker 1: they didn't know what he was going to look like
11:24
Speaker 1: because whenever they saw him on his live streams, he
11:26
Speaker 1: had that big fire protection hood on. But as soon
11:29
Speaker 1: as Daniel walked through the door, they immediately knew it
11:31
Speaker 1: was him because he had this comically bulky shirt on
11:34
Speaker 1: where it was obvious he had a bulletproof vest on.
11:37
Speaker 1: And so this guy with the bulletproof vest walks over,
11:40
Speaker 1: introduces himself as Three Alarm, a.k.a. Daniel. And so by now,
11:44
Speaker 1: Askia and his business partner are very accustomed to Three
11:46
Speaker 1: Alarm's eccentricities like his bulletproof vest. They just kind of
11:49
Speaker 1: overlook it and begin pitching him on Equity Shark. And
11:52
Speaker 1: they tell him that the success of the company, they believe,
11:55
Speaker 1: is hinged on this $ 100, 000 grant. that they explained they
11:59
Speaker 1: are certain to get, they meet all the parameters, they
12:01
Speaker 1: are exactly what they're looking for. And at the end
12:04
Speaker 1: of the conversation, Daniel was convinced that not only were
12:07
Speaker 1: they going to get this $ 100, 000 grant, but that Equity
12:10
Speaker 1: Shark seemed like a great investment. And so after a
12:12
Speaker 1: number of follow-on meetings, Daniel ultimately committed $ 5, 000 to Equity Shark,
12:17
Speaker 1: and he told Askia that they would have to pay
12:19
Speaker 1: him back with the funds from the $ 100, 000 grant, or
12:22
Speaker 1: if for some reason that didn't come through, Askia and
12:26
Speaker 1: his business partner would have to find another way to
12:28
Speaker 1: pay back Daniel. Askia and his business partner were totally thrilled.
12:32
Speaker 1: They felt like that $ 100, 000 grant is a done deal,
12:35
Speaker 1: so there's no risk to this investment by Daniel. And
12:38
Speaker 1: shortly after they secured the $ 5, 000, the manager of the $ 100, 000
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Speaker 1: grant program called Askia and said, You guys have made
12:47
Speaker 1: it to the second round of applicants. We need you
12:49
Speaker 1: to fly out to San Francisco and pitch your company
12:51
Speaker 1: to us. And so they're totally excited. They tell Daniel
12:54
Speaker 1: that everything's progressing exactly as they planned. Then they fly
12:57
Speaker 1: out to the West Coast, but they book their flight
13:00
Speaker 1: to LAX, not to the airport in San Francisco. So
13:03
Speaker 1: they land 400 miles south of where they needed to be.
13:07
Speaker 1: And so they're cussing themselves for being so stupid about this.
13:09
Speaker 1: And they realize they can't even rent a car. They're
13:12
Speaker 1: not old enough to rent a car. but they were
13:14
Speaker 1: old enough to rent a U-Haul. So they rent this
13:16
Speaker 1: huge U-Haul, and they start bombing up the coast towards
13:19
Speaker 1: San Francisco to make this meeting in time, but they
13:22
Speaker 1: plugged the wrong address into their GPS and did not
13:25
Speaker 1: go to the right building. They went in the opposite direction.
13:28
Speaker 1: And so by the time they finally got all the
13:30
Speaker 1: way back to the meeting place in San Francisco, it
13:32
Speaker 1: was too late, and the manager that was waiting for
13:35
Speaker 1: them was clearly upset about it and said, just go home,
13:37
Speaker 1: we'll be in touch by phone. Back home, Oskia was
13:40
Speaker 1: totally embarrassed when he told Daniel about their botched trip,
13:43
Speaker 1: and he was convinced that they were not going to
13:45
Speaker 1: get the grant now because of how badly they had
13:47
Speaker 1: screwed up the meeting. And so Askia began asking Daniel
13:50
Speaker 1: if he would give them more money, because maybe if
13:52
Speaker 1: they use that additional money to bolster the app and
13:55
Speaker 1: make it more appealing, they will have a better chance
13:57
Speaker 1: at getting that $ 100, 000 grant. Daniel eventually said he would
14:01
Speaker 1: commit more money, but Askia picked up that he was
14:03
Speaker 1: really hesitant and just seemed not to be very interested
14:07
Speaker 1: in Equity Shark anymore. And so Askia, hoping to stay
14:10
Speaker 1: in Daniel's good graces and wanting to make sure he
14:12
Speaker 1: was confident in this investment, he said, hey, let me
14:15
Speaker 1: do something for you. I heard on one of the
14:16
Speaker 1: channels online that you're looking to expand some of the
14:19
Speaker 1: tunnels inside of your bunker. Let me do that for you. Daniel,
14:22
Speaker 1: who was looking to expand his bunker, was eager to
14:25
Speaker 1: hire Askia. But he told him that if you're going
14:27
Speaker 1: to work for me, there's going to be heavy restrictions
14:30
Speaker 1: on how this goes. Because it's a very secret location.
14:32
Speaker 1: I don't want this to leak out, you know, where
14:34
Speaker 1: my bunker is. Because as you know, you know, there's
14:36
Speaker 1: going to be a nuclear attack on the United States
14:39
Speaker 1: any day. And my bunker is one of the only
14:41
Speaker 1: places that's going to be safe. Askia said that was
14:43
Speaker 1: totally fine. He would do whatever Daniel needed. So on
14:45
Speaker 1: January 28th, 2017, just after 2 a.m., Askia sat outside
14:50
Speaker 1: his house waiting for some car to come pick him up.
14:53
Speaker 1: And at some point, Daniel showed up in a minivan
14:55
Speaker 1: and he walked up to Askia. He led him into
14:57
Speaker 1: the van and then he put goggles that were blacked
14:59
Speaker 1: out on his head. And then Daniel drove around in
15:02
Speaker 1: loops up on the highway and back around neighborhoods, giving
15:05
Speaker 1: the impression to Askia that they were actually going somewhere
15:08
Speaker 1: far outside of Maryland. But really, they were only going
15:10
Speaker 1: 15 minutes away to Daniel's actual house. And when they
15:13
Speaker 1: got to Daniel's house, Daniel made Askia keep the goggles on.
15:17
Speaker 1: Daniel got out and he led Askia by a string
15:19
Speaker 1: into the house. And once they got inside... Daniel had
15:22
Speaker 1: to carefully walk him around all the junk that was
15:24
Speaker 1: piled up all over the house. They made their way
15:27
Speaker 1: all the way to the back. They went down the
15:28
Speaker 1: stairs into the basement where Daniel had intentionally created this
15:31
Speaker 1: unbelievable maze all over the basement floor with chicken wire
15:35
Speaker 1: and stacks of bikes and books and more junk. It
15:38
Speaker 1: was designed so anybody who was working inside of the tunnels,
15:41
Speaker 1: that even once they came out of the exit, wouldn't
15:43
Speaker 1: even know how to get out of the basement. And finally,
15:46
Speaker 1: after bringing Askia all the way through this maze, he
15:48
Speaker 1: stopped him right in front of this hole in the
15:50
Speaker 1: ground that was the entrance into the underground tunnels. And
15:53
Speaker 1: at that point, he told Askia to remove his goggles.
15:55
Speaker 1: Daniel told him to hop down and take a look.
15:57
Speaker 1: So Askia hopped down and he's looking around and he's
16:00
Speaker 1: seeing these massive tunnel systems pushing out in all directions
16:03
Speaker 1: and all of it is extremely well lit. And he
16:06
Speaker 1: couldn't believe what he was looking at. He's looking at
16:07
Speaker 1: Daniel like, how far does this go? And Daniel said,
16:10
Speaker 1: it's huge. It was at this point that Daniel handed
16:13
Speaker 1: down to Askia a pickaxe, a shovel, and a hard hat.
16:16
Speaker 1: And he explained to him that anytime you're in the tunnels,
16:18
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to cover over this hole because
16:21
Speaker 1: I can't even have you in the basement. It's too
16:22
Speaker 1: much of a security threat for me. And in fact,
16:24
Speaker 1: I'd prefer it if you worked multiple days in a
16:26
Speaker 1: row because anytime you leave, we're going to have to
16:29
Speaker 1: do the whole blindfold thing. And so you should anticipate
16:32
Speaker 1: living in the tunnels for days at a stretch. But
16:34
Speaker 1: don't worry, there's a mattress down there, there's Wi-Fi, everything's
16:38
Speaker 1: well lit up, and there's a five-gallon bucket if you
16:40
Speaker 1: need to go to the bathroom. And so Askia, who
16:42
Speaker 1: trusted Daniel, didn't love this setup, but in a weird way,
16:46
Speaker 1: he was just kind of excited to be a part
16:48
Speaker 1: of this guy's life. This guy who he believed was
16:50
Speaker 1: just this really amazing person. And so over the following
16:53
Speaker 1: winter and spring, Askia would make the blindfold commute to
16:56
Speaker 1: all the way to Daniel's house 15 minutes away, and
16:59
Speaker 1: then he would spend multiple days down in the tunnel,
17:01
Speaker 1: chiseling away into these different tunnels that Daniel wanted expanded.
17:05
Speaker 1: But as well as it was going, working for Daniel,
17:07
Speaker 1: Askia was dealt some bad news at the end of
17:09
Speaker 1: the spring when it turned out Equity Shark was turned
17:12
Speaker 1: down for that $ 100, 000 grant. Askia was surprised, he was crushed,
17:17
Speaker 1: and he now knew he would have to pay back
17:19
Speaker 1: that $ 5, 000 that Daniel had invested in Equity Shark because
17:22
Speaker 1: he wasn't getting it from the $ 100, 000 anymore. And so
17:25
Speaker 1: he asked Daniel if he could increase his hours in
17:27
Speaker 1: the tunnel to try to pay back that debt. Daniel agreed.
17:30
Speaker 1: And so on September 10th, Askia was back at Daniel's
17:33
Speaker 1: house and he was down inside the tunnels in one
17:35
Speaker 1: of the lowest sections that required squeezing through a very
17:38
Speaker 1: narrow section that Askia had actually texted his friends about
17:41
Speaker 1: and said that section made him really claustrophobic, but he
17:45
Speaker 1: had to do it. He needed to pay back the debt.
17:46
Speaker 1: And so later that day at 4 p.m. when Askia
17:49
Speaker 1: was down in that lower section, the power in the
17:52
Speaker 1: tunnel suddenly went completely out. It was pitch black. And
17:54
Speaker 1: so Daniel, who was upstairs, recognized it happened. And so
17:58
Speaker 1: he navigated through all the junk upstairs, came downstairs, navigated
18:01
Speaker 1: the maze all the way to the circuit breaker in
18:03
Speaker 1: the basement, and he flipped the switch, and the power
18:05
Speaker 1: went on, but Daniel heard a loud buzzing sound coming
18:08
Speaker 1: from upstairs in the kitchen. And so worried that could
18:11
Speaker 1: be an electrical fire, he turned back off the circuit breaker,
18:14
Speaker 1: putting Asuka back in total darkness down deep inside of
18:17
Speaker 1: this tunnel. And Daniel went back through this really epic
18:20
Speaker 1: maze in the basement, went up the stairs into the
18:22
Speaker 1: kitchen to investigate the buzzing sound, and as soon as
18:25
Speaker 1: he left the basement, he could smell smoke. And he
18:28
Speaker 1: turned around and looked down into the basement and he
18:30
Speaker 1: could clearly see smoke was filling the basement. And so
18:33
Speaker 1: Daniel ran downstairs and he yelled out for Askia. And
18:36
Speaker 1: somewhere way down in the tunnels, he heard Askia yell out, hey, dude,
18:40
Speaker 1: what's going on? And Daniel's like, come on, you got
18:43
Speaker 1: to get out of there. But he was totally overcome
18:45
Speaker 1: with smoke. And Daniel had to run back upstairs, ran outside.
18:49
Speaker 1: He caught his breath. And then he charged back into
18:51
Speaker 1: the house, down into the basement. But as soon as
18:53
Speaker 1: he got to the bottom of the stairs, he didn't
18:55
Speaker 1: see Askia there. but he saw flames leaping out of
18:58
Speaker 1: the entrance into the tunnels. And he knew Askia was
19:01
Speaker 1: down there and he's screaming for Askia to get out,
19:04
Speaker 1: get out. But he didn't hear from him. And at
19:06
Speaker 1: some point, Daniel just had to turn around and leave
19:08
Speaker 1: because he was totally overcome with the heat and the smoke.
19:10
Speaker 1: A neighbor saw Daniel come running out. They saw the
19:13
Speaker 1: smoke coming out of his house. And so they called 911.
19:15
Speaker 1: And so while Daniel paced outside screaming for Askia, Asuka
19:19
Speaker 1: is down in total darkness. There's smoke filling up the
19:22
Speaker 1: tunnels and he began making his way across that very
19:25
Speaker 1: tight section. But once he got out of there, he
19:27
Speaker 1: had no idea where to go because this tunnel system
19:30
Speaker 1: was huge and all the power was out. So it's
19:32
Speaker 1: pitch black and there's smoke inside of the tunnel. And
19:35
Speaker 1: so he desperately starts crawling all over the tunnel. He's
19:38
Speaker 1: hitting dead ends. And finally, miraculously, he makes it to
19:41
Speaker 1: the exit of the tunnels. Everything around him is on fire.
19:44
Speaker 1: He leaps out, but now he's in a basement that's
19:47
Speaker 1: covered in smoke and every time he had been led
19:50
Speaker 1: to that point in the basement, he had been blindfolded.
19:52
Speaker 1: He didn't know how to navigate the maze. And so
19:54
Speaker 1: he's looking out and it's all smoky. And all he
19:57
Speaker 1: can see is there's one window on the far side
20:00
Speaker 1: that he might be able to get to. And so
20:02
Speaker 1: he starts leaping over the chicken wire and the bikes
20:04
Speaker 1: and he sneaks past a furnace and it's just flames
20:06
Speaker 1: and smoke all around him. And he gets to this
20:09
Speaker 1: little shimmer of light, which is the window, except he
20:11
Speaker 1: realizes there have been metal bars placed in front of it.
20:14
Speaker 1: There's no way to get through it. But in his desperation,
20:17
Speaker 1: he grabbed a rolly chair and he put it in front.
20:19
Speaker 1: He climbed on top and he managed to break the glass,
20:21
Speaker 1: but then he couldn't get through the bars. And eventually,
20:24
Speaker 1: after a number of agonizing minutes, he fell backwards and
20:27
Speaker 1: was consumed by the flames. After the fire was finally
20:29
Speaker 1: put out and Askia's body was finally found inside of
20:33
Speaker 1: the basement underneath that window, investigators didn't understand how Askia
20:37
Speaker 1: couldn't have gotten out of the basement. And Daniel tried
20:40
Speaker 1: to lie about it and say, oh, well, he might've
20:42
Speaker 1: been asleep. You know, that's his bachelor pad down there.
20:44
Speaker 1: But eventually, as investigators were looking for the cause of
20:47
Speaker 1: the fire, they uncovered the entrance to this massive tunnel system.
20:51
Speaker 1: And that's when they realized, Daniel had put Askia effectively
20:55
Speaker 1: into a death trap. When the fire started, Askia was
20:58
Speaker 1: at the bottom of this tunnel system, and so he
21:00
Speaker 1: had to navigate all the way back up to the top,
21:02
Speaker 1: killing all this precious time as the fire grows. And
21:05
Speaker 1: then he finally got into the basement, and there's flames everywhere,
21:08
Speaker 1: but he has no idea how to navigate the maze
21:11
Speaker 1: Daniel had made down there. And so he managed to
21:13
Speaker 1: get to the window because it was the only thing
21:15
Speaker 1: he could see, but of course Daniel had put bars
21:17
Speaker 1: in front of it. And so Askia had nowhere else
21:20
Speaker 1: to go, and he just died. The investigators would point
21:22
Speaker 1: out that where he died, he was only two steps
21:25
Speaker 1: away from almost certain safety. He just didn't know it.
21:28
Speaker 1: After an eight-month investigation, prosecutors charged Daniel with involuntary manslaughter,
21:33
Speaker 1: as well as one of the rarest charges in the
21:35
Speaker 1: American justice system. It's called second-degree depraved heart murder, where
21:40
Speaker 1: Daniel's disregard for human life was so extreme, it amounted
21:44
Speaker 1: to willful killing. And so he was sentenced to nine
21:47
Speaker 1: years in prison. So that's going to do it, guys.
21:48
Speaker 1: If you found the secret in today's episode, let us
21:50
Speaker 1: know in the comments what it is and where you
21:53
Speaker 1: found it. So give us the timestamp. And if you're
21:54
Speaker 1: the first to do that, we'll pin you at the
21:56
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Speaker 1: And until next time, that's going to do it. See ya.