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Man Finds Dismembered Body in His Own Basement · Murder Files Unsealed

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Speaker 1: Imagine walking into a police precinct, flashing your credentials as
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a twenty year veteran of the force, and demanding that
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the desk lieutenant protect your son from some Facebook carass.
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Oh wow, yeah right, you were just putting on this
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absolute clinic in righteous indignation. But now imagine doing all
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of that while fully aware that the dismembered remains of
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a thirty one year old woman are sitting inside a
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cardboard box in the trunk.
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Speaker 2: Of your car, which is parked right outside that very station,
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exactly just sitting in a parking lot. I mean, it
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is a scenario that entirely shatters our baseline understanding of
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self preservation. It just defies logic. You are looking at
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this massive collision between institutional arrogance and just a complete
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detachment from physical reality, and that.
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Speaker 1: Collision is exactly what we are dissecting today. We're taking
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a deep dive into an extensive stack of source materials
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we got from the Law and Crime Network. It's a
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huge file, yeah massive. We have police records, interrogation transcripts,
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body ham footage descriptions, courtroom testimonies, and these just incredibly
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heavy victim impact statements and All of this surrounds the
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murder of thirty one year old Ashley Young by a
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twenty nine year old guy named Jared Chance. This all
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happened in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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Speaker 2: So our mission for you listening today isn't just to
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you know, walk through a timeline of a tragedy.
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Speaker 1: No, not at all.
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Speaker 2: We are going to really analyze the psychological architecture of
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a cover up. We're looking at the forensic limitations of
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a severely compromised crime scene and the courtroom strategies you
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actually need to secure a conviction when the physical evidence
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of the murder itself has been intentionally destroyed.
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Speaker 1: Right, which is just a fascinating legal.
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Speaker 2: Puzzle, It really is. The central tension here is just
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it's fascinating from an analytical perspective, because on one side
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of the equation you have the sheer, bureaucratic inertia of
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a missing person's investigation, yeah, which you know is ultimately
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forced into motion by a mother's real, lifeless intuition. And
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then on the other side, you have an active, multiperson
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conspiracy to conceal a.
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Speaker 1: Death spearheaded by someone who intimately knows how the justice
2:08
system operates. Okay, let's unpack this. I want to start
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with the baseline, just looking at the lives involved before
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this whole intersection occurred.
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Speaker 2: That's a good place to start.
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Speaker 1: Because understanding Ashley Young's psychological profile is really essential here.
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Her worldview fundamentally dictated how she interacted with the person
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who eventually killed her. She was thirty one, living in Kalamazoo,
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attending college and working a first shift job. And the
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source materials, specifically the interviews with her mother, Christine, and
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her friends, they paint this picture of a woman characterized
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by just extreme empathy.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that really stands out in the files.
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Speaker 1: It does. The specific quote that anchors her profile, the
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one everyone kept repeating, is that she believed there's always
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good in everyone and everyone deserves a second chance, which.
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Speaker 2: Is I mean, it's a beautiful philosophical stance, but from
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a criminal logic standpoint and victimology too, extreme empathy without
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rigid boundaries is a profound vulnerability.
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Speaker 1: Vulnerability exactly.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Because individuals with high cluster B personality traits, those
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who are highly chaotic or manipulative or destructive, They often
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possess the sort of radar for highly empathetic.
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Speaker 1: People like they seek them out.
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Speaker 2: They absolutely do. They gravitate toward individuals who will rationalize
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their bad behavior and you know, offer those second, third,
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and fourth chances.
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Speaker 1: Well, I want to challenge that second chance mentality for
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a moment, okay, because while it sounds lovely on a
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greeting card, in the real world it reminds me of
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someone leaving their front door wide open every single night
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because they fundamentally believe their neighbors are inherently good.
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Speaker 2: Oh, that's a great way to put it.
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Speaker 1: Right, Like, it is a peaceful way to live, But
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it makes you entirely vulnerable to the single bad actor
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on the street who happens to notice the door as
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a jar.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that analogy perfectly captures the systemic risk of unchecked altruism.
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You are lowering your defensive perimeter based on this assumption
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that everyone operates with the exact same moral compassy you'd do,
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and they don't. They don't, And the source materials indicate
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that Ashley's perimeter had already been breached by Jared Chance
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in the past.
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Speaker 1: Right, this wasn't their first interaction. Jared Chance was twenty
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nine living in Grand Rapids. The record's note he had
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a relatively limited official criminal background, but local law enforcement
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was highly familiar with him.
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Speaker 2: Due to his struggles with substance.
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Speaker 1: Abuse right yes, specifically marijuana and xanax. But more importantly,
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Ashley's mother explicitly stated that Jared had previously broken into
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Ashley's apartment. Wow, he broke in. He stole her computer,
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he took her cash, and he stole her adderall. Christine
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actually sat Ashley down for a severe intervention over this.
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She told her point blank he's no good.
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Speaker 2: But Ashley fell back on that.
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Speaker 1: Belief, yeah, that she could help him, that he'd be.
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Speaker 2: Better, which establishes a documented his wa of predatory behavior
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by Jared toward Ashley. I mean, he had already demonstrated
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a willingness to cross physical and legal boundaries just to
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extract resources from her. So her decision to maintain contact
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wasn't just leaving the door unlocked. It was inviting the
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burglar back inside under the assumption that he had changed
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his profession.
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Speaker 1: That is so dark, but it's true, which brings us
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to the inciting incident. It's a Wednesday night, Ashley and
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Jared are in Grand Rapids and they go to a
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bar called Mulligan's okay. The police eventually pull this CCTV
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footage from a hookah lounge next door. It's called Peta House,
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and the description of this footage in the sources is striking,
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primarily because of how aggressively mundane it.
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Speaker 2: Is just completely normal, totally.
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Speaker 1: Ashley is wearing distinctive knee high black boots, a white sweater,
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and black leggings. Jared is walking a few steps ahead
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of her. They stopped the chat in the parking lot
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right if you were analyzing this video without knowing what
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happens next, There are no no aggressive gestures, no physical altercations.
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It is literally just two young adults.
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Speaker 2: On a Wednesday night, And the banality of that footage
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is such a crucial reminder violent escalation rarely looks like
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a movie scene leading up to the event.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no dramatic music playing.
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Speaker 2: Exactly the most dangerous moments often incubate in environments of
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perceived safety or utter normalcy. The footage just establishes this
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baseline of voluntary association right up until the timeline abruptly fractures,
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and that fracture is immediate.
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Speaker 1: Ashley has a first shift job. She doesn't show up.
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She had a schedule viewing for a new apartment. She
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misses it entirely. Her phone goes completely dark.
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Speaker 2: And this is where the mother's response really diverges completely.
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Speaker 1: This is where Christine's reaction completely splits from how law
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enforcement initially handles the situation. Christine experiences this immediate visceral reaction.
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She just knows her daughter is in danger.
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Speaker 2: Mother's intuition, yeah, exactly.
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Speaker 1: But when she contacts the authorities, they essentially miss her.
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They tell her that an adult who hasn't returned a
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phone call for a day is not a missing person,
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and it certainly isn't a crime.
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Speaker 2: We really have to look at the mechanics of law
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enforcement triage.
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Speaker 1: Here, please, because it's frustrating.
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Speaker 2: It is frustrating, But police departments operate on statistical probability.
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The vast majority of adults who drop out of contact
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for twenty four or forty eight hours have not been victimized.
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They're dealing with a personal crisis, maybe a substance binge,
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or simply a dead cell phone battery. The bureaucratic machinery
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is designed to resist expending resources until there is physical
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proof that the statistical baseline has been broken.
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Speaker 1: But I struggle with that rigid statistical approach, I really do.
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Speaker 2: Why is that?
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Speaker 1: Well, if a mother is screaming that her daughter's baseline
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behavior has radically shifted, I mean missing work, missing important appointments,
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why doesn't that behavioral shift count as the proof they need?
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Speaker 2: Because behavioral shifts are subjective to a detective, a mother's
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panic is an emotional data point, not an evidentiary one.
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Speaker 1: Mm, that's cold.
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Speaker 2: It is cold, yeah, yeah. But until there is a
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broken window, a blood trail, or a verified threat, the
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system views the adult as autonomous and free to just
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ignore their mother, so they just wait right. This systemic
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friction is why cases go cold in the first forty
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eight hours. The only reason this particular case doesn't evaporate
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into the system is because Christine refuses to accept that
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bureaucratic stonewalling.
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Speaker 1: She totally refuses. She realizes no one is coming to help,
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so she goes on the offensive. And this decision by
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Christine to directly confront Jared is what forces his hand.
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Speaker 2: It's the catalyst, it really is.
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Speaker 1: It exposes his complete inability to manage a cover up.
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She leaves him a voicemail that is just incredibly intense.
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She says, I'm going to contact a police department. Those
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were promises, not threats. She is applying massive psychological pressure.
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Speaker 2: And Jared's response to that pressure provides us with a
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fascinating look at the cognitive load of deception.
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Speaker 1: Oh tell me about that. Well.
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Speaker 2: When someone is rust into a high stakes lie unexpectedly,
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their brain has to simultaneously invent a plausible alternative reality
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while ensuring that the new reality doesn't contradict established.
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Speaker 1: Facts, which is hard to do on the fly.
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Speaker 2: Extremely hard, and Jared fails on both fronts immediately, he
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really does.
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Speaker 1: He calls her back and spins this frantic narrative. He
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claims they were at the Hookah Lounge, Ashley lost her phone,
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she went back to look for it, and then she
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supposedly drove back to Kalamazoo to work a third shift, right,
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and Christine catches him immediately because Ashley works first shift,
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not third.
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Speaker 2: That is exactly the cognitive failure I'm talking about. Yeah,
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Jared is fabricating details just to get Christine off the phone,
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but he doesn't possess the foundational knowledge of Ashley's life
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to make the lie structurally sound.
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Speaker 1: He doesn't know her schedule.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, and when he realizes the work lie isn't landing,
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he pivots to a classic deflection tactic. He introduces a
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third party.
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Speaker 1: Right, He tells Christine that Ashley was with a guy
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named Demetrius. But this is where Jared severely underestimates Christine's tenacity.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she doesn't just let that go, not at all.
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Speaker 1: She doesn't just write down the name Demetrius and wait
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for the cops. She tracks him down herself. She gets
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him on the phone, and Demetrius is entirely bewildered. He
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tells her he doesn't know any Ashley and has literally
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never met her daughter.
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Speaker 2: The introduction of Demetrius is a critical tactical error by Jared.
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Oh So, when cornered, an offender might throw out a
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name to diffuse immediate pressure. They assume the investigator or
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in this case, the mother, will take time to verify it.
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But Jared didn't brief Demetrius. Oh right, He didn't establish
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the alibi on both ends.
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Speaker 1: And we know exactly when Jared realizes his lie has
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collapsed too, because the investigators later uncover his digital footprint.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the text messages right.
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Speaker 1: Right, after Christine speaks to Demetrius, Jared sends a panic
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text to him. The source quotes of verbatim, he texted,
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you just fed me over. I'm fed now thanks.
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Speaker 2: That text is the inflection point, it really is. It
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is the exact moment the psychological architecture of his cover
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up crumbles.
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Speaker 1: Because he knows he's caught in a lie.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and he is projecting his own failure onto Demetrius.
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He's blaming him for not corroborating a lie he was
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never even informed of. It shows a highly disorganized mind
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succumbing to the reality of his situation.
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Speaker 1: But the disorganization somehow takes a back seat to just
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sheer audacity. Because while Christine is launching this massive social
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media campaign and finally getting the state police involved, the
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digital heat starts bearing down on Jared.
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Speaker 2: The Facebook post yeah exactly.
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Speaker 1: People on Facebook are pointing out he was the last
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one scene with Ashley. Yeah, so what is his next move?
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He and his father, James physically walk into a police precinct.
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Speaker 2: This requires us to analyze the father, James Chance.
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Speaker 1: Yes, let's talk about James.
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Speaker 2: He is a man with over two decades of experience
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as a police officer. His involvement shifts the entire dynamic
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from a chaotic panic defender to a calculated institutional defense strategy.
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Speaker 1: They walk right up to the desk lieutenant, but they
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aren't there to report Ashley missing. James tells the lieutenant
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they are there to complain about Facebook harassment.
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Speaker 2: It's just wild.
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Speaker 1: He says, people are harassing his son online, claiming he
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was the last one with the missing girl. He even
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dangles the idea that the police should talk to Jared,
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but insists they need an attorney provided for them first.
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Speaker 2: This is a classic offensive defense. James is attempting to
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weaponize his own knowledge of police bureaucracy, trying to control
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the narrative exactly by initiating contact and framing Jared as
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the victim of cyber harassment, He is trying to seize
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control before the detectives can establish Jared as a suspect.
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He is trying to force the police to document an
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interaction where Jared is quote unquote cooperative but legally shielded.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't work. The lieutenant tells them the police don't
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provide attorneys for casual interviews.
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Speaker 2: They have to hire their own, and how does James react, James.
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Speaker 1: Becomes visibly enraged. He points his finger at the officer,
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waves his arms and goes, you make it a big mistake,
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that be where they just storm out of the lobby.
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Speaker 2: See that anger is highly performative.
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Speaker 1: You think it was fake?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely. James knows exactly how the right to counsel works.
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He was a cop for twenty years. His outrage is
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a theatrical display designed to establish a record of uncooperative innocence.
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Speaker 1: Uncooperative innocence wow.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. He is trying to lay the groundwork for a
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defense narrative that the police were hostile and unhelpful, which
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would then justify Jared's subsequent silence.
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Speaker 1: What makes this performance so deeply unsettling is the causal timeline,
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Because while James is screaming at a lieutenant about internet bullies,
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the actual physical reality of what Jared has done is
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unfolding back at his apartment building in grand rapids.
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Speaker 2: The timing overlaps perfectly.
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Speaker 1: It does. The contrast between the father's bureaucratic maneuvering in
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the police lobby and the gruesome biological reality at the
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apartment is just staggering.
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Speaker 2: It's hard to reconcile the two realities.
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Speaker 1: Let's shift to that apartment building and introduce a neighbor
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named Mario. Okay, so for a couple of days, Mario
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has been dealing with this increasingly horrific smell in his
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living space. He assumes it's a plumbing issue, maybe sewage
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backing up, so he takes it upon himself to go
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down into the basement of.
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Speaker 2: The building, which is usually blocked off right right.
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Speaker 1: It's a shared space, but normally blocked off for lock.
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But Mario's actions represent the standard civilian troubleshooting response exactly.
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Speaker 2: He is looking for a mechanical failure. He's completely unbourboned
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by the expectation of violence.
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Speaker 1: He heads down the stairs and notices a tarp laid
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out at the bottom. He actually steps over it, initially
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checks the pipes and finds nothing leaking, okay, But as
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he turns around head back up, he shines his flashlight
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directly onto the tarp, and that is when he sees
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a dark red liquid, clearly blood pooling and leaking from
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underneath the plastic.
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Speaker 2: And Mario's immediate reaction is actually the optimal response for
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preserving forensic integrity, though it was probably driven entirely by
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instinctual revulsion.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he explicitly states in the records that he refuses
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to touch it. He said, I ain't going to touch
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it because I don't want to lift that up and
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see none of that.
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Speaker 2: Smart man.
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Speaker 1: He immediately retreats upstairs and calls nine to one one.
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Speaker 2: By not disturbing the tarp, Mario prevents the introduction of
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his own DNA or footprints or fibers to the immediate
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vicinity of the remains. He basically locks the scene in
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place for the professionals.
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Speaker 1: Thank good as he did, because when patrol officers arrive
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and confirm the presence of blood, they realize the gravity
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of the situation and call in the Special Response Team
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the SRT.
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Speaker 2: The SWAT team essentially right, the description of.
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Speaker 1: The bodycam footage from this raid is incredibly tense. The
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basement is pitch black. The SRT operators are clearing the
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subterranean space using only the weapon mounted lights on their
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rifles and handheld flashlights.
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Speaker 2: The sensory details documented by the first responders here are intense.
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Speaker 1: The smell alone, right, yes.
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Speaker 2: The intense odor of decomposition, combined with active blood trails
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trickling from the canvas. It immediately shifts their protocol from
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a potential rescue to a homicide scene preservation.
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Speaker 1: So they slowly navigate the stairs and their lights illuminate
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this large, heavy canvas bag sitting at the base of
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the steps. One of the operators leans down, notices a
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slight opening in the canvas and uses his flashlight to
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look inside.
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Speaker 2: And what does he see?
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Speaker 1: He identifies human skin. He doesn't open the bag further.
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He immediately orders the entire team to back out of
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the basement to lock it down for the crime scene.
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Speaker 2: Technicians, which is textbook procedure.
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Speaker 1: When the forensics team finally opens that canvas bag in
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a controlled environment, they are confronted with a heavily mutilated body.
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It is a female torso, but the head, both hands,
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and both feet have been completely removed.
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Speaker 2: We need to analyze the specific mechanics of this mutilation
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for a second.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's horrified, it is.
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Speaker 2: But the removal of those specific body parts the head,
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the hands, and the feet points toward a highly deliberate,
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calculated intent to deny identification so they can't figure out
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who it is exactly. The offender is attempting to eliminate
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dental records, facial recognition, and fingerprint analysis. This requires a
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chilling level of psychological detachment. You are no longer dealing
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with a person in a panic. You are dealing with
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someone executing a methodical process of deconstruction.
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Speaker 1: But wait, I have to stop you there.
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Speaker 2: Okay? Why?
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Speaker 1: Because if we are labeling this as a methodical, calculated
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attempt to destroy identification, how do we reconcile that with
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what the SRT finds when they read the upstairs apartment.
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Speaker 2: Ah?
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Speaker 1: Yes, because the upstairs scene entirely contradicts the idea of
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some criminal mastermind.
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Speaker 2: It does. The upstairs scene represents a total collapse of
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cognitive organization. It is where the adrenaline and the substance
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abuse just overtake the initial intent.
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Speaker 1: The SRT breaches Jared's apartment door and they find him inside,
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apparently fast asleep. Sleeping, Yes, seemingly fast asleep, and the
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apartment itself is described as a localized disaster area. Furniture
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is overturned, trash is everywhere, and right in the middle
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of the kitchen floor there is a very obvious two
17:58
foot long stain that has been hastily covered in a
18:01
white powder.
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Speaker 2: The white powder is indicative of an amateur cleanup effort.
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He's likely using baking soda or a similar household agent
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to absorb fluids.
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Speaker 1: Or mask odors, but it's clearly not working.
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Speaker 2: No, it is applied with a zero understanding of forensic.
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Speaker 1: Science, and the true extent of his incompetence is revealed
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when detective subpoena his credit card and bank records.
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Speaker 2: Oh, this part is just baffling.
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Speaker 1: They create a timeline that tracks Jarried to a local
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convenience store called Miss Tracey's, just down the street from
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his apartment. He visited this store multiple times over a
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thirty six hour period, alternating between cash and credit cards.
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Speaker 2: So he's leaving a massive digital paper trail, a huge one.
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Speaker 1: The security footage shows him purchasing bottles of ammonia, but
18:44
it also captures him doing something utterly baffling. Early in
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the morning. The camera records him walking across the street
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and casually tossing a brightly colored bag into a public
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municipal trash bin.
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Speaker 2: And when investigators execute a search on that specific trash bin,
19:00
they recover evidence that completely dismantles the methodical concealment theory
19:05
we saw in the basement.
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Speaker 1: Inside the public trash bin, sitting right on top of
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the garbage. They find latex gloves. They find Ashley's purse.
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They find her state issued ID.
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Speaker 2: Which completely defeats the purpose of cutting off her hands
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and heads exactly.
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Speaker 1: And most incredibly, they find a pair of men's pants
19:22
heavily saturated in athlete's blood and sewn into the waistband
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of those bloody pants is a name tag that reads
19:29
Jared Chance.
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Speaker 2: I mean, this is a spectacular example of what we
19:31
can call a cognitive short circuit.
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Speaker 1: A short circuit when.
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Speaker 2: An offender is operating under the dual influences of extreme
19:38
psychological stress, you know, the realization of murder and chemical
19:42
alteration from xanax in marijuana. Their executive function just degrades rapidly.
19:48
Speaker 1: It's like they hyper fixate on one problem but completely
19:51
ignore the context. Yes, it's like realizing your boat has
19:54
a leak, so you put all your energy into furiously
19:58
baling the water out with a bucket, but you were
20:00
just throwing the water right back onto the deck of
20:02
the boat.
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Speaker 2: That's a perfect analogy.
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Speaker 1: He understands he needs to get the bloody pants out
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of his apartment, but he completely fails to process the
20:10
risk of putting them in a public trash can with
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his own name on them exactly.
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Speaker 2: The brain narrows its focus to the immediate vicinity. The
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thought process is, just the blood is in my apartment,
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I must remove it right. He buys the ammonia, likely
20:24
a tactic he absorbed from popular media, thinking it's the
20:27
quote unquote smart chemical solution, but the sheer physical and
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psychological exhaustion of dismembering a human body overwhelms his ability
20:36
to execute the secondary phase of the cover up.
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Speaker 1: He just runs out of steam.
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Speaker 2: He tosses the evidence in the nearest bin because he
20:42
simply lacks the stamina and the mental clarity to dispose
20:45
a bit properly.
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Speaker 1: And this massive failure in his solo cleanup effort transitions
20:50
this into the most disturbing phase of this investigation, the family. Yes,
20:55
Jared realizes he cannot manage this scene alone. His apartment
20:59
is covered in evidence, the body is only halfway concealed,
21:02
and the police are circling. So he reaches out for help,
21:06
and the people who answer that call are his parents, And.
21:09
Speaker 2: This case morphs from a disorganized homicide into a coordinated
21:13
family conspiracy, and.
21:14
Speaker 1: This is where the involvement of a twenty year police
21:16
veteran becomes the central focus of the investigation. The police
21:20
know James Chance's background and they know the parents live
21:23
in a neighboring jurisdiction, Holland, Michigan.
21:26
Speaker 2: So they secure a search warrant for the parents home.
21:29
Speaker 1: They do. Detectives secure the warrant and as they are
21:31
searching the living room, they look underneath the couch and
21:35
they're hidden under the sofa is a power tool, specifically
21:38
a reciprocating.
21:39
Speaker 2: Saw under the living room couch.
21:41
Speaker 1: Yes, and the source documents detail that investigators didn't even
21:45
need a microscope to see the biological evidence. There was
21:49
visible flesh, hair, and bone fragments caught in the teeth
21:52
of the blade. Expedited DNA testing confirmed it was matched
21:56
to Ashley Young.
21:57
Speaker 2: I mean a reciprocating saw is a heavy duty demolition tool.
22:01
From a forensic pathology standpoint, it is exactly the type
22:04
of instrument required to sever human longbones and vertebrae efficiently.
22:08
Speaker 1: It's horrifying finding.
22:10
Speaker 2: The murder weapon hidden under the living room couch of
22:12
a former police officer implies a level of active complicity
22:16
that goes far beyond simply turning a blind eye.
22:19
Speaker 1: I just can't wrap my head around the logistics of this.
22:21
What part If James is a twenty year cop, he
22:24
knows about luminol, he knows about DNA transfer, he knows
22:27
about search warrants. How does a trained officer think hiding
22:30
a saw covered in victim DNA under his own couch
22:33
is a viable strategy?
22:34
Speaker 2: It makes no offense.
22:35
Speaker 1: Did he think his badge made his house invisible to
22:37
a judge?
22:38
Speaker 2: It is a profound manifestation of the sunk cost fallacy
22:42
amplified by familial loyalty. James has spent his entire career
22:46
on one side of the interrogation table.
22:48
Speaker 1: Right.
22:48
Speaker 2: He likely believed that his institutional status, combined with a
22:52
performative display of cooperation like we saw at the police station,
22:56
would deflect a deep dive into his personal property.
22:59
Speaker 1: So he thought the look.
23:00
Speaker 2: Yes, he underestimated the modern forensic apparatus because his primary
23:05
drive was the immediate preservation of his son. The logic
23:09
of a detective was completely overridden by the desperation.
23:12
Speaker 1: Of a father, and that desperation leads to a vehicular
23:16
cover up that is almost too macob to believe. Through
23:19
neighborhood surveillance and witness statements, detectives pieced together the timeline
23:24
of how that saw got to Holland. Didn't just walk there, No,
23:27
Jared's brother Conrad, along with the parents James and Barbara,
23:31
drove their Honda from Holland to Jared's apartment in Grand Rapids.
23:35
They actively helped load items from the crime scene into
23:38
the trunk of their family car.
23:40
Speaker 2: We really have to analyze the physical reality of the
23:42
items they were loading, because they weren't moving boxes of clothes.
23:46
Speaker 1: They loaded a mop and a bucket that, according to
23:49
the sources, emanated a horrific odor of bleach and decomposition,
23:54
and then they loaded a heavily taped brown cardboard Amazon box.
23:59
Oh Man police investigation later confirms that this specific Amazon
24:03
box contained Ashley's severed arms and legs.
24:06
Speaker 2: Just consider the sensory environment inside that Honda. I don't
24:09
even want to the smell of decaying human remains mixed
24:13
with industrial cleaning chemicals in the enclosed space of a sedan.
24:17
There is absolutely no plausible deniability regarding the nature of
24:20
the cargo. The entire family is acutely aware that they
24:25
are transporting biological evidence, and they.
24:27
Speaker 1: Don't just drive point A to point B in the
24:29
dead of night. The timeline shows they drove around town
24:31
in broad daylight. They actually stopped and when shopping at Costco.
24:34
Speaker 2: Wait, they went to Costco.
24:36
Speaker 1: Yes, they went to Costco with the box in the car.
24:39
They also parked at the Grand Rapids police station. This
24:42
is when James went inside to yell at the lieutenant
24:45
about Facebook.
24:45
Speaker 2: That is just sur rich.
24:47
Speaker 1: Ashley's limbs were sitting in a cardboard box in the
24:49
parking lot while he was inside, demanding police protection for
24:53
his son. And then, inexplicably, after this bizarre road trip,
24:58
they drive back to Jared's partartment and give the bogs
25:01
back to him.
25:02
Speaker 2: The psychological compartmentalization required to run errands at a wholesale
25:07
warehouse while human remains are decomposing in your trunk is staggering.
25:11
Speaker 1: How do you even do that?
25:12
Speaker 2: It suggests a family dynamic entirely detached from moral reality,
25:16
operating solely on a tactical imperative to manage Jared's mess,
25:21
But taking the box back to Jared indicates a fracture
25:24
in their plan.
25:24
Speaker 1: They change their minds.
25:26
Speaker 2: They likely realize the impossibility of permanently disposing of the
25:29
remains themselves without triggering a massive investigation in their own jurisdiction,
25:34
so they return the liability to the point of origin and.
25:37
Speaker 1: This coordinated effort completely collapses once the police execute the
25:41
warrants and bring the parents in for interrogation.
25:43
Speaker 2: The interrogation transcripts are fascinating.
25:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really are. They provide a look at how
25:48
this family tries and ultimately fails to outmaneuver the detectives
25:53
in the box. Let's look at the mother, Barbara first.
25:57
Speaker 2: The strategy in an interrogation when facing overwhelming physical evidence
26:01
is often to concede the evidence but dispute the intent.
26:05
Speaker 1: Exactly when the prosecutor applies leverage to Barbara, explicitly threatening
26:10
her with a perjury charge, which carries a potential life
26:14
sentence when attached to a homicide investigation, she suddenly produces
26:18
a highly detailed narrative.
26:20
Speaker 2: A very convenient narrative.
26:22
Speaker 1: She claims Jared came to her weeping and confessed to
26:25
a tragic quote unquote.
26:27
Speaker 2: Accident, and the narrative she constructs is highly calibrated to
26:30
mitigate legal exposure for murder.
26:32
Speaker 1: She tells detectives that Jared claimed he and Ashley were
26:34
drinking and playing with a point two two caliber revolver.
26:38
According to Barbara, Jared said she was my friend. I
26:40
would never kill.
26:41
Speaker 2: Anybody, so she's setting up the victim.
26:43
Speaker 1: Right. The story is that Ashley was recklessly pointing the
26:46
gun at her own face, the weapon discharged accidentally, and
26:50
she died instantly. Jared, being a felon who wasn't allowed
26:53
to be around firearms, allegedly panicked, assumed the police would
26:57
frame him for murder. In a state of sheer terror,
27:01
decided to dismember the body to hide the accident.
27:04
Speaker 2: Notice the architecture of this lie. It achieves two crucial
27:08
legal goals for the defense.
27:10
Speaker 1: What are they?
27:11
Speaker 2: First, it completely shifts the culpability for the death onto
27:14
the victim herself. It was her reckless behavior that caused
27:18
the fatal outcome, right blaming Ashley. Second, it provides a
27:22
non malicious explanation for the mutilation. It frames the dismemberment
27:26
not as an act of cold blooded concealment, but as
27:29
a flawed, panic induced response by a marginalized individual terrified
27:34
of the justice system.
27:36
Speaker 1: It's a textbook attempt to establish reasonable doubt regarding the
27:39
charge of murder.
27:40
Speaker 2: It really is.
27:41
Speaker 1: But the architecture of that lie starts to crack when
27:43
detectives put James in the interrogation room. James attempts to
27:47
play a very specific character.
27:48
Speaker 2: Oh this part.
27:50
Speaker 1: The detective notes that James adopts the persona of a doddering,
27:53
forgetful old man who is just overwhelmed by the situation
27:56
and can't quite recall the exact details his son told.
27:59
Speaker 2: Him, which is a known counter interrogation tactic.
28:02
Speaker 1: Really playing dumb.
28:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, feigning cognitive decline or confusion forces the interrogator to
28:08
slow down, repeat questions, and show their hand. It gives
28:12
the suspect time to formulate safe answers.
28:15
Speaker 1: But James makes a catastrophic linguistic error. He is recounting
28:19
the accident story to the detective, explaining how the gun
28:22
went off, and he says out loud, he pointed, I
28:27
mean she pointed.
28:28
Speaker 2: That slip of the pronoun is everything is a massive
28:31
slip in cognitive linguistics. When a subject is maintaining a
28:34
complex fabrication, their working memory is overloaded. The truth that
28:39
Jared point to the gun is the foundational memory, and the.
28:41
Speaker 1: Lie requires active suppression of.
28:43
Speaker 2: That truth, exactly the lie that Ashley pointed. It requires
28:47
active suppression under the stress of the interrogation. The suppression
28:50
mechanism fails for a fraction of a second, and the
28:52
foundational truth just slips out.
28:54
Speaker 1: The detective immediately pounces on it. He points directly at
28:57
James and says, you just said he pointed, and and
29:00
stop yourself. Godam. James desperately tries to backtrack, claiming he
29:04
just misspoke, but the energy in the room shifts completely.
29:08
He knows he just validated the theory that Jared pulled
29:11
the trigger.
29:12
Speaker 2: And observe how James reacts when his control over the
29:15
narrative is broken. He abandons the doddering old man routine
29:19
and reverts to aggressive victimhood, just like he did at
29:23
the police station lobby.
29:24
Speaker 1: It's incredible. He looks at the detective and says, we're
29:27
all victims here. I'm a victim of this too, and
29:29
I'm offended. I've been charged with a felony because of
29:31
the way the system is set up. So offended, he
29:34
actually compares the detectives investigating him for concealing a dismembered
29:38
body to living under communism.
29:40
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate expression of institutional narcissism.
29:44
Speaker 1: He genuinely believes that his status as a former officer
29:48
should inoculate him from the consequences of his actions. When
29:51
the system treats him like any other suspect, he perceives
29:54
it as a structural betrayal rather than a consequence of
29:58
his own criminal behavior.
29:59
Speaker 2: But p derogation dynamic forces a massive problem onto the
30:02
desk of the prosecution because.
30:04
Speaker 1: The parents interdect the accident theory.
30:06
Speaker 2: Yes, because regardless of James's slip up, the parents have
30:10
now officially injected the tragic accident narrative into the record.
30:14
They have conceded the mutilation, but offered a plausible alternative
30:18
to premeditated murder.
30:20
Speaker 1: So how does this state legally dismantle a prepackaged defense
30:24
when the physical evidence of the death itself has been
30:26
intentionally destroyed. This brings us to the trial.
30:29
Speaker 2: And the deeply complex legal strategy required to secure a conviction.
30:34
Speaker 1: Here, the prosecution is operating at a severe disadvantage.
30:37
Speaker 2: They really are, because they are facing an evidentiary void.
30:41
They have the perpetrator, and they have the remains, but
30:43
the mechanism connecting the two is missing.
30:46
Speaker 1: Let's break down the charges. Jared is indicted on second
30:49
degree murder, tampering with evidence, mutilation of a dead body,
30:53
and concealing a death.
30:54
Speaker 2: The glaring omission here is first degree.
30:56
Speaker 1: Murder, Right, why no first degree?
30:58
Speaker 2: To secure a first degree murder conviction in Michigan, the
31:01
state must prove premeditation and deliberation. They have to prove
31:05
Jared planned to kill Ashley before he acted, which they
31:08
can't do because there are no witnesses to the actual event,
31:12
no electronic communications outlining a plan, and because the state
31:16
of the remains prevents any analysis of defensive wounds or
31:19
the sequence of injuries. Premeditation is forensically impossible.
31:23
Speaker 1: To prove, so they're forced to proceed with second degree.
31:26
Speaker 2: Murder, yes, which requires proving he intentionally caused her death,
31:29
but not that he planned it in advance.
31:31
Speaker 1: But even proving second degree murder is a monumental task
31:35
because of the medical examiner's testimony.
31:37
Speaker 2: The emme's testimony is a huge hurdle.
31:40
Speaker 1: The em takes the stand and he has to admit
31:42
a devastating forensic limitation because investigators never recovered Ashley's head, hands,
31:47
or feet. Theme cannot scientifically determine exactly how she died.
31:51
Speaker 2: He has to classify the death officially as a homicide
31:54
by unspecified means. Unspecified means, the pathology report essentially states
31:59
a negative emmy testifies that there were no fatal, life
32:02
ending injuries to the torso, the arms, or the legs. Therefore,
32:06
by a process of anatomical elimination, whatever killed Ashley must
32:10
have occurred from the neck up.
32:11
Speaker 1: So they guess it was a head injury.
32:13
Speaker 2: Right. Theme can hypothesize that it was likely blunt force
32:17
trauma to the skull or a gunshot to the head,
32:20
but without the physical skull to examine for fractures or ballistics,
32:24
it remains a hypothesis, not a medical certainty, and.
32:27
Speaker 1: The defense team seizes on this limitation brilliantly.
32:31
Speaker 2: It's what they have to do.
32:32
Speaker 1: They stand before the jury and argue, the state has
32:35
zero physical evidence that my client caused this woman's death.
32:40
The medical examiner just told you he doesn't know how
32:42
she died.
32:42
Speaker 2: They lay it all out.
32:44
Speaker 1: They say it could have been a sudden medical event,
32:45
it could have been a suicide, or it could have
32:48
been exactly what Jared told his mother a tragic accident
32:50
where she shot herself.
32:52
Speaker 2: The defense concedes that Jared mutilated the body. I mean,
32:55
they have to his DNA and the saw make it undeniable.
32:58
But they argue thattting up a corpse does not legally
33:01
prove that you actually created the corpse.
33:03
Speaker 1: It is a highly cynical legal maneuver, but it is
33:06
structurally sound.
33:08
Speaker 2: It is the burden of proof rests entirely on the
33:11
state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jared committed
33:15
the act of murder. If the state's own medical expert
33:18
cannot definitively state the cause of death, that constitutes a
33:22
textbook definition of reasonable doubt.
33:24
Speaker 1: Well, I have to pause and push back on the
33:26
philosophy the justice system here.
33:27
Speaker 2: Okay, let's hear it, because listening to.
33:30
Speaker 1: This defense strategy, it feels like the system is actively
33:33
rewarding a killer for being brutal enough to successfully destroy
33:39
the specific anacomical evidence that would convict him.
33:42
Speaker 2: It does feel that way.
33:43
Speaker 1: If you kill someone and leave the body, you get convicted.
33:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:45
Speaker 1: If you kill someone and saw their head off so
33:47
that Emmy can't find the bullet, you get to argue
33:50
reasonable doubt.
33:51
Speaker 2: It's a loophole of brutality.
33:52
Speaker 1: It's like a student getting caught cheating on a final exam,
33:55
and right before the principal grabs the paper, the student
33:58
literally eats the tat and then the student argues, well,
34:02
you can't suspend me because you don't have the physical
34:04
test to prove I got the answers wrong.
34:06
Speaker 2: That is exactly what it's like.
34:07
Speaker 1: It feels like a massive glitch in the legal matrix.
34:10
Speaker 2: Your analogy is entirely accurate. It is a recognized vulnerability
34:14
in adversarial legal systems. It's often referred to as the
34:18
no body or destroyed evidence hurdle.
34:20
Speaker 1: How do prosecutors even get around that?
34:22
Speaker 2: When an offender successfully eliminates the primary forensic indicators of homicide,
34:27
they force the prosecution to abandon hard science and rely
34:31
entirely on behavioral logic and circumstantial evidence.
34:34
Speaker 1: Which is much harder for a jury to grasp, much harder.
34:37
Speaker 2: The state has to weave a web of surrounding facts
34:40
so tight that the accident theory becomes logically impossible for
34:43
a jury to accept.
34:45
Speaker 1: And the prosecution does weave that web, relying heavily on
34:48
the testimony of two key witnesses who establish a pattern
34:51
of extreme relevant.
34:52
Speaker 2: Behavior, the first being the brother.
34:55
Speaker 1: Yes. The first is Jared's own brother, Conrad.
34:57
Speaker 2: Conrad's testimony is the lynchpin in and destroying the mother's
35:01
claim that Ashley was the one carelessly playing with the firearm.
35:04
Speaker 1: Conrad takes the stand and recounts an incident that occurred
35:07
in Jared's apartment just days prior to the murder. He
35:10
testifies that he, Jared, and Ashley were hanging out smoking marijuana,
35:14
and then what happens out of nowhere, Jared produces a
35:18
point two to two caliber revolver. He points the barrel
35:21
directly at Conrad's chest and pulls the trigger.
35:24
Speaker 2: He executes a dry fire at center mass, without checking
35:27
the cylinder and without checking the safety mechanism.
35:29
Speaker 1: Exactly, just a sudden, unprovoked click, and Conrad testifies that
35:34
it was Ashley who immediately reprimanded Jared. Oh wow, yes,
35:37
she yelled at him, saying You're never supposed to do that.
35:40
Speaker 2: This testimony is devastating to the defense. It establishes two
35:44
critical facts.
35:45
Speaker 1: For the jury that he had the gun.
35:47
Speaker 2: Yes. First, it proves Jared had access to a point
35:49
two two revolver in the immediate timeframe of the murder. Second,
35:53
it demonstrates that Jared, not Ashley, was the one who
35:56
exhibited grossly reckless lethal behavior with that specific weapon.
36:01
Speaker 1: It flips the mother's narrative.
36:03
Speaker 2: Entirely, completely flips it.
36:04
Speaker 1: Then the prosecution calls Mario, the neighbor who discovered the
36:07
blood in the basement. Mario testifies that a few weeks
36:11
before the murder, Jared had been bragging to him in
36:14
the hallway, bragging about what Jared showed. Mario that same
36:17
point two to two revolver claimed that his father used
36:21
to be affiliated with the Irish mob and explicitly boasted
36:24
that he knew how to get away with murder and
36:27
specifically how to clean up blood.
36:29
Speaker 2: So the prosecution has meticulously built a circumstantial profile.
36:34
Speaker 1: They really painted a picture.
36:35
Speaker 2: The jury is now looking at a defendant who has
36:37
a history of stealing from the victim, who drive fires
36:41
weapons at his family members, who brags about knowing how
36:44
to conceal a homicide, and who then miraculously has the
36:47
woman in his apartment die of an accident that just
36:50
happens to require him to clean up blood and conceal
36:52
a homicide.
36:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, the coincidence is just too much.
36:54
Speaker 2: The statistical probability of all these factors aligning around an
36:57
innocent accident is vanishingly small.
37:00
Speaker 1: But the prosecutor knows that circumstantial evidence can still leave
37:03
run for a hesitant juror. He needs a visceral emotional
37:07
anchor to finally sink the accident.
37:09
Speaker 2: Defense, and he achieves this during his closing arguments.
37:12
Speaker 1: He does with what I can only describe as a
37:15
tactical masterstroke. The prosecutor walks into the center of the
37:19
courtroom holding the actual physical evidence, the reciprocating saw.
37:25
Speaker 2: It is an appeal to tactile reality.
37:27
Speaker 1: Yes, he is forcing the jury to confront the physical
37:30
brutality of the crime, moving them away from abstract legal
37:34
theories about burdens of proof, just.
37:36
Speaker 2: Putting the horror right in their hands.
37:38
Speaker 1: Essentially, he holds this heavy power tool, knowing it still
37:41
has traces of Ashley's DNA on the blade. He looks
37:44
directly into the jury box and he asks a brilliant,
37:47
horror fyally simple question.
37:49
Speaker 2: What do you say?
37:50
Speaker 1: He says, Look at the person sitting to your right,
37:52
Imagine that they suddenly die of a tragic accident, right now,
37:56
if you had nothing to do with their death, would
37:58
your first instinct be to take this saw, cut their
38:00
head off when you saw their arms off and their
38:02
legs off, and then go to the store to buy
38:04
ammonia to cover it up.
38:05
Speaker 2: The brilliance of that argument lies in its appeal to
38:09
universal human behavior.
38:10
Speaker 1: Right, what would a normal person do?
38:12
Speaker 2: Exactly? The prosecutor is bypassing the medical examiner's lack of
38:16
a cause of death by arguing that the extremity of
38:18
the mutilation is the proof of malice. Innocent people who
38:22
witness a tragic accident experience shock, They experience grief. They
38:27
call nine to one one.
38:27
Speaker 1: They don't start dismembering a friend.
38:29
Speaker 2: They do not initiate a methodical, multi day biological demolition project.
38:36
The sheer scale of the cover up inherently destroys the
38:39
presumption of innocence, and.
38:41
Speaker 1: The jury clearly agrees with that behavioral logic. They don't
38:44
buy the accident narrative for a second. The deliberation is swift,
38:48
and the verdict is absolute.
38:50
Speaker 2: Guilty on all counts.
38:51
Speaker 1: They find Jared Chance guilty on all counts. Yeah, second
38:53
degree murder tampering with evidence, mutilation of a dead body,
38:57
and concealing a death.
38:59
Speaker 2: It represents a trymph of circumstantial logic over a manufactured
39:02
forensic void. The jury looked at the totality of the
39:05
circumstances and recognized the truth beneath the missing evidence.
39:09
Speaker 1: But securing a guilty verdict is just the procedural end
39:11
of a trial. It doesn't address the.
39:13
Speaker 2: Human costs the sentencing hearing.
39:15
Speaker 1: Yes, this transitions us to the sentencing hearing, which forces
39:19
us to step away from the cold mechanics of legal
39:22
strategy and confront the raw, enduring devastation that this crime
39:27
inflicted on the family.
39:28
Speaker 2: The transcripts from the sentencing hearing in this case document
39:31
one of the most harrowing and emotionally dense victim impact
39:35
statements on record.
39:36
Speaker 1: Christine Young, Ashley's mother, takes the podium to address the
39:40
court and to directly address the man who murdered her daughter,
39:44
and she brings a visual.
39:45
Speaker 2: Aid which is just heartbreaking.
39:48
Speaker 1: She is holding a small decorative box. She explains to
39:51
the courtroom that this box contains what little ashes the
39:54
family was able to recover.
39:55
Speaker 2: Of Ashley because he disposed of so much.
39:57
Speaker 1: Of her right. Because Jared successfully disposed of her head, hands,
40:01
and feet, the family was denied even the solace of
40:04
a complete burial. Christine stands there and says, this is
40:07
what's left of my daughter. If I want to hug,
40:09
I have to hug a box. Close my eyes and
40:11
pretend that she is hugging me back.
40:13
Speaker 2: It is a stark, physical manifestation of profound grief. She
40:16
is forcing the court and the offender to look at
40:19
the literal reduction of human life into a fraction of ash.
40:23
Speaker 1: And her grief is matched only by her fury. She
40:27
looks directly at Jared, who is sitting at the defense table,
40:30
and she says, I want to rip you limb from
40:32
limb and discard you like trash, just like what you
40:35
did to Ashley.
40:36
Speaker 2: Wow.
40:36
Speaker 1: She tells him that he enjoys tormenting people, that he
40:39
feeds on the pain he causes, but she refuses to
40:42
give him the final victory. She squares her shoulders and declares,
40:46
you are never going to take from us Ashley's.
40:48
Speaker 2: Spirit and the source documents note a highly disturbing behavioral
40:52
detail during this entire statement about Jared. Yes, while a
40:56
grieving mother is pouring out this visceral agony. Jared Chance
41:00
sat at the defense table exhibiting a completely flat effect,
41:04
zero emotion, zero remorse, not even defensive anger.
41:08
Speaker 1: He was a blank wall, just dead inside, completely, and
41:11
the judge presiding over the case takes specific note of
41:13
this absolute lack of humanity. When the judge formally delivers
41:17
the sentence, he abandons the typically measured, bureaucratic language of
41:20
the bench.
41:21
Speaker 2: He really goes after him.
41:22
Speaker 1: The rhetoric he uses is unprecedented in its severity. He
41:26
explicitly labels Jared Chance a psychopath. On the record, he
41:30
states that Jared is a monster, entirely devoid of a conscience,
41:34
theorizing that Jared likely killed Ashley simply to see what
41:38
it felt like to take a life and to see
41:40
if he possessed the cunning to get away with it.
41:42
Speaker 2: The judge's rhetoric touches on a fundamental debate within the
41:45
criminal justice system, the balance between rehabilitation and incapacitation.
41:50
Speaker 1: Right, because some people can't be rehabilitated exactly.
41:53
Speaker 2: The defense had argued earlier in the process that the
41:55
prosecution and the family were merely seeking vengeance, not justice,
41:59
but the judge's ruling clarifies that when the court is
42:02
confronted with an offender who displays psychopathic traits, specifically a
42:07
total lack of empathy and a willingness to engage in
42:09
grotesque post mortem violence, the duty of the court shifts
42:13
entirely away from rehabilitation. The goal changes, yes, the primary
42:16
mandate becomes the absolute permanent protection of society. Incapacitation is
42:21
the only logical response to a predator who views human
42:24
beings as disposable material.
42:26
Speaker 1: And the judge ensures that incapacitation is permanent. He sentences
42:31
Jared Chance to a minimum of one hundred years up
42:34
to a maximum of two hundred years in the Michigan Department.
42:37
Speaker 2: Of Corrections, so he's never getting out never.
42:40
Speaker 1: The judge explicitly states on the record that he mathematically
42:44
structured the sentence this way to guarantee that Jared will
42:47
not even be eligible for his first parole hearing until
42:50
he's one hundred and thirty years old.
42:52
Speaker 2: It is a de facto life sentence without the possibility
42:54
of parole, ensuring that Jared will expire within the prison system.
42:58
Speaker 1: Before we conclude the legal fall out, we have to
43:01
address the fate of the parents, because this was, as
43:04
investigators labeled it, a family.
43:06
Speaker 2: Affair, right James and Barbara the mother.
43:08
Speaker 1: Barbara eventually recognized the reality of the situation and pled
43:12
guilty to her role in the cover.
43:13
Speaker 2: Up, but James fought it.
43:15
Speaker 1: The father, James stubbornly refused to accept culpability and took
43:19
his chances with a jury trial. His jury ultimately deadlocked,
43:23
resulting in a hung jury on the perjury charge, but
43:26
they successfully convicted him of being an accessory after the
43:29
fact to the mutilation of a dead body.
43:31
Speaker 2: A man who spent two decades enforcing the law wearing
43:35
a badge ends up with a felony conviction for utilizing
43:38
his family vehicle to transport the dismembered remains of a
43:41
woman his son murdered.
43:43
Speaker 1: It's hard to even fathom.
43:45
Speaker 2: The systemic irony and the moral collapse required for that
43:48
outcome are difficult to overstate, But as.
43:51
Speaker 1: We look at the aftermath of all these convictions, there
43:54
is one chilling reality that hangs over this entire.
43:58
Speaker 2: Narrative like a shadow, missing pieces.
44:00
Speaker 1: See exactly, even after being condemned to spend a century
44:03
in a concrete cell, even after watching both of his
44:06
parents become convicted felons for trying to save him. Jared
44:09
Chance has maintained absolute silence on one specific issue.
44:13
Speaker 2: He won't say where the rest of her is.
44:14
Speaker 1: He has continually refused to reveal the location of the
44:17
rest of Ashley's remains. Her head, her hands, and her
44:21
feet have never been recovered. They are still out there,
44:24
hidden in the dark.
44:25
Speaker 2: From a psychological perspective, this refusal is the ultimate indicator
44:29
of Jared's pathology. How So, for an individual who has
44:32
been stripped of all physical autonomy, his freedom, his privacy,
44:36
his future, withholding that specific geographic information is the single
44:40
piece of currency he has left.
44:42
Speaker 1: It's a power play.
44:43
Speaker 2: It is his final pathetic mechanism for maintaining dominance. By
44:48
keeping that secret, he's actively choosing to inflict continuous, daily
44:52
psychological pain on Christine and her family from inside his cell.
44:56
It is the only power he still wields.
44:58
Speaker 1: It is an active, ongoing cruelty. So, as we wrap
45:02
up this incredibly heavy deep dive, we have traced a
45:04
path from Ashley's dangerous reliance on extreme empathy, through a
45:08
chaotic bloodsilk department into a bizarre vehicular cover up engineered
45:13
by a former cop, and finally into a courtroom where
45:15
a prosecutor used human logic to defeat a lack of
45:18
forensic science.
45:19
Speaker 2: It's a lot to process, it is, but.
45:21
Speaker 1: The enduing image is a mother holding a small box,
45:24
refusing to let a monster erase her daughter's spirit.
45:27
Speaker 2: And as we step away from the timeline of the case,
45:29
I want to leave you the listener with a broader
45:32
psychological concept to reflect on. It isn't explicitly named in
45:36
the court transcripts, but it is the invisible weight pressing
45:39
down on every word. Christine spoke, what is that? It
45:42
is a phenomenon known in psychology as ambiguous loss.
45:47
Speaker 1: Ambiguous loss? How does that differ from standard grief?
45:51
Speaker 2: When a loved one passes away in a definitive manner,
45:54
the grieving process is horrific, but it has a defined shape.
45:58
Speaker 1: Like you have a funeral, you bury that right.
46:01
Speaker 2: There is a body, a funeral, a clear ending to
46:03
the physical narrative, which allows the psychological healing to eventually begin.
46:08
But when an individual's remains are intentionally withheld or never recovered,
46:11
the grieving process is frozen in a state of suspension
46:14
because there's no closure. The human brain struggles to fully
46:17
process the finality of the death. Because the physical puzzle
46:20
remains incomplete, the family is trapped in an agonizing limbo
46:24
between knowing the person is gone and lacking the physical
46:27
proof to finalize the goodbye. It is an ongoing, daily
46:31
psychological torture which.
46:33
Speaker 1: Begs a massive structural question about how our justice system
46:37
handles these specific types of.
46:39
Speaker 2: Offenders precisely, which leads to the question, I want you
46:42
to maul over okay? Should the legal system explicitly recognize
46:46
and penalize the intentional infliction of ambiguous loss?
46:49
Speaker 1: Oh? Interesting?
46:50
Speaker 2: When a convicted murderer actively refuses to disclose the location
46:54
of a victim's remains, knowing the specific unending trauma causes,
46:59
should that refusal be prosecuted as an entirely separate, continuous.
47:02
Speaker 1: Crime, like an ongoing charge.
47:04
Speaker 2: Should we develop legal mechanisms, perhaps escalating punitive measures or
47:09
specific civil liabilities, to penalize offenders who attempt to weaponize
47:13
a family's grief as their final act of control.
47:16
Speaker 1: That is a profound question to walk away with because
47:19
the reality is right now for Christine and her family,
47:22
the picture is still incomplete. The puzzle is still missing. Pieces,
47:26
and the man who broke it gets to hold those
47:28
pieces hostage in the dark.
47:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.
47:30
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. It
47:32
is a grueling journey, but understanding the mechanics of these
47:35
events is how we learn to protect ourselves in our communities.
47:39
Speaker 2: Stay safe out there, keep.
47:41
Speaker 1: Asking the hard questions, look out for the people around you,
47:44
and keep questioning the world. We'll see you next time.