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The West Side Excavation: A Detroit Forensics Investigation · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine a perfectly normal Sunday afternoon in your neighborhood, you know,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: like the kind of day I'm talking about.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. The sun is out. There's a nice little breeze.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Right. Maybe you hear the distant rhythmic hum of a
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: lawnmower just a few streets over.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just that classic weekend soundtrack.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So you step out onto your front porch with
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: a cup of coffee and you hear the familiar productive
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: sounds of a construction crew down the block.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Like someone is finally getting around to renovating that one
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: fixer-upper on the corner.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly that. It is just the picture of mundane,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: everyday domestic life.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Which is really the baseline of our existence, if you
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: think about it. We rely on that predictability.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: We really do.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, we expect the sounds of hammers and saws
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: to yield fresh drywall and new windows. We'd expect our
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: neighborhoods to be these sanctuaries of routine and safety.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: You completely expect the ordinary. But then, in an instant,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: that entire facade of normalcy is just shattered.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Totally shattered.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: A sudden, horrifying discovery brings all those hammers to a halt.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: The police sirens start wailing.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: And before the sun even sets, your quiet street has
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: been transformed.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, into a massive, heavily guarded federal crime scene.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: It's intense.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It really is. So, welcome to today's Deep Dive. We
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: are thrilled you are joining us because today we are
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: taking a look at a scenario that sounds like I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: don't know, the cold open to a television thriller.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Right. But it is actually a very real developing situation
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: on the ground.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Our mission today is to dissect the anatomy of
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: a sudden large scale criminal investigation.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: We really want to explore the mechanics of what happens,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: you know, logistically, psychologically and structurally.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. When a local familiar neighborhood becomes ground zero. for
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a sprawling federal inquiry literally overnight.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: It happens so fast.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: It does. And to do that, we're looking at a
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: developing local news report out of Detroit.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: This comes to us from WXYZ Detroit, Channel 7.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: That's the one. Originally reported on air by journalist Randy Wembley.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And the foundational facts of this situation are, well, they're
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: both straightforward and deeply unsettling.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Very unsettling. So we are on Detroit's west side, specifically
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: on Oregon Street, right near the intersection of I-96 and Tireman.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, got the layout.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was a home there that was recently purchased,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and a construction crew was on site this past Sunday
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: afternoon working on renovations.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Which happens all the time. Right.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Now, right next to this home is a lot that
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: has been sitting vacant for a few years.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: And, I mean, a vacant lot in a residential neighborhood
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: is a really common sight in many American cities.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: But it operates as a sort of liminal space. Yes.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: It is a gap in the fabric of the community.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Like just empty space.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Unmonitored, overgrown, and often just ignored by the people
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: who walk past it every single day.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Nature just kind of reclaims it.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And people simply stop perceiving it as active space.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It just becomes background scenery until it suddenly demands your attention.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Because while that construction crew was working on Sunday afternoon,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: they ventured into or, you know, interacted with that vacant
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: lot somehow.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And they made a jarring discovery that stopped absolutely everything.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: They found human remains.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Which is just incredible to think about.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Because I want you to think
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: about the underlying mechanics of this situation. Like buying an
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: old fixer-upper house.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I like that analogy.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Right. When you purchase an older property, you go in
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: with this mental model of expected surprises.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: You definitely plan for things to go wrong.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You plan to rip into a wall... and find
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that the previous owner did some wildly dangerous DIY electrical wiring.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Or you dig up the yard for a
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: garden and strike a piece of century-old rotted-out plumbing.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Yes. You are mentally and financially preparing for structural headaches.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: But those problems are contained within the logic of homeownership.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Right. They make sense for the context.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: You do not expect the shovel to hit something that
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: violently ejects you from the logic of homeownership and throws
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: you into a massive criminal investigation.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: An investigation that pauses the entire neighborhood.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: The transition from a local municipal permit issue, you know,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: renovating a house, to a federal forensic operation is instantaneous.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Like flipping a switch.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And that sudden pivot is what makes the mechanics of
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: this so compelling to analyze. We're watching a localized ecosystem
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: suddenly get swallowed by a much larger, highly organized bureaucratic machine.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Let's follow that narrative transition because the escalation here is
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: incredibly rapid.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: We go from a localized, panicked 911 call from a
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: construction worker on a Sunday afternoon to an operation that
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: instantly morphs into a multi-agency mobilization.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Literally within hours.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Right. According to the reporting, almost immediately after that call...
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: The neighborhood was flooded with local police.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: And they secured the lot, setting up a perimeter.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And they held that perimeter overnight. Then by Monday morning,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: a specialized FBI forensics team arrived to effectively take over
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the scene.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Which I have to point out, securing a scene overnight
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: in an urban environment is a remarkably tense logistical hurdle.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I bet it is.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: The Detroit Police Department had to ensure that not a
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: single inch of that vacant lot was disturbed.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Think about all the variables in an open-air urban lot
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: at night.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, there are so many. You have weather changes. You
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: have local wildlife like feral cats or raccoons.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And you have curious onlookers, obviously.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The police are establishing a hard boundary to preserve
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: a completely unknown variable in the dark.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Effectively hitting the pause button on the physical environment until
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: daylight allows for a systematic approach.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: That is exactly what they are doing.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: But hold on. If it's a cold puzzle and there's
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: no active threat, why the massive rush?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: What do you mean?
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Like, why flood the zone overnight instead of just taping
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: it off and waiting for morning? I mean, a few
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: strips of yellow tape usually signify a crime scene.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Why station officers to physically hold the perimeter of an
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: empty lot overnight if whatever is there has presumably been
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: there for years?
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the concept of chain of custody
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: and scene integrity.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, right.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: That begins the very second that 911 call is verified.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: A strip of yellow tape is a psychological barrier, not
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: a physical one.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Ah, I see.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. If a neighborhood kid ducks under that tape on
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: a dare at 2 a.m. and kicks a piece of evidence,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: or if an animal drags something away, the integrity of
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: the future prosecution is compromised. Wow.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the immediate massive police presence is less about
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: stopping an ongoing crime.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: And entirely about freezing time. They are turning a chaotic
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: public space into a hermetically sealed laboratory.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I see where you're going with that. And that transition
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to a laboratory setting brings in the jurisdictional puzzle.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Because I was looking at the timeline, and the FBI's
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: involvement really stands out.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: It's definitely a major escalation.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Why does a local police department, especially a department as large, well-resourced,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: and experienced as the Detroit Police Department, need the FBI
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: for remains found in a vacant lot?
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: That's a good question.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, DPD handles homicides and complex crime scenes every
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: single day. What does this massive immediate federal presence suggest
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: about the nature of what this construction crew actually found?
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Well, we have to look at the specific language used
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: in the public statements from these agencies.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Because it's very deliberate, right?
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Extremely deliberate. It gives us a highly calculated window into
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: their operational thinking. The Detroit Police Department stated they are
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: in the early stages of their investigation.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Which is pretty standard, cautious law enforcement phrasing.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But the FBI simultaneously announced that there is no
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: threat to the public.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Which, I have to say, feels like a bizarrely comforting
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: thing to try and say when you are literally digging
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: up human remains in a residential neighborhood.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Right. It sounds a bit counterintuitive.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: How can they definitively declare there is no threat within
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: hours of finding remains?
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Because in the context of a sudden multi-agency mobilization, no
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: threat to the public is a highly specific coded message.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Coded how?
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: It means that based on their immediate preliminary assessment of
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: the remains.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Like how long they've been there?
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, perhaps the advanced state of decomposition or the depth
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: of the burial or even the lack of any corresponding
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: recent missing persons reports in that immediate vicinity.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. So they can tell it's not a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: fresh scene.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Authorities believe this is an isolated and historical incident.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: They are signaling to the community that they are not
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: tracking an active, ongoing danger.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: They're dealing with a cold puzzle, not a hot threat.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Perfectly said. Furthermore, the FBI brings resources that a local
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: municipality simply cannot easily spare for a prolonged multi-day excavation.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I like what kind of resources.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Well, the FBI's evidence response teams are equipped for massive,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: archaeologically sound, earth-moving operations.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Which brings me to this one detail in the report.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I was looking at the detail about DTE, the local
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: energy and utility company, bringing in heavy excavating equipment.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a huge logistical detail.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: That blew my mind. You don't bring a massive backhoe
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to dust for fingerprint.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: No, you certainly do not.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: That tells me they aren't looking for a weapon or
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: a small piece of evidence. They're preparing to move tons
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of earth.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: A staggering amount of earth.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: But how does that even work? How does an FBI
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: forensic team safely use a massive commercial backhoe to search
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: for fragile bone fragments without just crushing everything they're trying
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: to find?
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: It is a delicate mechanical dance, honestly. When utility companies
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: provide this heavy machinery, they aren't just digging trenches like
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: they would for a water main.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Right, they can't just tear the place up.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: No, the operators are working under the strict direction of
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: forensic anthropologists.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the experts are literally guiding the bucket.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The backhoe is used to remove what they call
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: the overburden.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Overburden. what is that?
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: It's the top layer of soil or debris that is
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: deemed non-evidentiary. Just the stuff they know doesn't have anything
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: in it.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Ah, okay. That makes sense.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Once they get closer to the suspected depth of the remains,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: the operator uses a smooth-edged bucket, not a toothed bucket.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: To scrape away soil mere inches at a time.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: This process is called skimming.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: So they aren't scooping. They are basically peeling the lot
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: like an onion.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Precisely. They peel back a layer, the forensic team inspects it,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: and then they peel back another.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And what happens to all that dirt?
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Every scoop of soil that is removed by that backhoe
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: is deposited onto a tarp where human investigators use sifting screens.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Like those wooden frames with the wire mesh.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly those. They use them to manually sift the dirt.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: This ensures that even tiny fragments of bone, teeth, or
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: trace evidence like buttons or jewelry are recovered.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: That is incredibly meticulous. It is.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: The utility company provides the brute force to move the volume,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: while the FBI provides the microscopic attention to detail.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: And Chopper 7, the news station's aerial unit, actually captured
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: footage of agents sifting through dirt at multiple distinct sites
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: across this one property.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, multiple sites.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: This wasn't just a single hole in the ground. The
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: use of heavy machinery at multiple sites suggests they believe
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: the remains might be buried quite deep or that they
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: are scattered widely.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Which is a very grim reality to face.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: It is. Which brings us to a quote that acts
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: as the linchpin for this entire massive mobilization.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: The detail that really sets this all in motion.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to transition from the sheer scale of
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the heavy machinery to the grim specific that initiated all
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of this. Right. The reporter spoke to a neighbor, T.R. Owens,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: who lives right across the street.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: And she was actually there when it happened.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: She was. She watched the workers call the authorities. And
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: she told the reporter, quote, they found a human head
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: skull that I'm aware of. So, yeah, it's pretty disturbing.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: From a forensic standpoint, recovering a skull is the most
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: vital piece of evidence they could possibly find in an
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: unidentified remains case.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting, though, from a purely
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: analytical perspective.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: OK, let's hear it.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: If the primary discovery by this construction crew is a
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: human skull.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Where is the rest of the body?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Ah, yes.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: This one specific detail from the neighbor perfectly explains the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: need for the canine units and the heavy DTE excavating
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: equipment tearing up multiple sites that we just discussed.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It all connects.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: They aren't just digging to recover a body. They're digging
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: to find out if the rest of the body is
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: even still there or how far it has traveled.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: You have identified the core forensic puzzle at the heart
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: of this massive operation.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: It's a huge puzzle.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: When human remains are left in an outdoor environment, especially
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: a vacant lot in a city that experiences four distinct
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: severe seasons like Detroit.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: You introduce a multitude of environmental variables.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We are entering the realm of taphonomy.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Taphonomy?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, which is the scientific study of what happens to
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: an organism after death.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, but how does that actually work in practice? Like,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: if a body is buried or left in a lot,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: What is the mechanism that scatters it so widely that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: you need canine units and backhoes spanning the entire property line?
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Think about it like a large, complicated jigsaw puzzle dropped
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: on the living room floor.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm picturing it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: If you drop it and immediately pick it up, all
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: the pieces are right there in a neat pile. But
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: if you leave that dropped puzzle on the floor for
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: three years, what happens?
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Things get messy.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Right. The dog kicks a piece under the couch... The
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: vacuum cleaner sucks up a few edge pieces. Foot traffic
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: slides pieces into different rooms.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, by the time you try to put it back together,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the pieces are distributed across a massive area.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: The vacant lot is that living room floor, but the
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: mechanisms of dispersal are environmental.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So we were looking at scavengers and whether acting as
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the vacuum cleaner and foot traffic.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. If remains are exposed or shallowly buried, scavengers
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: like feral dogs, coyotes, or even rodents will.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Interact with Which is a horrifying thought.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: It is, but it's biological reality. A scavenger can easily
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: carry a long bone or a skull hundreds of feet
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: away from the primary site. Right. But even without animal interference,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: the weather itself is a massive disruptor. Michigan experiences severe
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: freeze-thaw cycles.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: But wait, how does freezing and thawing move a bone
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: horizontally across a lot, though?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Through a geological process called cryoturbation.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Cryoturbation. Okay, break that down for me.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: When water in the soil freezes, it expands. This expansion
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: creates upward and outward pressure, pushing objects toward the surface.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Right, because ice expands.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And then when the soil thaws, the object settles,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: but often in a slightly different position.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Over years, this constant heaving and settling, combined with spring
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: rain runoff, creating microcurrents of soil erosion on even the
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: slightest incline.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: It just slowly moves things.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. It can migrate skeletal elements surprisingly far from their
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: original location.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: That is wild.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Add in human intervention, like maybe someone dumped a load
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: of old tires on the lot two years ago, or
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: a previous crew did some minor landscaping, and you have
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: a highly disturbed scene.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: So when the construction crew finds a skull, the FBI
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: is operating under the assumption that the rest of the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: skeletal structure could be dispersed anywhere within that property line.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Or even buried deeper underneath years of accumulated urban debris.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Right. But addressing the massive unknowns highlighted by this text,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: it is entirely unclear how long these remains have been there.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: That is the biggest question mark.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: T.R. Owens noted the lot has been vacant for a
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: few years now. That is a really wide temporal window.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: It could be two years. It could be 10.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier that the skull is vital. How does
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: finding the skull specifically help them narrow down that massive
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: window and establish an identity?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Because the skull is a biological black box.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: A black box, okay.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Even if environmental degradation has severely damaged the rest of
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: the skeleton, the skull offers multiple distinct avenues for identification.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Like what?
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: First, you have dental records. Teeth are the hardest substance
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: in the human body. They survive fire, extreme cold, and
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: significant time in acidic soil.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: If the person had any dental work, you know, fillings, extractions,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: root canals, That is a unique fingerprint that can be
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: matched to missing persons databases.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: And if they never went to the dentist. Or if
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: they can't get viable DNA out of the bone marrow
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: because it's been exposed to the elements for too long.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: That is where the morphology of the skull comes in.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: What does that mean, the morphology?
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: The physical shape and structure. Forensic anthropologists can analyze the
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: cranial features to determine the biological sex, a highly accurate
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: age range at the time of death, and ancestral background.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Just from the shape of the bone?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Yes. And if traditional identification fails, they utilize forensic facial reconstruction.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, like on those crime shows.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Very similar, yes. They scan the skull digitally, place tissue
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: death markers based on demographic data, and reconstruct what the
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: person looked like in life.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: They can then release that image to the public, hoping
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: a neighbor, a former teacher, or a distant relative recognizes
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: the face.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: So the skull transforms the remains. From an anonymous forensic
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: puzzle back into a human being.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate key to identity.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: It's an incredible amount of science being applied to a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: patch of dirt.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Truly.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: But, you know, we can't lose sight of the fact
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that this isn't happening in a sterile laboratory.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: This is happening right across the street from people's living rooms.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I want to transition our focus from the clinical, mechanical
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: nature of this dirt excavation... to the emotional and psychological
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: toll this takes on the neighborhood.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Because there are actual people who live there.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Exactly, who are watching this massive federal operation unfold while
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: they try to go about their daily lives.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: The psychological impact of an event like this on a
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: community is profound. And it is often entirely overlooked in
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: our cultural rush to solve the true crime puzzle.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: We always focus on the clues, not the neighbors. Right.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: But the physical space around us dictates our fundamental sense
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: of security.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: The report highlights a striking contrast between innocence and morbidity
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: through the experience of another neighbor, Latrice Williams.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, her interview was very compelling.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: She came out onto her porch Monday morning to find
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: the investigation team already deeply entrenched in their work. But
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the detail that really anchors her interview is her specific,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: immediate fear.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: What does she say?
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: She isn't just generally spooked by the police presence. She
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: tells the reporter she is unnerved. because she has a one, two,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and three-year-old at home.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: She specifically notes that her baby girl just turned one.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: You have this image of toddlers of a first birthday
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: party juxtaposed immediately against canine units and FBI agents digging
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: for a human skull just yards away.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question about how we process the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: spaces we inhabit. Right. Think about what a neighborhood is
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: fundamentally designed to be. It is a space constructed for
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: normal family life.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's where you raise your kids.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: It is where children learn to ride bikes on the sidewalk,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: where you walk your dog in the evening, where toddlers
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: play in the front yard.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: When a crime scene of this magnitude is established in
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: that exact same space, the environment becomes psychologically contaminated.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Psychologically contaminated. That is an incredibly evocative phrase.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: It's a very real phenomenon.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Because the physical layout of the space hasn't changed, right?
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: It's the exact same street, the same trees, the same
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: cracked sidewalk. Completely.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: The sheer scale of the search, the yellow tape stretching
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: across properties, the floodlights illuminating the lot overnight, the heavy
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: DTE machines, roaring.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: The federal agents in tactical gear.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That is exactly what has these neighbors on edge.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: For a mother of three toddlers, the sudden extreme proximity
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: of mortality and potential violence to the fragile innocence of
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: her children creates a jarring cognitive dissonance.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: It just shatters that bubble.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: It destroys the illusion of the neighborhood as a protective bubble.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: She is looking out her living room window, holding a one-year-old,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: and watching the literal unearthing of a tragedy.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: That is how you... The.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Boundary between the safety of her home and the violence
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: of the outside world has suddenly vanished.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And yet, right next door, amidst all that fear, you
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: have this profound search for empathy.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: You really do.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: We contrast Latrice Williams' very understandable protective fear for her toddlers...
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: with the deep empathy expressed by Tiara Owens.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Right, the neighbor we mentioned earlier.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Tiara is the neighbor who noted the lot has
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: been vacant for years. That detail implies a terrifying reality.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Which is? The secret, this human tragedy, has been hidden
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: in plain sight while daily life just marched on around it.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: People drove past it to commute to work. Kids walked
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: past it to catch the school bus.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: It introduces the concept of ambiguous loss for the broader community.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Ambiguous loss.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: The sudden realization that they have been living adjacent to
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: a tragedy without knowing it.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Wait, ambiguous loss? You mean the specific grief of a
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: family not knowing if a loved one is actually dead
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: or just missing?
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: How does that apply to the neighbors who didn't even
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: know the person?
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: That is a great distinction. In psychology, specifically defined by
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Pauline Boss, type 1 ambiguous loss is physical absence with
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: psychological presence. Like, a missing person.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, I follow you.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: A family feels the loss, but without a body, the
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: grief cannot resolve. What the neighborhood experiences is a secondary
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: communal manifestation of this.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: A secondary manifestation?
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. They are suddenly forced to carry the emotional weight
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: of a stranger's ambiguous loss. When Tiara Owens looks at
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: that lot, she isn't just seeing police tape.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: What's she seeing?
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: She is suddenly deeply aware of a family somewhere out
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: there who has been suspended in that agonizing state of
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: ambiguous loss for years.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Because Tiara says something incredibly poignant to the reporter. She says, quote,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: hopefully this gives somebody some closure because it's no telling
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: who it is, how long they've been missing, so players
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: out to the family.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: It is a beautiful sentiment.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: It really makes you reflect on how we consume these
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: stories as a culture. In the media or when we
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: listen to deep dives, True crime is so often framed
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: purely as an intellectual puzzle.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: A mystery to be solved by clever detectives.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Exactly. What did the canine find? What does the skull's
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: dental record tell us? But for the local community, for
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the people standing on the porches watching the dirt being sifted,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: it is immediately recognized as a profound human tragedy.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: They bypass the puzzle.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: They instantly bypass the puzzle. And think of the grieving
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: family out there who has been waiting years for a
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: phone call.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: It is the spontaneous humanization of the evidence. To the
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: FBI evidence response team, the skull is a critical piece
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: of forensic material.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: It's just data to them.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: It is data. Yeah. But to the neighbor across the street,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: that skull immediately represents a missing son, a daughter, a
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: sibling or a parent. Yeah. The community instinctively grasps the
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: emotional weight of the discovery in a way that a
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: clinical procedural investigation cannot afford to do in the moment.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Which is fascinating because Tiara Owens's empathy and her willingness
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to speak to a reporter is is the only reason
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: we even know about the skull.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: That's a really good point.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: The police and the FBI were tight-lipped. They just said,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: human remains in early stages.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: They give you nothing.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: It was a neighbor talking to a local journalist that
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: provided the crucial detail that explains the entire massive operation.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: It just goes to show how important that local connection is.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: That dynamic organically bridges the gap between the police investigation,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the neighbor's perspective, and how the broader public gets informed.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: We have to look at the medium of the message.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: How the story travels.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how are we sitting here right now even able
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: to analyze this event? We're getting this through local journalism,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: specifically through Randy Wimbley's on-air reporting for WXYZ.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Local news acts as the vital, irreplaceable bridge between the
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: micro-experience of the neighborhood and the macro-awareness of the city
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: and the region.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Without it, we wouldn't know.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Without a local reporter physically on the ground knocking
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: on doors... This event remains an isolated, terrifying anomaly for
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: a few dozen residents on Oregon Street.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: But with the reporter.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: With the reporter, it becomes a point of communal concern,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: civic awareness, and institutional accountability.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: And the specific technology the news station uses shapes our
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: perspective completely. The report mentions Chopper 7 providing aerial footage
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of the agents digging and sifting dirt.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: The eye in the sky.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: That gives the public a literal, top-down... God's eye view
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: of the excavation. It's a view that Latrice Williams and T.R. Owens,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: standing on the ground behind the police tape, cannot see.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: They just see the trucks. Right.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: We, the viewers at home, actually have a more comprehensive
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: view of the logistical scale and the multiple dig sites
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: than the people whose lives are actually being disrupted.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: It is a form of mediated voyeurism, but a deeply
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: necessary one for public transparency.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: The aerial perspective allows the public to visually verify the
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: scale of the operation and hold authorities accountable for the
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: resources being deployed in their city.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: It provides spatial context, showing the proximity of the lot
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: to the houses, the spread of the heavy machinery, that
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: ground-level cameras, blocked by police vans and caution tape, simply
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: cannot capture.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for how we consume
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: this spatial context and information today?
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: What are you thinking?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Because there is a very specific, incredibly modern detail tacked
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: on to the very end of this source text. And
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I want to pivot to this because it stuck out
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: to me just as much as the backhoes and the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: federal mobilization.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: The disclaimer.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, the disclaimer. At the bottom of the article, there
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: is a disclaimer. It reads, quote, This story was reported
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: on air by a journalist and has been converted to
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, that disclaimer
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: is a fascinating artifact of the current media landscape.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: We are living in an era defined by overwhelming information velocity,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: shrinking newsroom budgets, and the looming, trust-destroying specter of deep
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: fakes and algorithmic misinformation.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I noticed the disclaimer and immediately thought about the mechanics
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: of that transition. Every time you read a local news
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: story online now, there is a tiny voice in the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: back of your head asking if a human being actually
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: wrote the text.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Or if you were reading a robot's hallucination of a
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: news event.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. But how does that AI conversion actually work
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: in a fast-paced local newsroom covering a live crime scene?
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Well, what we're seeing here is a local news station
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: owned by Scripps Media actively experimenting with artificial intelligence for
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: workflow efficiency.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so just trying to speed things up.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Right, specifically using natural language processing, or NLP. Imagine the
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: traditional workflow. Okay. Randy Wendley stands on a noisy street
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: corner in Detroit, holds a microphone, interviews T.R. Owens while
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: backhoes roar in the background, and delivers his live television broadcast.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Right. He does his hit.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Previously, a digital producer back at the station would have
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: to sit down, listen to the recording, manually transcribe the quotes,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: format a web article, and publish it. It takes time.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: And time is the one thing digital news doesn't have.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: They need the push alert on your phone five minutes ago.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. So to solve the time deficit, they feed
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: the audio or video file of Wembley's broadcast into an
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: AI transcription tool.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Like what?
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Likely built on advanced acoustic models, similar to OpenAI's Whisper,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the AI parses the human speech, filtering out the background
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: noise of the street, and instantly generates a text narrative
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: based entirely on the broadcast script.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: So it listens and types it out.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. The algorithm is literally parsing a horrific human tragedy...
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Translating spoken empathy and forensic logistics into digital text in milliseconds.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: That is a wild juxtaposition. Isn't it? You have an
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: algorithm mathematically processing the concept of ambiguous loss in human
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: remains for digital consumption.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: It is surreal when you really think about it.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But the disclaimer specifically highlights that an editorial team verifies
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: it for fairness and accuracy. They are explicitly promising human
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: oversight to maintain public trust. Why go out of their
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: way to announce the AI if it just makes people suspicious?
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Because transparency is the only defense against the erosion of trust.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: They are walking a razor-thin ethical and operational tightrope. They
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: are leveraging the speed of AI to keep their digital
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: platforms competitive, while simultaneously recognizing that trust is their most
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: valuable currency. Right.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: If you lose the trust, you lose the audience.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: If a local news station loses its credibility in a community,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: it loses its entire reason to exist. By loudly declaring,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: we used a tool to speed this up, but a
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: human being checked the math, they're trying to establish a
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: new norm for transparent AI journalism.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: It beautifully illustrates how the delivery of news is evolving
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: just as fast, if not faster, than the forensic technologies
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: being used by the FBI in the vacant lot itself.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: It's all moving at light speed.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: You have cutting-edge cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar on one
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: end of the spectrum and artificial intelligence content conversion utilizing
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: advanced natural language processing on the other, all converging to
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: tell the story of a tragic physical discovery in a
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: mundane neighborhood.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate conversation. of the tangible and the intangible.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I love that phrasing.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: You have the most visceral grounding reality possible, digging in
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: the dirt for bone fragments, being instantly converted into weightless
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: digital data by a machine learning algorithm.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: It really is a collision of all these different layers
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: of modern life. We started this deep dive looking at
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: a simple home renovation on Detroit's West Side.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Just a crew trying to fix up a house.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Expecting nothing more than some faulty plumbing or bad wiring.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And that one? Routine action unraveled a hidden mystery that
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: mobilized the federal government, brought utility-grade heavy machinery into a
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: quiet residential street, and deeply unsettled a neighborhood of young families.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: It changed everything for that block.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: It kicked off this incredibly complex... multi-agency search for identity
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: and hopefully eventually some form of closure for a family
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: that doesn't even know yet that they are about to
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: receive the hardest news of their lives.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: And for you listening, the core takeaway from this exploration
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: is a stark reminder of the fragility of the mundane.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: This story vividly demonstrates how incredibly quickly the ordinary can
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: become the extraordinary. It highlights the vast, complex, interconnected machinery
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: that springs into action.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Right. From the highly trained canine units sniffing the soil...
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: To the mechanical precision of a backhoe operator skimming dirt.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: To the local journalist documenting the scene. To the sheer
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: human empathy of the neighbors watching from their porches.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: All of it is required to piece together a fractured
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: history that someone, somewhere, tried very hard to bury forever.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: It really is a massive collective effort.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: It really makes you pause and reevaluate your surroundings. And
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: before we go, I want to leave you with one
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: final thought to mull over as you go about your day.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Something to think about.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Something that builds on everything we've unpacked today. The next
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: time you step out your front door, I want you
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: to look down and consciously think about the ground you
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: walk on every single day.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Think about your quiet neighborhood.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Your local park. The patch of grass outside your workplace.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: The concrete sidewalk you tread without a second thought. We
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: go about our daily routines completely, blissfully unaware of the
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: layers of history beneath us.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: We assume the ground is just inert dirt, rock.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: And concrete. Sometimes there are profound dark secrets, forgotten histories,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and unsolved mysteries buried just inches beneath our feet, resting
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: silently in the dark, simply waiting for the turning of
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: a random shovel to finally see the light of day.