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Wife Murders Husband’s Boyfriend with Help of Her Girlfriend · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine you are packing up your apartment for a move.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Right. Just doing those standard everyday chores.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You know, you carefully wrap your dishes in newspaper.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You fold your clothes into cardboard boxes.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: The mundane stuff. Yeah.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: The completely mundane stuff. And then you take this large,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: heavy soup pot out to the trunk of your car.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: You place it really carefully so it doesn't tip over.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Except in this specific scenario, that soup pot contains a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: human head.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And you have been carrying this pot with you literally
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: from home to home for five years.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: All while simultaneously planning this happy domestic future with your spouse.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Right. It's just, it's unthinkable. But today, we are completely
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: dissecting the psychology of a household that did exactly that.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Because the human capacity to normalize the grotesque is, well,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: it's one of the most unsettling areas of psychology.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: We often assume that carrying a physical... rotting manifestation of
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: a murder would just psychologically break a person within days.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Like the guilt would just destroy them. Exactly.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: We assume guilt is this corrosive acid that inevitably eats
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: through whatever container is holding it.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: But this case, it completely disproves that.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: It does. It proves that the container, I mean the
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: human mind, can be heavily compartmentalized. You can put a
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: horrific secret in a box, put it on a shelf,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: and just go about your day.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Well, okay, let's unpack this because that is the core
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of our mission today. We are diving into a deeply complex,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: haunting narrative pulled directly from a Law and Crime Network
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: video transcript.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Right. Detailing the murder of 21-year-old Ryan Zimmerman.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Also known as Emma. And I want to set the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: scene for you listening. This isn't just your standard true
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: crime summary where we just list the dates and the evidence. No,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: not at all. We are looking at this as a
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: psychological exploration. We want to see how a seemingly ordinary
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: apartment in Columbus, Ohio turned into an absolute pressure cooker.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: A pressure cooker of bizarre romantic entanglements, hidden resentments, and
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: ultimately gruesome murder.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Imagine a situation where every single person living under one
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: roof is hiding a life-altering secret from everyone else.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: The deception is staggering.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Why should you care? Because it highlights the extreme, terrifying
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: lengths people will go to in order to maintain a facade.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: And to avoid the consequences of their actions. Because while
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the details are sensational, the core of this deep dive
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: is really about the devastating ripple effects of deception.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the tragedy of a vulnerable young person who
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: was just seeking acceptance.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A young person walking into a highly toxic environment.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So to understand how that toxicity reached a lethal concentration,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: we really have to look at the setup of this
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: household in 2015.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: The foundational relationship.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Right. Sarah and Corey Buzzard. They are originally from Marion, Indiana.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: And they got married incredibly young.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: They were just 18 years old.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: 18. So they moved from Indiana to Columbus, Ohio. And
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Sarah is doing what you are supposed to do in
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: your early 20s.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Going to school, getting a degree. Yep.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: She attends the Columbus College of Art and Design. And
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: she earns her Bachelor of Fine Arts in May of 2014.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: So from the outside, her future seemed bright.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Totally bright. She has her degree. She's married. The trajectory
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: looks completely standard. But inside that marriage, things are falling apart.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Well, when individuals marry at 18, they are locking themselves
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: into a legal and emotional contract before their prefrontal cortex
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: is even fully developed.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Yep. Which is the part of the brain that handles, what,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: impulse control?
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Impulse control and long-term planning, yeah. By the time you
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: reach your early 20s, your identity, your desires, your coping mechanisms,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: they've drastically shifted.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: So the healthy resolution would be separation?
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Separation. the healthy, albeit incredibly painful, resolution.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: But instead of dismantling the structure of the marriage, Sarah
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: and Corey began to modify it.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: In deeply dysfunctional ways.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Very dysfunctional. They basically tried to build entirely new, separate
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: lives inside a space that was only meant for two people.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: And that modification starts around July of 2015. That is
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: when a woman named Naya Whitaker, who goes by Jen,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: moves into the apartment.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And how they met is almost... jarringly normal.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Craigslist. The advertisement was literally just for movie buddies.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Just someone to watch films with.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Right. But that casual connection accelerates into an intimate romantic relationship.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: So now you have Sarah and Jen romantically involved.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: But living in the exact same apartment as Sarah's husband, Corey.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Which is just wild. It is.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: And what reveals the true nature of this dynamic is
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: the language Sarah uses later on during her interrogation.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, right. She calls Jen a coping mechanism.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, explicitly a coping mechanism for her failing marriage. Now,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: in clinical psychology, a coping mechanism is usually a strategy
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: to manage stress, right?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Like exercising or meditating?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Or avoidance or substance abuse. But here, Sarah has weaponized
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: a human being as a coping mechanism.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And she brought that person into her home.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Into the physical space causing the stress.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: It is the equivalent of trying to put out a
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: fire by introducing a completely different combustible material.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So Corey is just forced to watch this happen.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: He's a spectator to his own obsolescence. He is watching
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: his wife build a new emotional and physical life with
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: someone else right in front of him.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Occupying the very space he pays for. But Corey's reaction
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: is fascinating because he doesn't leave. He doesn't file for divorce.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: He goes into the digital world.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He creates an online alter ego. He uses the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: screen name Laurel Emerson.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Which is a classic form of catfishing.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Right. And operating under this fake identity, he connects with
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: 21-year-old Ryan Zimmerman, who is living hours away in Corbin, Kentucky.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: The sociology of catfishing here is heavily rooted in a
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: lack of agency. When a person feels entirely powerless in
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: their physical environment.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Which Corey clearly did.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: They seek out an environment where they can dictate reality.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: By creating Laurel Emerson, Corey wasn't just looking for connection.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: He was looking for control.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: He wanted someone focused entirely on him.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Someone who didn't know his failures. Someone whose perception he
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: could manipulate from the ground up. And he builds this
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: digital bridge, and it has terrifying real-world consequences. By August
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: of 2015, Ryan makes a massive life choice based on
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Corey's promises.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: The promise of a place to stay, a place to belong.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So Ryan moves all the way from Kentucky to this
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: apartment in Columbus. Now, the source doesn't make it totally
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: clear exactly when Ryan realizes Laurel is actually Corey.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: But the result is the same.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He trusts Corey enough to uproot his life and
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: step through the door of that apartment.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Which fundamentally alters the ecosystem of that living space.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that ecosystem. Right. The best analogy here
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: isn't just a bad roommate situation. Think about a hermetically
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: sealed terrarium.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: A closed glass jar.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Right. If you introduce an invasive species into a closed
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: glass jar, they don't just fight. They consume the resources.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: They change the oxygen levels.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Until the entire ecosystem suffocates.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. You have Sarah, legally married to Corey. Sarah
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: is intimately involved with Jen. Corey has now imported Ryan.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Four people, one roof, a web of romantic entanglements.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And an absolutely suffocating level of resentment.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: The terrarium analogy is perfect because it highlights the impossibility
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: of escape without breaking the glass.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: But I have to ask you this. If you are Sarah,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: you're already miserable in your marriage. You are harboring this secret,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: intense relationship with Jen in your own home. Why on
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: earth do you consent to your spouse bringing a fourth
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: person into that exact same tiny physical space?
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: It is a great question. Why not draw a hard boundary? Right.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Just say no.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Because the boundaries had already been obliterated when Jen moved in.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: According to the statements given to police, Corey operated under
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: a very specific ideology.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: What ideology?
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: He allegedly believed that a perfect relationship required three people.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He was essentially trying to force a polyamorous dynamic
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: onto his marriage. His logic, however twisted, was that because
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Sarah brought Jen in, he was justified in bringing Ryan
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: in to balance the scales.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So he used Ryan as a pawn.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Completely. To counteract Sarah and Jen's relationship. Sarah told investigators
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: she didn't agree with this, that it made her feel inadequate,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: and generated severe animosity.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: But she allowed it.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: She allowed it. Her concession is key. It speaks to
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: a dynamic where control is traded rather than shared. Corey
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: weaponized Ryan's presence to inflict discomfort on Sarah.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: He essentially imported a human being to serve as a
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: counterweight in a domestic Cold War.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Precisely. And when you view another human being merely as
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: a tool for leverage, you strip them of their personhood
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: in your own mind.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: They become an object.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Right. And when an object is no longer useful, it
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: is very easily discarded.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: And that discard happens incredibly fast. This bizarre four-person arrangement
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: lasts barely a few weeks. By late September 2015, the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: terrarium cracks.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Corey arbitrarily decides he no longer wants Ryan in the apartment.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Which is awful. This young man moved from Kentucky based
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: on Corey's promise. And weeks later, Corey unilaterally kicks him out.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And Ryan is desperate. He pleads with Sarah to let
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: him stay. He asks for just one more chance. But
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Sarah refuses. She claims she's given too many chances and
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: that it's Corey's apartment.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: That refusal is the ceiling of Ryan's fate. It is.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: It's the last time anyone outside of that apartment complex
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: knows him to be alive.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: And then radio silence.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Total silence. Ryan's last contact with his family is Friday,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: September 25, 2015. No more calls, no texts. But two
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: days later, on September 27, his red Ford Focus is found.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Seemingly abandoned in the middle of a street in Columbus.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Parked awkwardly, and the police impound it.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Now, in any standard missing persons investigation, an abandoned vehicle
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: is a massive, glorified, red flag.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Because it's their mobility.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Mobility, safety, shelter. People do not simply walk away from
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: their cars unless they are under severe duress, experiencing a crisis,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: or they have met with foul play.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Right. So the family is notified about the car. His
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: father actually travels all the way to Columbus to pick
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: up the impounded car, but he can't reach Ryan.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: The silence must have been agonizing.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: After weeks of this, on November 17, 2015, Ryan is
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: officially reported missing. But we have to look deeply at
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: the family dynamic to understand why this case stayed cold
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: for so long.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: The source material shows investigators speaking with Ryan's older brother, Randy.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: And Randy reveals the devastating context. Ryan... had recently come out,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: or it had become public knowledge that he was gay.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: And his father's reaction was to essentially disown him.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: The language the brother uses is stark. He says the
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: father stopped talking to Ryan, wouldn't allow him to eat
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: meals in the house.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: He said he treated him like dirt.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And this rejection creates a massive, tragic blind spot
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: for the father. Because of his own actions, the father
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: assumes Ryan vanished voluntarily.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: He assumes Ryan is just depressed and angry about being disowned.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: The family begins operating under the assumption of voluntary estrangement.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: They even latch onto this rumor that Ryan is working
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: at an Arby's down in Florida.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: They cling to that false hope.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: They spend years thinking he is just out there, serving sandwiches,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: choosing to punish them with silence.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Think about it. If you connect this to the bigger picture,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: think about a time you made a terrible mistake that
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: hurt someone you love, and they stopped speaking to you.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: It's awful.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: But here, The family's guilt caused their brains to construct
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: a protective narrative. The human mind abhors an information vacuum.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: So they fill the silence with hopeful fictions.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Rather than fearing the worst.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: The rumor about the Florida Arby's became a psychological lifeline.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: It's vastly easier for a parent's ego to believe their
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: son is angry and working fast food than to confront
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: the terrifying unknown.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: That their son is dead. And the last thing they
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: did was treat him like dirt. But how does a
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: family rationalize The abandoned car. How do you explain a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: 21-year-old walking away from his vehicle in the middle of
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the street?
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: The rationalization requires bending reality to fit the narrative. Because
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: the alternative is too horrifying, the brain interprets the evidence differently.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: So the father viewed the car not as evidence of
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: a crime, but as evidence of anger. Yes.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: A statement of, I don't need anything from you, not
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: even the car. It is a tragic misinterpretation driven entirely
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: by emotional bias and guilt.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: And while the family is holding onto this Florida Arby's lifeline,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the gruesome reality of what actually happened to Ryan is
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: just sitting out in the elements.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the discovery. Right.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: We jump forward a few months to January 3rd, 2016.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: A woman is out walking her dog in rural Mercer County, Ohio,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: right near Coldwater Creek.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Very rural area.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: She calls the sheriff's office. And when you read the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: transcript of her call, you can see the hesitation. She
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: tells the dispatcher she might be paranoid, but she found
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: what looks like bones near a construction site.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: She was experiencing that conflict between social conditioning, not wanting
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: to be a nuisance, and her primal instincts telling her
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: something was deeply wrong.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Well, her instincts were correct. Investigators arrive and confirm they
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: are human remains. But here is the frustrating part. It
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: takes over four years for a science to catch up.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Over four years.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: It isn't until June of 2020 that DNA evidence finally
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: confirms the identity of those remains. They belong to Ryan.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Why does it take four years?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Because the remains were severely dismembered.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: The police essentially only found a torso, the upper legs,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and the upper arms. No head, no hands, no feet.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: And that delay in identification is not just a failure
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: of the system. It is a direct result of the
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: killer's methodology.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: When we talk about forensic science on exposed bones, we
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: are talking about taphonomy, how organisms decay. In Ohio, you
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: have harsh environmental factors.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Freeze and thaw cycles, moisture scavengers.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: All of this severely degrades biological material. So they can't
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: just run a quick swab like you see on television.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Right. The standard DNA breaks down.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Standard nuclear DNA breaks down very quickly. So forensic
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: anthropologists have to rely on mitochondrial DNA. It's found in
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: the powerhouse of the cell, and it's much hardier.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: But harder to extract.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Much harder to extract from degraded bone. It requires specialized
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: labs to clean, freeze, and pulverize the bone into a
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: fine powder. And it only matches maternal relatives. Adding backlogged
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: state crime labs in four years is a realistic timeline.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: So in June of 2020, after the DNA finally matches,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: investigators have to make this devastating phone call to Ryan's father.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: The audio of this call is chilling.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: The investigator has to explain the condition of the remains.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: He has to tell the father that there are apparent
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: saw marks on the bones.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: The absolute destruction of his four-year hopeful narrative happens in seconds.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: The dad is just hit with this brutal reality. His
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: immediate response is to ask if it was gangland or
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: some kind of sick trafficking.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Which makes sense. His brain jumps to concepts that provide
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: a framework for that level of brutality. When a body
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: is severely dismembered, our minds associate it with professional detachment
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: like a cartel.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Right. It's hard for a parent to comprehend that a
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: roommate could do this.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Because domestic violence usually doesn't look like this. Killers often
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: dismember victims for two reasons. First, logistics. A human body
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: is heavy and difficult to transport.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Dividing it solves a physical problem.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The second purpose is depersonalization. Intentionally stripping the victim
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: of their identity to delay the investigation. Removing the head
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: and hands prevents dental and fingerprint identification.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: And tragically, that strategy worked for four years. But it
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: fails the moment the DNA hits. Because once investigators know
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: it is Ryan, they pull his records.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: His phone records, his bank records.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: And they trace his final known movements right back to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: that apartment in Columbus. This sets the stage for one
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: of the most masterful police traps I have ever seen.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: The synchronized sting.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Yes. August 25th, 2021, the investigators realized their three main
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: suspects had scattered across state lines. Sarah and Jen are
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: now legally married, living with Sarah's mother in Marion, Indiana.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Corey is still in Ohio.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: And they identified another key witness, an 18-year-old girl named
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Mahala living in North Carolina. So, the police conduct simultaneous
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: interviews across all three states at the exact same moment.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: The logistics of that are a nightmare. You have to
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: secure warrants in different jurisdictions and ensure every detective knocks
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: on the door at the exact same minute.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Why go through all that trouble?
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Because in a conspiracy, suspects rely on their communication network.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: If they arrest Corey on a Monday, he warns Sarah,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: she warns Jen, they synchronize their alibis. Isolating them simultaneously
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: severs that network.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: It locks them into their own lies.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: So they can't corroborate false stories. Let's focus on the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: extraction in Marion, Indiana. The police show up at Sarah's
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: mother's house early in the morning. But they use a
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: highly calculated ruse.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: They don't shout about a homicide.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Right. They tell Sarah there is a warrant out of
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Ohio for a theft charge. A minor nonviolent felony to
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: peacefully extract her.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: And pay attention to Sarah's physical reaction here.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Yes. The moment the handcuffs click, she gets incredibly lightheaded.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Her knees buckle. She has to sit in the back
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: of the police SUV. She claims she's just in shock
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: from waking up early.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: But if you look at the mother's reaction versus Sarah's,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: it's a masterclass in the physiological markers of deception.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. The mother is expressing pure,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: innocent concern. She's asking if Sarah needs a jacket, trying
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: to rationalize it as a mix-up over a lease.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: She genuinely believes it's a bureaucratic mistake.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: But Sarah's immediate calculation is entirely different. She asks, from Ohio?
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: and starts calculating statutes of limitations. She realizes police don't
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: cross state lines for a six-year-old minor theft charge.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question about the body's response to guilt.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Sarah's body betrayed her before her words did. That drop
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: in blood pressure, the lightheadedness, that is the biological shock
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: of a repressed trauma colliding with reality.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Her fight-or-flight response is triggered.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Instantly. Her brain tells her to run, but she's handcuffed.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: So her body begins to shut down. She knows the
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: theft warrant means the body from her college.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Days was found. So she is transported to the local
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: police station under this theft guise. But once in the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: interview room, the detectives pivot. They drop the theft pretense
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and start asking about Columbus. About Emma.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: And this is where the spider web of alibis really begins.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: They are establishing the baseline of her lie.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Sarah starts spinning this massive web. She refers to Ryan
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: as Emma and uses they-them pronouns. She claims Emma simply
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: got into a car with someone else and drove off.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: It's a clean, simple lie.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: But then they introduce physical evidence. They ask her about
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the red Ford Focus found abandoned in the street. And
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: her attempt to explain this is staggering.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Suspects often overcomplicate their lies, trying to account for evidence
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: they didn't know the police had.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I called the Joyride lie. Sarah claims she and Jen
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: took the car to get gas. Couldn't get it to
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: start again. Called a tow truck. And then parked it
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: awkwardly out of quote unquote embarrassment because they broke it.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: The logic is entirely fractured.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Why abandon a vehicle in a public street out of embarrassment?
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: But the detectives know she's lying.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Because they have digital forensics. They know that at one
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: in the morning, Sarah was frantically Googling how to start
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: a Ford Focus.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Because the car had an aftermarket anti-theft ignition system. Only
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Ryan knew how to operate.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That digital footprint destroys the joyride narrative. She was
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: trying to move a dead man's car to stage it
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: away from the crime scene. The search proves premeditation and cover-up.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Now, while Sarah is crumbling in Indiana, let's look at
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Corey in Ohio. The detectives approach him, and his reaction
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: is the exact opposite. He completely stonewalls them.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: He sets a firm boundary.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: They try the friendly approach, but Corey just says, I'm
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: not going to let somebody else decide my fate. I'm
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: not speaking without an attorney present.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: From a legal perspective, invoking the Fifth Amendment so coldly
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: is the absolute smartest thing he could do. He understands
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: the threat and insulates himself.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: But the twist is, the police already know Corey didn't
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: commit the murder. They already have Zalabi, the 18-year-old girl
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Mahala in North Carolina. Right.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: He met her on OkCupid.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Yes. And Mahala confirms they spent that exact weekend, the
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: weekend Ryan disappeared, at a Hyatt hotel in Columbus. But
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I want to zero in on this wild detail. Sarah
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: emailed Mahala beforehand. to give explicit permission for the hookup.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: It's a profound level of compartmentalization.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Sarah is intensely vetting her husband's weekend fling while simultaneously
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: hiding her own intense relationship with Jen in the next room.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: It speaks entirely to the illusion of control. By giving permission,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Sarah exerts dominance over the situation. And functionally, it perfectly
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: isolated Corey from the apartment that weekend.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Leaving only Sarah, Jen, and Ryan.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: So let's look at the third interrogation, Jen. Investigators confront
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: her at the house in Indiana. They lay out the evidence,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: blood in the trunk, blood by the bathtub, the Google searches.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: And Jen's reaction provides the third distinct psychological profile.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: She is a stone wall. She refuses to yield an inch.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: She says, I wouldn't be able to say anything to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: you without showing any type of guilt, but I wasn't involved.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: If we contrast the three reactions, Corey's legal boundary, Sarah's
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: crumbling lies, and Jen's absolute stony denial, even when presented
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: with hard forensics, Jen simply denies reality exists.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: It's a manifestation of extreme cognitive dissonance. Her ego is
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: so threatened by the truth that it refuses to process
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: the information. To admit to the blood is to admit
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to the monster she has become.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: But they don't need Jen to crack yet, because Sarah
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: finally breaks. Confronted with the Google evidence, she offers a confession,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: but she claims it was an accident.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: A minimized confession. She admits to the act, but minimizes
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: her intent to protect her self-image.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: She claims she was angry, put Ryan in a chokehold,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: he passed out, and she didn't let go. Then she
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: pivots to victimhood, saying she got scared.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: She frames a brutal, sustained strangulation as a momentary lapse
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: in judgment. Strangulation takes minutes of intense physical effort. To
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: call it an accident is a massive cognitive distortion.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: And how does someone accidentally choke someone to death and
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: then immediately transition to buying salt from a shed to
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: dismember the body? Exactly.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: The cognitive dissonance required to maintain the accident narrative while
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: executing a gruesome cover-up is staggering. It shifts the crime
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: to cold, calculated preservation.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: The logistics are horrific. She tells them, They moved the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: body to the bathtub, used the saw, and targeted the joints. Elbows, wrists, ankles, knees, neck.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Dismembering a human body requires immense physical effort and a
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: terrifying level of emotional detachment. You are dismantling someone you
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: lived with like machinery.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: And Jen?
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Sarah claims Jen was bagging clothes but got sick, leaving
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Sarah to do most.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Of the cutting. They put the limbs in bags, dropped
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: them in public dumpsters. and dumped the torso in Salina.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: It proves avoiding consequences was more important than the human
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: life she extinguished.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: So armed with Sarah's confession, detectives make their final move
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: on Jen. They press her, revealing Sarah is implicating her
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: in the dismemberment. The prisoner's dilemma.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Designed to force a suspect to abandon their loyalty. If
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: you don't talk now, you take all the fall.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: But Jen says, we didn't do that. So the detective
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: informs her she'll be booked into the Marion Police Department.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: And then, the shocking conclusion. Jen reaches into her purse,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: pulls out a gun, and takes her own life right
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: there in front of the officers.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: A violently final decision.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Expressing total shock here, how does a suspect undergoing a
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: search warrant and interrogation retain access to a loaded firearm
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: in her purse?
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: It is a catastrophic failure of standard operating procedure. Securing
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: the scene means separating people from their bags and weapons.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Letting her purse remain within arm's reach is a massive,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: unforgivable oversight.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: But psychologically, what drives that instantaneous decision?
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Jen recognized her reality was collapsing. For someone who built
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: their survival on denial, facing the truth in a trial
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: and a male prison was worse than death.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: The ultimate escape.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly. By taking her life, she ensured she'd never face
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: a jury, leaving a massive void of justice for Ryan's family.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So Jen escapes the system, but Sarah is still in it.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: This brings us to the final twist, the plea deal
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and the change narrative. In December 2021, Sarah pleads guilty
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: to one count of aggravated murder to dodge 17 other charges.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: A calculated legal strategy to cap her exposure.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: But in January 2022, prior to sentencing, she completely changes
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: her story. She blames Jen entirely for the violent ideation,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: claiming Jen loathed Ryan because he eavesdropped at the top
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: of the stairs.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Eavesdropping as the justification for murder. It highlights the absurdity
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: of resentments in a toxic environment.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And it gets worse. Sarah claims Jen's original plan was
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: to cut the body into tiny pieces, but they ran
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: out of time. And the most disturbing detail, the trophy.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Sarah claims Jen put Ryan's severed head in a soup
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: pot with a lye mixture. keeping it as a trophy
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: because she didn't know how to dispose of it. And
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: they carried this soup pot with them for years every
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: time they moved.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Think about the physical reality of that, moving it from
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: home to home alongside winter coats.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: And Corey living with them initially never suspected. Sarah also
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: explains a suicide pact. Jen said she'd shoot Sarah and
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: then herself if caught, fearing a male prison was a, quote,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: death sentence. Sarah claims she was terrified of death and
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: backed out.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: The pact adds a layer of fatalistic codependency. Their deaths
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: were linked to preserving the secret.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: But so what does this all mean? Can we trust
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: a single word of this new confession? It is incredibly
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: convenient to throw the most premeditated elements onto the person
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: who just died and can't defend themselves.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: This is the manipulation of a narrative post-plea deal. Whether
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: it's truth or a self-serving lie for leniency at sentencing,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: it shows a terrifying lack of true remorse. True remorse
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: takes full accountability.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: And she ultimately gets life with the possibility of parole.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: But as we wrap up, we must remember the human cost.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: The tragic loss of Ryan Zimmerman, a young person seeking community,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: walking into a deadly trap of others' making.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: His vulnerability was exploited in the worst possible way.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Real families, like Ryan's dad and brother, are left with
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: permanent scars. The system can't undo that devastation.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: The void left by that violence is permanent.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I want to leave you listening with this chilling final thought.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Sarah and Jen constantly checked the news for years, seeing
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: if the torso was found, but when no new news came, they, quote,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: started planning for a future.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: It forces us to question the weight of consequence.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Consider what it takes to compartmentalize a murder so completely
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: that you can carry a victim's head in a soup
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: pot while planning a happy domestic future. Does guilt always
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: eat away at a person? Or are some capable of
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: simply turning it off? Thank you for joining us on
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: this intense deep dive. Take care of yourselves, and we'll
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: see you next time.