Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Aspiring Michigan Singer Found Fatally Shot, Her Hands Bound With Christmas Lights

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Aspiring Michigan Singer Found Fatally Shot, Her Hands Bound With Christmas Lights · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Today. We're really digging into
• 0:03
  a case that feels incredibly important for understanding, well, how
• 0:06
  crimes get solved today or sometimes how they don't for
• 0:09
  a long time.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, we're looking at the twenty seventeen murder of Egypt
• 0:14
  Covington in Van Buren, Michigan.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: It's a case that it started looking one way, very personal,
• 0:19
  and then just completely flipped.
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  Speaker 2: It really did. It baffled police, It galvanized this whole community,
• 0:25
  and ultimately it exposed how critical things like family pressure
• 0:30
  and specific technologies can be.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to unpack all of that. The sources
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  we've got really paint a picture of Egypt herself, this
• 0:37
  incredibly vibrant person, and then.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: The absolute agony of the three years after her death,
• 0:43
  the waiting, the suspicion, the internal conflicts.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Before this, well this technical breakthrough, the fatal mistake that
• 0:49
  finally brought the truth out.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: And our focus today really is on those sources, how
• 0:53
  they detail her life, that long search, the investigative missteps,
• 0:58
  and how technology ultimate cut through it all.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: We have to start though with Van Buren township itself,
• 1:04
  just east of an arbor. It's the kind of place
• 1:06
  you picture when you think quiet suburb.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly, a bedroom community about thirty thousand people. You know,
• 1:12
  the kind of place where violent crime feels distant, impossible, almost.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And into this setting comes the murder of Egypt Covington.
• 1:22
  She was twenty seven, this bright, aspiring singer, also worked
• 1:26
  as an account manager right in the craft beer scene.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, Michigan's craft beer boom. She was right in
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  the middle of it, found dead in her own home
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  June twenty seventeen.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't just a shock. It felt like like a
• 1:37
  violation of the basic promise of a place like Van.
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  Speaker 2: Buren, a total shattering of that perceived security, and it
• 1:43
  created this rift, this deep distrust between the community and
• 1:46
  the local police.
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  Speaker 1: So our mission here is to trace that path from
• 1:50
  the initial scene to the cold case files, the family's fight.
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  Speaker 2: And crucially how that initial theory that tunnel vision got
• 1:56
  broken and what rolled this let's be frank pretty controversial
• 2:00
  digital tool played and solving it.
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  Speaker 1: Before we even get into who Egypt was, we need
• 2:04
  to touch on that one detail from the crime scene,
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  the one that just screams chaos and frankly horror.
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  Speaker 2: You're talking about the Christmas lights.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was found bounded the wrists, not with rope
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  or zip ties or anything you might expect an attacker
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  to bring.
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  Speaker 2: No with strands of multicolored Christmas lights, just grabbed from nearby,
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  likely a storage bin, or maybe some decorations left out.
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  Speaker 1: It's like something out of a nightmare. As one report
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  put it, it suggests such improvisation, such.
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  Speaker 2: Panic, it really does. It points away from a meticulously
• 2:37
  planned act and towards something much more chaotic, maybe a
• 2:41
  confrontation that spun wildly out of control.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: And that specific domestic, almost mundane item being used in
• 2:48
  such a violent way. It's profoundly disturbing.
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  Speaker 2: It became the image, didn't it The symbol of the
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  senselessness and the improvised cruelty of the whole thing. It
• 2:56
  haunted everyone involved.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about Egypt herself. Who was this
• 3:00
  young woman whose life ended so brutally.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the sources paint her as just this incredible presence,
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  a real force of nature, people said.
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  Speaker 1: Born July nineteenth, nineteen eighty nine, in Detroit. Her parents
• 3:13
  Chuck and Tina Marie Turner Covington. Chuck worked in manufacturing, Tina.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: In healthcare, that's right, and an older brother, Dwayne.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Sounds like a solid family background.
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  Speaker 2: And the name Egypt after the country.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, named for the land of the Pharaohs. And people
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  said she had this kind of this natural warmth and magnetism.
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  Music was central to.
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  Speaker 3: Her life, not just a hobby then.
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  Speaker 1: Oh no, much more than that. Her brother Dwayne taught
• 3:38
  her guitar. She had this amazing voice, soulful, powerful, could
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  cover Edda James Adele blended folk blues soul. But it
• 3:47
  wasn't just technical skill. The sources keep emphasizing her ability
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  to connect with an audience. She apparently had this gift
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  for making people feel quote seen, that's.
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  Speaker 2: Special, and that talent led her to the ann Arbor
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  music scene.
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  Speaker 1: Right, definitely. She became really well run and worked for
• 4:02
  years as a bartender at Freezer's Pub. People called her
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  the heartbeat.
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  Speaker 2: Of the place, using the bartending job to kind of
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  fund the music dream.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly until about twenty fifteen. Then she made this smart
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  move leveraging her people skills into a job as an
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  account manager. Ah right, in the crap beer industry, Michigan
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  scene was exploding.
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  Speaker 2: Then, yeah, she caught that wave. But music was still
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  the core. By twenty seventeen, she was doing really well,
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  performing regularly at places like the Arc Connor O'Neill's respected venues.
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  Speaker 1: Sounds like things were really coming together for her.
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  Speaker 2: They were life seemed full of promise. She had a
• 4:35
  serious boyfriend, Curtis Meadows and IT specialists she'd met in
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  twenty sixteen. They were actually planning to move in together.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: She had her two cats, Luna and Ryan, and just
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  normal life things like the day before she was killed Thursday,
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  June twenty second, she went to her usual weekly yoga.
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  Speaker 1: Class, just a completely ordinary.
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  Speaker 2: Thursday, chatting with friends, probably making weekend plans, just normal.
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  Speaker 1: And then Friday morning, June twenty third, twenty.
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  Speaker 2: Seventeen, that's when everything changed. Her boyfriend Curtis got worried.
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  They usually texted in the morning and he hadn't heard
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  from her.
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  Speaker 1: So he went over to her place on Whole Road.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he drove over there, probably arrived around ten am,
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  and he found the side door.
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  Speaker 1: Unlocked, which would be unusual, right in that kind of neighborhood.
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  Speaker 2: Very unusual. Immediately a red flag. He went inside and
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  found her, yes in the little room, face down. She'd
• 5:29
  been shot once back of the head.
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  Speaker 1: Just devastating and the initial police response, what did they find?
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  What were the immediate forensic details?
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  Speaker 2: Well, Van Buren Township police arrived, small department. Remember, they
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  determined the bullet was from a point three eight zero
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  caliber handgun, but the shot itself had been muffled. Someone
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  had used a throw pillow, probably pressed against her head
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  when the gun was.
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  Speaker 1: Fired to suppress the sound, so neighbors wouldn't hear.
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  Speaker 2: That seems the most likely reason. Yeah, suggest some awareness,
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  some attempt to conceal the act, at least momentarily, and
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  then of course the binding those Christmas lights pulled from
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  a container nearby, blood pooled on the hardwood floor. It
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  was a grim scene.
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  Speaker 1: But the biggest puzzle right from the start was the motive,
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  or the lack of an obvious.
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  Speaker 2: One, exactly because nothing looked like a typical robbery. How so,
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  her purse and her wallet were right there, sitting on
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  the kitchen counter, untouched, cash, inside cards, everything.
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  Speaker 1: So if someone breaks in or forces their way in
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  confronts her, why leave the money? It makes no sense
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  for a robbery.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely that, combined with the unlocked door, no signs of
• 6:38
  forced entry immediately pushed the investigators in a specific.
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  Speaker 1: Direction towards someone she knew.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, either she knew the attacker and let them in willingly,
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  maybe unaware of their intent.
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  Speaker 1: Or perhaps they slipped in through that unlocked door while
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  she was distracted and she confronted them.
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  Speaker 2: That was another possibility, but either way, the lack of
• 6:56
  forced entry, plus the untouched valuables strongly suggested the motive
• 7:00
  wasn't quit cash. It had to be something personal, revenge, jealousy,
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  a relationship gone wrong.
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  Speaker 1: And that initial interpretation, that gut feeling, based on those
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  first detail.
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  Speaker 2: It set the stage for everything that followed. It created
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  this intense focus on her inner.
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  Speaker 1: Circle, locked them into a specific theory, locked.
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  Speaker 2: Them in tight, and that assumption that this must be
• 7:20
  personal led directly to three years of investigative stagnation. A
• 7:23
  tunnel vision.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so the police immediately pivot away from a random
• 7:27
  attack and start looking inwards at the people closest.
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  Speaker 2: To Egypt standard procedure in a case like this, especially
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  with those scene details, and the first person under the
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  microscope is always the partner.
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  Speaker 1: Curtis Meadows, the boyfriend who founder textbook person of interest.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely he had to endure intense questioning, scrutiny of his movements,
• 7:46
  his relationship.
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  Speaker 3: With Egypt, and a polygraph test.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Yes, he agreed to take one and he passed.
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  Speaker 1: It, which should have helped clear him.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: It did to an extent. Plus his phone records, his alibi.
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  Everything checked out. He was where he said he was.
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  Their last conversation, around nine pm the night before was
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  apparently just normal, loving talk. She mentioned having a headache
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  after yoga. Nothing suspicious.
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  Speaker 1: So with Curtis seemingly cleared, where did the police look next?
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  They were still convinced it was personal right.
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  Speaker 2: They were stuck on that idea, so their attention shifted
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  to another man in her life. Michael mcculluch, her ex boyfriend. Yes,
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  apparently they had broken up some time before, but he
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  had recently kind of re entered her life, not romantically, ostensibly,
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  more like helping her out with odd jobs, some maintenance
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  around her place. A friendly, platonic thing, was the claim.
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  Speaker 1: But the police saw something else well.
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  Speaker 2: When they dug into their text messages, their communications, they
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  found what they described as flirtatious banter, lingering, affection maybe
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  or just friendliness, interpreted through a suspicious lens Okay. For
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  the investigators, though, who were desperate for a suspect and
• 8:58
  already believed this was personal, this was enough. It fit
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  the narrative they were building, a scorned lover. Maybe he
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  wanted more, she didn't.
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  Speaker 1: Things escalated common enough motive.
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  Speaker 2: Unfortunately it is, and in the absence of other leads,
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  it became the leading theory, the one they latched onto.
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  Speaker 1: And this is where it really goes off the rails,
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  isn't it. With Mukahak and another polygraph.
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  Speaker 2: This is the critical turning point. Yes, Mika Lac also
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  agreed to take a polygraph test. Yeah, according to the sources,
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  he failed it. And not just failed it, he failed
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  it quote spectacularly.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. What does spectacularly even mean?
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  Speaker 2: In polygraph terms, it usually implies very strong, unambiguous physiological
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  reactions heart rate, breathing, perspiration, specifically tied to the relevant
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  questions about the crime. To the officers administering the test,
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  it looked like clear deception, proof of guilt.
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  Speaker 1: You can see how for a small police department without
• 9:55
  many other leads, that would feel like finding the smoking gun.
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  Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, psycho Logically, it's incredibly powerful. Even though polygraphs
• 10:02
  are notoriously unreliable, often inadmissible in court. For the investigators
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  on the ground, this felt like confirmation he's lying, he
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  did it.
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  Speaker 1: It basically cemented their belief.
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  Speaker 2: It locked it in. From that point on, Michael Lack
• 10:15
  was their guy. The entire investigation became focused on proving
• 10:17
  he did it, rather than exploring other possibilities.
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  Speaker 1: But what about actual physical evidence? Do they find anything
• 10:23
  to link him to the crime scene?
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  Speaker 2: And that's the crucial disconnect. They searched his apartment thoroughly.
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  They were looking for the murder weapon that point three
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  to a zero handgun. They were looking for clothes with
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  blood spatter, any trace evidence connecting him to Hull Road
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  that night. And they found nothing, absolutely nothing, No gun,
• 10:40
  no bloody clothes, no forensic link whatsoever.
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  Speaker 1: So a spectacular polygraph fail, but zero physical evidence. That
• 10:48
  should eraise serious doubts, shouldn't.
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  Speaker 2: It, You'd think so. But the power of that polygraph result,
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  that confirmation bias was just too strong for the Van
• 10:57
  Buren PD.
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  Speaker 1: So they rationalized the lack of evidence.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: They concluded he must have been incredibly careful, got rid
• 11:04
  of the gun, meticulously cleaned up anything. But considering they
• 11:07
  might be wrong about him.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: This absolute focus on Mechlac, fueled by a questionable test.
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  It didn't just all the investigation. It caused real pain
• 11:17
  within Egypt's family, didn't.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: It, Oh, tremendous pain. It created this awful fracture right
• 11:21
  when they needed each other most. That so, Egypt's mother,
• 11:24
  Tina became convinced Miklac was innocent. She knew him, she
• 11:28
  believed in him, and she publicly defended him. She even
• 11:30
  attended a memorial concert with.
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  Speaker 3: Him, which you can imagine las friction.
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  Speaker 2: Massive friction. Because Egypt's father Chuck he sided with the police,
• 11:39
  he remained deeply suspicious of Michailak. This disagreement drove a
• 11:42
  wedge between the parents.
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  Speaker 1: And between Tina and her son Duayne.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, there was a strangement there too. For a time.
• 11:50
  DuRane Egypt's older brother. He wasn't buying the police theory,
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  but he also wasn't necessarily defending Miklac. Initially, he was
• 11:57
  just frustrated, angry.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And trust the investigation.
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  Speaker 2: He absolutely didn't. He along with his girlfriend Lindsay Brink,
• 12:04
  who had a background as a paralegal, which turned out
• 12:06
  to be crucial, they decided They couldn't just sit back
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  and wait.
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  Speaker 1: They started their own probe.
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  Speaker 2: Pretty much. They quickly came to the conclusion that the
• 12:14
  Van Buren police were simply in over their heads. Small department,
• 12:18
  likely understaffed, maybe not experienced with complex homicides. They saw
• 12:23
  it as incompetence.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: And they decided to fight back, not just investigate, but
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  advocate exactly.
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  Speaker 2: They channeled their grief and anger into action. They started
• 12:32
  demanding answers publicly.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: How do they do that? What form did this activism take?
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  Speaker 2: They were smart about it. They used social media, creating
• 12:40
  a Facebook group called Justice for Egypt The Truth Behind
• 12:44
  the Investigation, and it just exploded. It tapped into this
• 12:48
  growing community frustration. Thousands of people joined, five thousand members
• 12:52
  pretty quickly. It turned a private tragedy into a very.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Public cause, taking the fight beyond just the family.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Making it impossible for the local authorities to ignore. And
• 13:01
  they didn't stop there. They went bigger. The billboards, Yeah,
• 13:03
  the billboards along I ninety four, a major highway, huge
• 13:07
  signs asking who killed Egypt, demand answers. Thousands upon thousands
• 13:12
  of drivers seeing that every day, it was relentless pressure
• 13:15
  on the police. Chief Jeff Jennings and his department.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Despite all this noise, all this pressure, the official investigation
• 13:23
  was going nowhere.
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  Speaker 2: Completely stalled. By twenty eighteen, a year later, it was
• 13:29
  effectively a cold case. The forensic evidence they did have
• 13:32
  wasn't helpful.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: What about the DNA on the Christmas lights?
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: It only matched Egypt herself, likely just her own DNA
• 13:38
  transfer during the struggle when she.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Was bound and the bullet casing wiped clean.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: No usable prints, no witnesses came forward. There was just
• 13:46
  nothing new.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: So Chief Jennings is defending his department, saying they did
• 13:49
  everything they could.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Right publicly maintaining confidence, but privately the case file was
• 13:55
  gathering dust, and the community's distrust just deepened. It felt
• 13:59
  like justice denied.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: It's such a grim picture, a family torn apart, an
• 14:04
  investigation paralyzed by maybe a faulty test and confirmation bias.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: And the only public sign of her memory for a
• 14:10
  long while was actually this rather lovely gesture from a
• 14:13
  local brewery.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Ah the beer a girl named Egypt.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, Arbor Brewing Company created this hazy ipa in her honor,
• 14:22
  which is wonderful but also kind of poignant.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Proceeds went to good causes.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Music scholarships, animal rescues, causes. She cared about a beautiful tribute,
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  but every time someone bought that beer, it was also
• 14:34
  a reminder that her killer was still out there. Justice
• 14:37
  hadn't been served.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And for Dwayne and Lindsay, that just wasn't acceptable. They
• 14:40
  knew they had to force a change.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: That relentless pressure from Dwayne and Lindsay it eventually worked.
• 14:46
  They kept pushing, organizing protests, even hiring a private investigator.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: What did the PI find?
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Well? The PI essentially documented the shortcomings of the local investigation,
• 14:56
  compiled evidence of missteps lack of resources, basically built a
• 15:01
  case against the Van Buren PDS handling of the.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Case, which gave the family leverage.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly enough leverage to formally petition the state authorities. In
• 15:10
  twenty twenty, they succeeded in getting the Michigan State Police
• 15:14
  the MSP, to take over the investigation completely.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: That must have felt like a huge victory, a fresh start.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: It was the turning point. The MSP assigned their cold
• 15:23
  case unit, specifically two detectives, James Plumber and Sean Street.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: And they brought new resources, new perspectives.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: They brought everything the local PD lacked experience with complex homicides,
• 15:35
  specialized forensic capabilities, and crucially, access to and knowledge of
• 15:40
  advanced digital forensic tools. They were the definition of fresh
• 15:44
  eyes and the key.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Tool here, the one that changed everything, was this geofence warrant.
• 15:49
  Can you break that down? What exactly is it and
• 15:50
  how does it work? It sounds like sci fi?
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: It kind of does, but it's very real and increasingly common,
• 15:55
  though controversial. Think of it like casting a digital net.
• 15:58
  Instead of asking a tech company like Google for data
• 16:01
  on a specific person's phone, the police serve a warrant
• 16:04
  asking for anonymized location data from every device that pinged
• 16:08
  cell towers or used location services within a defined geographic
• 16:12
  area the geofence during a specific time window.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So not targeted at one suspect, but a sweep of
• 16:19
  everyone who is physically nearby exactly.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: It's designed to find unknown suspects by seeing who was
• 16:24
  in the relevant place at the relevant time. In this case,
• 16:27
  detectives Plumber and Street defined the area precisely.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: What were the parameters for Egypt's case?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: They drew a virtual boundary about one hundred yards around
• 16:35
  her house on Hall Road, a pretty tight circle, and
• 16:38
  the time frame also very specific. They focused on the
• 16:41
  critical window from eleven four five pm on Thursday June
• 16:45
  twenty second through the early morning hours of Friday, June
• 16:48
  twenty third, when the murder likely occurred.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: So they asked Google or whoever, give us anonymous data
• 16:53
  for any device inside this one hundred yard circle during
• 16:56
  these few hours.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: That's the essence of it.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: And the amount of data they get back is it
• 17:00
  potentially huge.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: You'd get neighbors, people driving, by delivery drivers, hundreds of
• 17:06
  devices maybe easily.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: The initial data probably included around two hundred unique devices,
• 17:11
  just raw anonymized location pings.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So the challenge then becomes sifting through all that noise
• 17:18
  to find something meaningful. How did they do that? That
• 17:21
  sounds incredibly difficult.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: It requires meticulous analysis. First, they filter out the nones,
• 17:27
  the phones belonging to people who actually lived inside that
• 17:30
  hundred yard radius. Their regular pings are baseline.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Noise, okay, get rid of the residents.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Then they look for the anomalies. Devices that appear suddenly
• 17:39
  within the gfence during that critical time window, linger for
• 17:42
  a period consistent with the crime, and.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Then leave the area rapidly and don't belong there.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Normally precisely, they're looking for the digital footprint of the outsiders,
• 17:50
  the intruders, and in that mass of two hundred devices.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: It found something.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: They found three somethings, Three distinct devices pinging together, moving
• 17:58
  together near Hollrow right during the estimated time of the murder.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Three phones moving as a group.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: And here's the kicker. When they traced the carrier information
• 18:08
  associated with these anonymized pings, they weren't local.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Where are they from?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Ohio? All three phones were registered to individuals or accounts
• 18:17
  based in Ohio.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Ohio, not ann Arbor, not Detroit, Toledo.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Maybe exactly Toledo area. This was the bombshell. Three years
• 18:25
  the investigation had focused entirely on local connections on michaelac
• 18:29
  On people Egypt knew, and.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Suddenly the data points hours away, across state lines.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: It completely blew the old theories out of the water.
• 18:37
  It instantly validated Duayne and Lindsay's suspicions about the local
• 18:41
  PD's tunnel vision.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: So who did these phones belong to?
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: The MSP Cross referenced the phone data with other records,
• 18:47
  and they identified the users. Timothy Eugene Moore thirty seven,
• 18:50
  Shane Lamar Evans thirty four and Shannon ray Groom thirty.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Did these names mean anything? Do they have records?
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: They did? All three were known to law enforcement in
• 18:59
  Toledo level stuff, mostly theft, drug offenses. Not major criminals,
• 19:03
  but definitely involved in illicit activity.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And crucially, did they have any connection to Egypt Comington
• 19:08
  any link at all?
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: None, whatsoever? Zero connection. They didn't know her, she didn't
• 19:13
  know them. They had no reason to be in Van
• 19:15
  Buren Township, let alone on her specific street, which.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Leads to the huge question why, why them? Why her?
• 19:23
  If it wasn't personal, what was the motive.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: That came out during the interrogation. Once they had the
• 19:28
  suspects identified, the MSP brought them in. Timothy Moore, who
• 19:32
  seemed to be the leader, eventually confessed, and the reason
• 19:35
  was it was tragically simple and stupid. They were broke,
• 19:40
  involved in the periphery of the opioid crisis down in Ohio,
• 19:44
  needed cash fast. They decided to drive up to Michigan
• 19:47
  to pull off a burglary.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, a burglary, but why target Egypt's house specifically? It
• 19:52
  still doesn't make sense.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Because they weren't targeting her house that was the fatal mistake.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: They got the wrong address.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: They got the wrong house entirely. They had received intel,
• 20:00
  likely bad information, from some criminal contact about a house
• 20:03
  in that area, supposedly belonging to a marijuana dealer in
• 20:06
  nearby Bellville.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: A dealer rumored to be growing high grade stuff, a
• 20:11
  lucrative target.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: That was the idea. They thought they were hitting a
• 20:15
  stash house, maybe with cash and valuable marijuana clans inside.
• 20:18
  But the address or description they got was wrong. It
• 20:21
  led them to Egypt's quiet, single story ranch home instead.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Oh my god. So they roll up, thinking they've found
• 20:29
  this dealer's.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Place, and they see her house adjacent to wherever they
• 20:32
  thought they were going, and assume that's it. They approached
• 20:36
  the door.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Late that night, and Egypt she opened it.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: According to Moore's confession, Yes, consistent with her trusting nature.
• 20:45
  She apparently just cracked the door open when they knocked,
• 20:47
  maybe thought it was a neighbor or a.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Late delivery, and they forced their way in.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, demanding drugs, demanding money she didn't have. She must
• 20:55
  have been terrified, confused. A scuffle broke out, she resisted,
• 20:58
  and that's when That's when things escalated tragically. Shane Evans,
• 21:02
  maybe panicking during the struggle, grabbed the nearest thing he
• 21:05
  could find to subdue her. Those Christmas lights.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: He used them to bind her wrists.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, and then Moore, carrying the point three eight zero handgun,
• 21:13
  made the fatal decision. He pressed the pillow to.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Her head to muffle the shot and fired.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: His words in the confession were chillingly direct. We didn't
• 21:22
  mean to. She saw us, she.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Saw their faces. They panicked, realized they'd hit the wrong house,
• 21:29
  found no drugs, no cash. They fled immediately, empty handed,
• 21:33
  leaving behind that scene of improvised horror that stumped investigators
• 21:37
  for three long years.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable, just devastating randomness, all that suspicion, the family fracture
• 21:43
  because of a bad tip and the wrong house.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: It's almost impossible to comprehend the tragic confluence of errors.
• 21:49
  But Moore's confessions sealed it.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: And it completely exonerated Michael Lucklac and Kurz Meadows for.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: That matter, instantly and unequivocally. The arrests came swiftly after
• 21:59
  the confessions. More and Evans were picked up in November
• 22:01
  twenty twenty. Groom, who acted as the lookout was arrested
• 22:05
  about a month later.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Finally, after three and a half years tangible progress, justice
• 22:11
  finally seemed possible.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: The court cases moved forward in Wayne County Circuit Court.
• 22:16
  It took time, as these things do, but ultimately accountability
• 22:19
  was delivered.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Timothy Moore, the one who pulled the trigger. What happened
• 22:22
  with him? He chose to plead guilty, avoided a full trial,
• 22:26
  which probably spared the family some trauma. He pleaded to
• 22:29
  second degree murder and a felony firearm charge, and the
• 22:32
  sentence in October twenty twenty three, Judge Patricia Frizzard gave
• 22:36
  him twenty to fifty five years in prison. The judge
• 22:39
  really emphasized the senselessness, telling more he chose violence against
• 22:44
  someone completely innocent, someone whose only mistake was living at
• 22:47
  the wrong.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Address, acknowledging that randomness. What about Shane Evans, the one
• 22:52
  who bound her with the lights?
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Evans also took a plea deal. He received fifteen to
• 22:56
  twenty five years sentenced back in May twenty twenty three.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Did he say anything?
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: He apparently made a statement saying he froze during the crime,
• 23:04
  that it wasn't supposed to go down like that, But
• 23:06
  you know, the court focused on the outcome of his actions,
• 23:09
  not his intentions in that moment.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Right and the third man, Shandon Ray Groom, the lookout.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Groom, decided to go to trial.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: He fought the charges and the verdict.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: He was convicted by a jury in October twenty twenty three,
• 23:21
  around the same time as more sentencing. Groom received seventeen
• 23:25
  to twenty six.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Years, so significant prison time for all three.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, the prosecution really hammered home the narrative that these
• 23:32
  weren't just inept burglars, but a dangerous group, calling them
• 23:36
  a pack of wolves crossing state lines to prey on innocence.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And the end of the legal process. Did it bring
• 23:42
  any healing for the family? They had been so divided?
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: It seems it really did. Source's report that Tina the
• 23:48
  mother and Duane the son publicly reconciled during the court hearings,
• 23:53
  that bitterness over the mucalac suspicion finally eased with the
• 23:56
  truth revealed.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: That's good to hear.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: There was also public record ignition for Lindsey Brinks incredible work,
• 24:02
  her persistence was key and Chuck Covington, Egypt's father gave
• 24:06
  a powerful victim impact statement.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: He made a point of saying that while Egypt's physical
• 24:12
  presence was gone, her light, her spirit wasn't extinguished. He said,
• 24:16
  it burns in our fight. A really moving sentiment about resilience.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: The whole story, especially the technological breakthrough, It got national attention, right.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, NBC's dateline became heavily invested. They first covered
• 24:28
  the case back in twenty twenty one when it was
• 24:30
  still cold, focusing on the frustration and the stalled investigation.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: And then they followed up they did.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: In March twenty twenty four. They aired a full episode
• 24:39
  titled A Girl Named Egypt, detailing the entire saga, particularly
• 24:43
  the work of detectives Playmer and Street, how they meticulously
• 24:47
  sifted through that geofens data from two hundred devices to
• 24:50
  find the three needles in the haystack.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: And putting that geofn's technology front and center on national TV.
• 24:57
  That must have amplified the debate.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Around it absolutely. It became a prime example of the
• 25:02
  power and the controversy of geofencing. The MSP themselves credited
• 25:06
  the tool with helping solve dozens of cold cases in Michigan.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: But the privacy implications are huge exactly.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Civil liberties groups immediately pointed to this case, arguing that
• 25:16
  solving one crime, however, horrific, doesn't justify sweeping up the
• 25:20
  location data of hundreds of innocent people without individualized suspicion.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: It gets back to that digital drag net idea. Is
• 25:26
  it constitutional?
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: That's the core legal question. It bumps right up against
• 25:30
  the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches. The argument is
• 25:34
  that searching everyone in an area to find one suspect
• 25:37
  is like a modern version of the old general warrants
• 25:39
  the Founding Fathers opposed.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It's like the Carpenter Supreme Court case hinted at about
• 25:44
  location data and needing protection.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Precisely, Carpenter of the United States in twenty eighteen established
• 25:49
  that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their
• 25:52
  historical cell site location information. Geofense warrants pushed that boundary
• 25:56
  even further by collecting precise GPS data, often from inside homes.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: So privacy advocates see it as a massive overreach.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: A dangerous precedent. Potentially, they worry about where it leads
• 26:09
  constant surveillance, erosion of anonymity.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: But the counter argument from law enforcements perspective is pretty
• 26:15
  compelling to especially in a case like this.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: It is how else do you solve a crime like
• 26:19
  Egypt's murder where the killers are strangers from out of
• 26:23
  state with zero ties to the victim and the motive
• 26:25
  is just random error.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Traditional detective work interviewing associates looking for locomotives was completely
• 26:32
  useless here. It actively misled them.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: For years, the geofens offered the only pathway to identifying
• 26:38
  suspects who were otherwise ghosts. It found people based purely
• 26:42
  on their presence at the scene during the critical window.
• 26:44
  Without it, this case might still be cold today.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: It's a genuine dilemma a tool that demonstrably solves horrific
• 26:51
  crimes but relies on collecting data from many innocent people, And.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: The legal landscape is shifting. Since this case was solved,
• 26:58
  courts and tech companies have put more restrictions on geofence warrants.
• 27:02
  Police now often need to show more specific reasons, narrower
• 27:06
  time frames, clearer probable cause before getting such.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Broad data, so the tool that solved this case might
• 27:12
  be harder to use in the future.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Potentially, yes, which raises huge questions about investigating similar crimes
• 27:18
  going forward.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: It really is a double edged sword. Justice for Egypt,
• 27:22
  but serious questions about privacy for everyone else. Still Beyond
• 27:26
  the legal debate, her legacy continues in other ways right, Definitely.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: It's shifted towards community action and positive remembrance. Now that
• 27:33
  Arbor Brewing Company beer a Girl named Egypt Going still
• 27:36
  brewed seasonally and it's raised a significant amount of money
• 27:40
  over fifty thousand.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Dollars now wow.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: And that goes to music scholarships via the ann Arbor
• 27:45
  Summer Festival, helping young artists like Egypt, and also to
• 27:49
  animal rescue organizations through a fund called Egypt's Pause, keeping
• 27:53
  her passions alive.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: And the family, how are they channeling their experience.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Dwayne, her brother who fought so hat, is now mentoring
• 28:01
  young singers using his energy positively. Lindsey Brink is advocating
• 28:06
  for reforms and how cold cases are handled, trying to
• 28:08
  prevent other families from going through what they did.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And Curtis, the boyfriend.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Sources say he is remarried, moved on with his life
• 28:15
  as he should, but he still keeps Egypt's picture on
• 28:18
  his mantelpiece a quiet remembrance.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: It's a story with so much tragedy, but also incredible resilience.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, the ultimate takeaway perhaps isn't just about the crime
• 28:28
  or the technology. It's about the power of family persistence.
• 28:31
  They refuse to accept institutional failure, They forced the system
• 28:35
  to adapt, and they ultimately brought the truth to light.
• 28:38
  It's a warning, but also maybe a blueprint for advocacy.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: All right, So wrapping up this deep dive, the key
• 28:45
  things that really stand out are first just how that
• 28:49
  initial crime scene, the lack of forced entry, the untouched wallet,
• 28:53
  even the horror of the Christmas lights sent the investigation
• 28:56
  down completely the wrong path.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: For years on a personal motive locked in by that
• 29:02
  failed polygraph of the ex boyfriend. It created total paralysis.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Until Dwayne and Lindsay's relentless fight forced the MSP to
• 29:09
  take over. Their advocacy was absolutely critical, and then.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: The breakthrough the geofens warn't sifting through hundreds of devices
• 29:17
  to find those three ohio phones, revealing the motive wasn't
• 29:20
  personal at all, but a botched burglary at the wrong house,
• 29:24
  just a devastating, simple mistake.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: It really connects back to you, the listener in a
• 29:28
  couple of ways, doesn't it First the chilling reminder that
• 29:31
  horrific random violence can touch even the quietest communities, that
• 29:35
  sense of suburban safety can be fragile, definitely.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: But also it's a powerful testament to what happens when
• 29:41
  families refuse to give up, when they challenge official narratives
• 29:44
  and demand better. Their persistence overcame institutional inertia.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to that final provocative thought. We like
• 29:51
  to leave you with this case hinges on geofence technology,
• 29:55
  a tool that required sweeping up the private location data
• 29:59
  of maybe two hundred innocent people to find three guilty ones.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: And we know these warrants are facing intense legal challenges.
• 30:06
  Tech companies are pushing back, courts are demanding higher standards.
• 30:09
  It's getting harder to cast such a wide digital net.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: So the question for you to think about is this,
• 30:14
  as this specific tool becomes more restricted, what comes next?
• 30:18
  What ethical, effective methods can police develop to solve these
• 30:22
  incredibly difficult stranger crimes, the ones born from random opportunistic
• 30:27
  violence where there's no prior connection.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: How do we balance the undeniable need for justice for
• 30:32
  victims like Egypt Covington with the equally important need to
• 30:35
  protect the constitutional privacy rights of everyone else in the community.
• 30:39
  If the digital drag net gets smaller, what takes its place.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: That tension between justice and privacy and an increasingly digital world.
• 30:47
  That's really the challenge ahead. Isn't it something to definitely
• 30:49
  mole over.