Latest / Crime Night / Vanished on Black Friday: The Search for Cole Thomas

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Vanished on Black Friday: The Search for Cole Thomas · Crime Night

0:00
Speaker 1: So I want you to picture this. It is exactly
0:03
Speaker 1: three am on Black Friday back in twenty sixteen. Okay,
0:06
Speaker 1: and we are not talking about, you know, people lined
0:10
Speaker 1: up outside a big box store waiting to buy a
0:12
Speaker 1: cheap television, right right, No, we're in the really small,
0:17
Speaker 1: super quiet town of Benson, North Carolina, and the streets
0:21
Speaker 1: are just pitch black. The air is absolutely freezing. I
0:25
Speaker 1: mean the town is practically a ghost town at this hour.
0:27
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, completely dead exactly.
0:30
Speaker 1: And in the local police department parking lot, they're a
0:33
Speaker 1: couple of officers just sitting in their cruisers. They're, you know,
0:35
Speaker 1: finishing up some routine paperwork, just enjoying the quiet of
0:38
Speaker 1: the night, just.
0:39
Speaker 2: A standard night shift.
0:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then.
0:42
Speaker 1: Out of that frigid darkness, two men just casually stroll
0:45
Speaker 1: right up to the windows of the cruisers.
0:46
Speaker 2: And they don't I mean, they don't run up. They
0:48
Speaker 2: just walk right out of the shadows, completely unhurried, like
0:51
Speaker 2: it's nothing right.
0:52
Speaker 1: Their names are Julian Vays Junior and Jeremy Carpenter. And
0:56
Speaker 1: the thing you really have to understand here is they
0:58
Speaker 1: aren't panicked at all. They aren't out of breath, they
1:02
Speaker 1: aren't screaming for help. They just calmly explain to the
1:05
Speaker 1: officers that they need a locksmith.
1:08
Speaker 2: A locksmith at three am, Yeah.
1:10
Speaker 3: They say.
1:11
Speaker 1: They're just passing through on their way back up to
1:13
Speaker 1: Minnesota for a construction job, but they've been locked out
1:15
Speaker 1: of their car, which is such a remarkably mundane request
1:20
Speaker 1: for that time of night.
1:21
Speaker 2: It really is. But underneath that incredibly casual demeanor is
1:25
Speaker 2: a completely chilling reality. Oh absolutely, because the third man
1:29
Speaker 2: they were traveling with, the guy who was literally just
1:31
Speaker 2: driving their car minutes prior, has completely vanished into the night,
1:35
Speaker 2: just gone.
1:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:37
Speaker 2: And what's fascinating here is that this bizarre late night
1:41
Speaker 2: parking lot encounter is actually the entry point into the
1:45
Speaker 2: disappearance of twenty two year old Christopher Cole Thomas right,
1:49
Speaker 2: and analyzing the source material for this deep dive reveals
1:52
Speaker 2: a truly terrifying dynamic. We are looking at what happens
1:56
Speaker 2: when the only witnesses to a potential crime are like
1:59
Speaker 2: the exact same people who are actively trying to cover
2:02
Speaker 2: it up. You're dealing with narrators who hold all the cards, right, Yeah,
2:06
Speaker 2: and your only weapon to fight back is the silent
2:09
Speaker 2: data they leave behind in their wake.
2:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, we really have to look at the story Julian
2:13
Speaker 1: and Jeremy initially fed to the police.
2:16
Speaker 2: That night, the initial lie, right, the lie.
2:18
Speaker 1: They claimed their friend Cole was driving, but out of nowhere,
2:21
Speaker 1: he just started acting highly paranoid. Yeah, they say. He
2:24
Speaker 1: obluctly slammed on the brakes, pulled the car over, ripped
2:28
Speaker 1: the keys out of the ignition, threw them into the dark,
2:31
Speaker 1: and then just jumped out of the car and sprint
2:33
Speaker 1: it off in the pitch black night.
2:35
Speaker 2: And keep in mind the geography here, because that's important.
2:38
Speaker 2: Cole is originally from rural Florida, right, He doesn't know Benson,
2:42
Speaker 2: North Carolina. It is a town he has never been to,
2:45
Speaker 2: in a state he doesn't live in, in the absolute
2:47
Speaker 2: dead of night.
2:48
Speaker 3: Right.
2:49
Speaker 1: And then Julian vaguely suggested the cops, almost like this
2:52
Speaker 1: calculated afterthought, that he heard rumors Cole might have some
2:58
Speaker 1: metal health struggles.
2:59
Speaker 2: Ah, planting that seed.
3:01
Speaker 1: Exactly, planting that seed of doubt super early on. But
3:04
Speaker 1: look at how these two so called friends actually react
3:09
Speaker 1: to their buddy running off into an unknown, freezing town.
3:13
Speaker 2: They don't react at all.
3:14
Speaker 1: They don't they don't form a search party. They don't
3:17
Speaker 1: start shouting his name. They just wait for a locksmith
3:20
Speaker 1: who ironically enough finds the keys right underneath the car.
3:23
Speaker 1: Of course he does, yeah, And then they file this
3:25
Speaker 1: super quick missing person's report with the local police. And
3:28
Speaker 1: then they literally just get in the car and drive
3:30
Speaker 1: back to Minnesota.
3:31
Speaker 2: Because they have to get back to their construction jobs
3:33
Speaker 2: on Monday, right, So they just abandon him. That is
3:36
Speaker 2: the timeline they expect everyone to just you know, accept.
3:39
Speaker 1: It is the absolute ultimate violation of the buddy system.
3:43
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like going scuba diving, watching your partners
3:46
Speaker 1: swim into a dark, unmapped cave and deciding to just
3:50
Speaker 1: head back to the blunt for the buffet instead of
3:52
Speaker 1: swimming after them or getting help.
3:54
Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
3:55
Speaker 1: And the part that makes my blood absolutely boil.
3:59
Speaker 3: They never call it. No.
4:00
Speaker 1: You report a guy missing to a random small town cop,
4:04
Speaker 1: but you don't pick up the phone to call his
4:06
Speaker 1: mom or dad to say, hey, your son just ran
4:09
Speaker 1: off into the woods.
4:11
Speaker 2: Right. The silence there is the detail that just screams
4:15
Speaker 2: something is fundamentally wrong. I mean, imagine you are Cole's parents,
4:20
Speaker 2: Chris and Kathy down in Florida. Oh man, you are
4:23
Speaker 2: completely oblivious. You had just exchanged casual Thanksgiving text messages
4:28
Speaker 2: with Cole like a.
4:29
Speaker 1: Day earlier, right, totally normal stuff.
4:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was zero mention of a cross country road
4:34
Speaker 2: trip to North Carolina. You don't even know he's in
4:36
Speaker 2: that state until Sunday when the Benson police call you
4:39
Speaker 2: out of the blue to say your son is missing.
4:41
Speaker 1: Imagine picking up that phone call, the absolute reality bending
4:45
Speaker 1: shock of that.
4:46
Speaker 2: It's unthinkable.
4:47
Speaker 1: But Cole's dad, Chris, he doesn't just freeze up. He
4:50
Speaker 1: immediately snaps into action right now. He doesn't know Julian
4:53
Speaker 1: or Jeremy, right, because Cole has only been working this
4:56
Speaker 1: Minnesota construction gig for about a month.
4:59
Speaker 2: Pretty good job.
4:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Chris does know the name of Cole's boss,
5:02
Speaker 1: a guy named Stephen. So Chris frantically tracks Stephen down
5:06
Speaker 1: on Facebook and sends him this urgent message demanding he
5:10
Speaker 1: call immediately, and.
5:11
Speaker 2: The resulting phone call is where the bottom just completely
5:13
Speaker 2: falls out of the parents world.
5:15
Speaker 3: Yeah.
5:15
Speaker 2: When Stephen calls Chris, he opens by saying, uh, oh,
5:19
Speaker 2: I've been trying to get a hold of you, which
5:21
Speaker 2: is highly unlikely given that Chris is very easy to
5:23
Speaker 2: find online, right, a total lie. But Chris just listens
5:27
Speaker 2: and Steven starts rambling wildly. He talks about a strip search,
5:31
Speaker 2: about Cole freaking out, and then he drops a sentence
5:34
Speaker 2: that no parent should, ever, under any circumstances, have to hear.
5:38
Speaker 3: Oh, this part is just brutal.
5:40
Speaker 2: Stephen bluntly says, I think they killed him.
5:43
Speaker 1: I mean, you send your kid off to learn a trade,
5:45
Speaker 1: and a month later his boss tells you he's been murdered.
5:48
Speaker 2: And then Stephen reveals this was never a harmless holiday
5:51
Speaker 2: road trip. Julian and Jeremy drove all the way from
5:53
Speaker 2: Minnesota to North Carolina, specifically to buy a large quantity
5:57
Speaker 2: of methamphetamine a methron Yeah, cross country meth run. They
6:02
Speaker 2: met up with some very dangerous people in the local
6:04
Speaker 2: drug trade, and Steven tells the dad that something went
6:07
Speaker 2: horribly violently wrong.
6:10
Speaker 3: Just plow.
6:11
Speaker 2: And if you analyze this from a psychological perspective, consider
6:14
Speaker 2: how a human brain processes that trauma.
6:17
Speaker 3: It can't.
6:18
Speaker 2: Right, in one second, your son is this smart, driven
6:22
Speaker 2: former high school salutatorian who is just you know, taking
6:26
Speaker 2: a temporary break from college to learn a construction trade. Yeah,
6:29
Speaker 2: in the very next second, he is the victim of
6:32
Speaker 2: a cross country drug cartel hit. It is a violent
6:35
Speaker 2: pivot from utter normalcy straight into a nightmare with absolutely
6:39
Speaker 2: no transition.
6:40
Speaker 1: But Chris and Caffey they don't collapse. They throw their
6:43
Speaker 1: belongings in a truck and drive straight to North Carolina,
6:45
Speaker 1: straight into the fire exactly. And when they relay what
6:48
Speaker 1: Stephen told them to the local authorities, the police finally
6:51
Speaker 1: realize they've been completely played by the two guys in
6:54
Speaker 1: the parking lot.
6:54
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the cops are mad now.
6:56
Speaker 1: So the cops track Julian and Jeremy down and bring
6:59
Speaker 1: them back to North Carolina for a much more intense
7:01
Speaker 1: round of questioning. Now with the heat turned up, the
7:04
Speaker 1: guys admit, okay, yes, we went to a neighboring town
7:07
Speaker 1: called Mount Olive. We bought meth from two guys named
7:10
Speaker 1: Rudy and TJ.
7:11
Speaker 2: They finally admit to the drugs.
7:13
Speaker 1: Right, but they hold the line on the core story.
7:15
Speaker 1: They still insist Cole got paranoid and ran off alone.
7:18
Speaker 2: But this is where the narrative shifts from human deception
7:22
Speaker 2: to technological truth.
7:23
Speaker 3: Oh I love this part.
7:25
Speaker 2: Because human beings can sit in an interrogation room and
7:28
Speaker 2: lie all day long, they can match their stories, they
7:31
Speaker 2: can feign ignorance. But cameras are entirely impartial witnesses.
7:35
Speaker 1: Yes they are, and the police know they need more
7:38
Speaker 1: than just a gut feeling. And there is this local investigator,
7:42
Speaker 1: Captain Greg Percy, who basically becomes obsessed with this case.
7:46
Speaker 2: He really he.
7:47
Speaker 1: Brings hours and hours of surveillance footage home. He is
7:50
Speaker 1: literally sitting at his kitchen table in the middle of
7:52
Speaker 1: the night in December. His family is asleep and he's
7:55
Speaker 1: just scrubbing through grainy video, frame by.
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Speaker 2: Frame, just brutal tea.
8:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
8:01
Speaker 1: Eventually, he is looking at footage from a camera mounted
8:03
Speaker 1: outside of Walgreens in Benson. The camera's pointing at the
8:07
Speaker 1: pharmacy parking lot, but it catches a tiny blurry sliver
8:11
Speaker 1: of a bank across the street. And at exactly one
8:15
Speaker 1: ten am he sees a ghost.
8:17
Speaker 2: He spots movement in the far distance, right on the
8:20
Speaker 2: edge of the frame.
8:21
Speaker 1: Right, He zooms in, enhances it and it's coal. Cole
8:25
Speaker 1: is walking behind the bank. Yeah, but he's not sprinting
8:28
Speaker 1: into the woods in a paranoid frenzy like they said. No,
8:30
Speaker 1: he's walking, and more importantly, he is not alone. Walking
8:34
Speaker 1: right behind him, keeping perfect pace.
8:36
Speaker 2: Is Jeremy, which completely shatters the entire foundation of their
8:40
Speaker 2: three am police report.
8:42
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this, because when the police slam this
8:45
Speaker 1: Walgreens footage down on the table in front of Jeremy,
8:47
Speaker 1: you would think the game is upright, You'd think so,
8:49
Speaker 1: But no, his story magically evolves right on the spot.
8:52
Speaker 1: Confronted with undeniable proof that he was walking right behind Cole,
8:56
Speaker 1: Jeremy says, oh, right, I followed him to calm him down.
9:00
Speaker 2: T'sre he did.
9:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
9:01
Speaker 1: He claims they walked together to a nearby church. Then
9:04
Speaker 1: he says Cole went behind the building to pee. And
9:07
Speaker 1: what does Jeremy say he did in that exact moment?
9:09
Speaker 1: He says, he got down on his knees and started praying.
9:12
Speaker 2: Praying in the middle of an interstate meth smuggling operation.
9:16
Speaker 1: Right, I cannot get past the sheer absurdity of this lie.
9:20
Speaker 1: He claims that while his eyes are closed in deep prayer,
9:23
Speaker 1: he hears a car.
9:24
Speaker 2: Door close or gunshots? Right?
9:26
Speaker 1: Oh right, wait, he says, maybe he was gunshots. Yeah,
9:29
Speaker 1: he tells the cop season sure, but when he finishes
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Speaker 1: praying and opens his eyes, Cole is just magically gone
9:34
Speaker 1: o vanished. And then Jeremy says he was feeling thirsty
9:39
Speaker 1: because he's diabetic, so he just casually strolls over to
9:41
Speaker 1: McDonald's for a cup of water at two twenty am.
9:44
Speaker 2: Which, incredibly the police actually verify on the McDonald's interior
9:48
Speaker 2: surveillance footage.
9:49
Speaker 1: Wait, really, the McDonald's part was true?
9:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that McDonald's detail is absolutely crucial to understanding
9:55
Speaker 2: the psychology of a crumbling alibi. Also, when guilty people
10:00
Speaker 2: will fabricate a story to cover up a crime, they
10:02
Speaker 2: almost never invent the entire narrative from scratch because it's
10:05
Speaker 2: too hard to remember exactly. Pure fiction is way too
10:09
Speaker 2: difficult for the brain to keep straight under pressure. Instead,
10:12
Speaker 2: they sprinkle real, verifiable elements into a sea of fiction. Ah,
10:17
Speaker 2: I see, Jeremy really did go to McDonald's. The camera
10:21
Speaker 2: proves it. He strategically anchors his lie to that real,
10:26
Speaker 2: verifiable event to make the surrounding fiction. You know, the
10:30
Speaker 2: spontaneous prayer session, the mysterious gunshots with his eyes closed
10:35
Speaker 2: seem plausible to the detectives.
10:37
Speaker 1: Man, that is so manipulative. But the physical footage of
10:40
Speaker 1: them walking behind the bank is honestly just the appetizer here,
10:44
Speaker 1: it really is. The digital forensics in this case are
10:47
Speaker 1: where the ultimate betrayal happens, because when Julian and Jeremy
10:50
Speaker 1: were brought back to North Carolina for that second round
10:53
Speaker 1: of questioning, they did something that reveals a staggering level
10:57
Speaker 1: of hubris.
10:58
Speaker 2: What did they do?
10:59
Speaker 1: They casually hand it over Cole's cell phone to the police.
11:01
Speaker 2: Which means they had his device in their pockets the
11:04
Speaker 2: entire time.
11:05
Speaker 1: Right, Wait, why on earth would you hand over the
11:08
Speaker 1: victim's phone if you were the one responsible for his disappearance?
11:11
Speaker 3: Would you just like throw it in a river?
11:12
Speaker 2: You'd think it speaks to a massive underestimation of modern technology.
11:16
Speaker 2: They likely thought, oh, we didn't send any text messages
11:19
Speaker 2: about killing him, so the phone is clean.
11:21
Speaker 1: Oh, they thought just deleting texts was enough.
11:23
Speaker 2: Exactly, they don't understand that a phone doesn't need to
11:26
Speaker 2: be actively used to tell a story. And this is
11:28
Speaker 2: where a private investigator hired by Cole's family, a man
11:32
Speaker 2: named David Marshburn, completely turns the case upside down.
11:36
Speaker 3: Okay, I love this guy already.
11:38
Speaker 2: He takes the raw cell phone data from everyone involved
11:40
Speaker 2: and dumps it into a forensic mapping app called sell Hawk.
11:44
Speaker 1: Okay, so how does that actually work? Because we hear
11:46
Speaker 1: about cell tower pings on crime shows all the time,
11:50
Speaker 1: But what is sell hawk actually mapping?
11:52
Speaker 2: It's actually pretty simple. Think of your cell phone as
11:54
Speaker 2: a very needy digital pet.
11:56
Speaker 3: Okay.
11:57
Speaker 2: Even when it is sitting in your pocket with the
11:59
Speaker 2: screen off, it is constantly reaching out searching for a signal.
12:03
Speaker 2: Every few seconds. It is essentially shouting, I'm here, who's
12:06
Speaker 2: the closest cell tower?
12:07
Speaker 3: And the towers respond?
12:09
Speaker 2: Right, The towers respond, and your phone logs that connection
12:12
Speaker 2: to ensure you can receive a call at a moment's notice.
12:15
Speaker 2: Sell Hawk takes all those thousands of silent digital handshakes
12:19
Speaker 2: and triangulates them.
12:20
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
12:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. It turns massive spreadsheets of data into a high
12:24
Speaker 2: definition minute by minute map of exactly who is where
12:28
Speaker 2: and when.
12:28
Speaker 1: And the map sell Hawk generates tells a story that
12:32
Speaker 1: absolutely decimates.
12:33
Speaker 2: Their timeline, completely ruins it.
12:35
Speaker 1: The data proves the drug deal happened at eleven three,
12:37
Speaker 1: eight pm in Mount Olive, just like they finally admitted, okay,
12:40
Speaker 1: But here is the massive red flag. From one point
12:44
Speaker 1: seven am to three four five am, all three phones, Julian's,
12:49
Speaker 1: Jeremies and Cole's do not move an inch. They are
12:52
Speaker 1: completely stationary in Benson.
12:54
Speaker 2: Let that sink in for a second. They told the
12:56
Speaker 2: police at three am that Cole had just run off
12:59
Speaker 2: with the keys, but Cole's phone was sitting right next
13:02
Speaker 2: to their phones the entire time they were talking to
13:05
Speaker 2: those officers.
13:05
Speaker 1: It's insane. And then right after Jillian and Jeremy finished
13:09
Speaker 1: filing that missing person report, what happens The stationary dots
13:13
Speaker 1: start moving. Oh, of course, Julian and Jeremy take Cole's
13:15
Speaker 1: phone and they start driving back toward Mount.
13:18
Speaker 2: Olive, which fundamentally contradicts their entire story. I mean, if
13:21
Speaker 2: your friend just had a mental breakdown and ran into
13:23
Speaker 2: the woods and you were supposedly waiting for him to
13:26
Speaker 2: come back to the car, you don't take his only lifeline,
13:28
Speaker 2: his cell phone, away from the exact location he vanished
13:31
Speaker 2: from exactly.
13:32
Speaker 1: And here's where it gets really interesting. Just after four am,
13:37
Speaker 1: Cole's phone goes completely dark, shut off. Yeah, it is
13:41
Speaker 1: manually cut off or destroyed. Yeah, but hours later, it
13:45
Speaker 1: unexpectedly turns back on deep in Wayne County, which happens.
13:49
Speaker 3: To be exactly where the drug dealers live.
13:51
Speaker 2: Wow.
13:52
Speaker 1: And the absolute second that phone turns back on, Julian
13:56
Speaker 1: and Jeremy start repeatedly calling it from their own phones.
14:00
Speaker 2: Oh that's a classic staging technique. Really, yes, they are
14:03
Speaker 2: creating a fake digital paper trail so they can later say,
14:06
Speaker 2: you know, look at our callogus. We were desperately trying
14:09
Speaker 2: to reach him.
14:10
Speaker 1: It is like an invisible ankle monitor. They completely forgot
14:13
Speaker 1: they were wearing.
14:14
Speaker 2: That's a great analogy.
14:15
Speaker 1: They thought they were the sole narrators of this story.
14:17
Speaker 1: They had no idea that Cole's phone was silently taking
14:20
Speaker 1: meticulous notes in their own pockets the entire night, just
14:23
Speaker 1: recording every single lie.
14:24
Speaker 2: Right, and once the location data exposes the lie, the
14:28
Speaker 2: entire focus of the investigation shifts from what happened to
14:31
Speaker 2: why it happens, the motive exactly and PI David Marshburne
14:35
Speaker 2: develops a deeply chilling theory based on the cell movements
14:39
Speaker 2: and his own quiet infiltration of this local drug network.
14:43
Speaker 2: He suspects a double cross.
14:45
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm a little confused by this part of
14:47
Speaker 1: the theory. If Julian is the one setting up the
14:50
Speaker 1: deal to buy the meth, why would he coordinate an
14:54
Speaker 1: ambush on his own vehicle. I mean, how does he
14:56
Speaker 1: make any money if he gets robbed.
14:58
Speaker 2: It's a brilliant, you know, completely roofless scam. Marshburn believes
15:03
Speaker 2: Julian's plan was never to just buy the meth and
15:05
Speaker 2: split the profits fairly with his coworkers back in Minnesota.
15:08
Speaker 3: Oh so he was greedy, highly greedy.
15:10
Speaker 2: He suspects Julian secretly coordinated with the dealers, Rudy and
15:14
Speaker 2: his guys. The theory is that Julian arranged to buy
15:17
Speaker 2: the drugs with the pooled money and then tipped off
15:19
Speaker 2: Rudy's crew to ambush them on the drive back to
15:21
Speaker 2: steal the drugs back.
15:22
Speaker 3: Wait, steal the drugs back right.
15:24
Speaker 2: By doing this, Rudy gets to keep the drugs and
15:26
Speaker 2: sell them twice. Julian gets a massive secret cut of
15:29
Speaker 2: the money from Rudy for setting up the heist, and
15:32
Speaker 2: to his coworkers, Julian just looks like a fellow victim
15:34
Speaker 2: of a random highway robbery.
15:36
Speaker 1: That is incredibly devious. But there was a flaw in
15:40
Speaker 1: the plan.
15:40
Speaker 2: Wasn't there a huge flaw?
15:42
Speaker 1: Because Julian had only known Cole for a month on
15:45
Speaker 1: this construction site. He looked at Cole, you know, a
15:49
Speaker 1: pre med white kid from rural Florida, and made this
15:53
Speaker 1: arrogant assumption. He assumed Cole only spoke English, right, But
15:57
Speaker 1: Cole actually knew a good bit of Spanish.
16:00
Speaker 2: That is the hidden advantage that changes the entire complexion
16:03
Speaker 2: of that night.
16:04
Speaker 1: Did this hidden skill actually seal his fate? I mean,
16:07
Speaker 1: imagine being Coal in that car. Did he overhear Julian
16:11
Speaker 1: and Rudy discussing this violent double cross in Spanish during
16:14
Speaker 1: the drug deal?
16:15
Speaker 2: It's very possible.
16:16
Speaker 1: Did the realization suddenly wash over him that he wasn't
16:18
Speaker 1: just a higher driver, but the unwitting getaway guy in
16:21
Speaker 1: a staged armed robbery.
16:23
Speaker 2: That changes everything.
16:24
Speaker 3: It really does.
16:25
Speaker 1: That would entirely explain why he was driving frantically, why
16:28
Speaker 1: he slammed on the brakes, why he was genuinely terrified,
16:31
Speaker 1: and why he pulled the car over and ran.
16:33
Speaker 2: He wasn't having a paranoid breakdown, you know, he was
16:36
Speaker 2: trying to save his own life.
16:37
Speaker 1: If we connect this to the bigger picture. You have
16:39
Speaker 1: to look at the fate of the missing drugs right,
16:42
Speaker 1: because someone.
16:42
Speaker 3: Has to pay for them.
16:43
Speaker 2: Exactly during that frantic, terrifying drive, it is highly likely
16:48
Speaker 2: that either Coal or Jeremy tossed the meth out the
16:51
Speaker 2: window in a panic man and in the illicit drug world,
16:54
Speaker 2: missing product isn't right off, it equals a lethal bet.
16:58
Speaker 2: Suddenly the double cross goes wrong. The drugs are gone,
17:01
Speaker 2: the money is gone, and someone has to pay for
17:03
Speaker 2: it with their.
17:03
Speaker 1: Life, which leads to a desperate, agonizing scramble by the
17:08
Speaker 1: investigators and Cole's family to get someone, anyone to break
17:12
Speaker 1: their silence. Oh want us to talk, right, so Pi
17:15
Speaker 1: Marshburn tracks down another guy connected to the dealers, a
17:18
Speaker 1: local guy who goes by Gordo. Okay, and Gordo actually
17:22
Speaker 1: admits to Marshburn that he was called in to track
17:24
Speaker 1: Cole down that night. He admits it, he does, but
17:27
Speaker 1: his story shifts wildly depending on who is asking. First,
17:30
Speaker 1: he says Cole willingly got into his car to escape
17:32
Speaker 1: the cold, Then he changes it and says they threatened
17:35
Speaker 1: Cole with a gun. Then he changes it again, claiming
17:38
Speaker 1: they hit Coal with a baseball bat and threw him.
17:40
Speaker 3: In the trunk.
17:41
Speaker 2: Classic misdirection. But words are cheap without evidence. When police
17:46
Speaker 2: finally secure a warrant to search Gordo's car, they literally
17:50
Speaker 2: tear it apart. They swab for DNA, they look for
17:52
Speaker 2: microscopic blood spatter, they hunt for any forensic evidence that
17:56
Speaker 2: matches his violent stories.
17:58
Speaker 3: And what do they find.
17:59
Speaker 2: Absolutely nothing definitive. It's just another dead end constructed entirely out.
18:04
Speaker 1: Of lies, which pushes Cole's dad to make what has
18:07
Speaker 1: to be the most heartbreaking, desperate tactical move I have
18:10
Speaker 1: ever heard of in a.
18:11
Speaker 3: True crime case.
18:12
Speaker 1: It really is Chris the father actually dips into his
18:16
Speaker 1: own pockets and puts up his own money to pay
18:19
Speaker 1: the bail bond for Tigi onto the drug dealers, who
18:22
Speaker 1: is arrested on lesser charges.
18:24
Speaker 2: It is a massive emotional gamble, but it relies on
18:27
Speaker 2: a well known psychological concept in interrogations, the prisoner's dilemma.
18:32
Speaker 1: Oh, I've heard of that, right.
18:34
Speaker 2: When you have four suspects who share a deadly secret,
18:37
Speaker 2: their strength relies on their collective silence. But if you
18:40
Speaker 2: can pull one suspect out of the pack, remove him
18:42
Speaker 2: from the physical influence and intimidation of the other men.
18:46
Speaker 2: Paranoia starts to set in, so they think he's going
18:48
Speaker 2: to flip exactly. You isolate him in the hopes that
18:51
Speaker 2: he will talk, just to save himself before the others do.
18:53
Speaker 1: Just imagine the sheer, agonizing courage it takes for a
18:56
Speaker 1: father to walk into a bondsman's office and hand over
18:59
Speaker 1: a stack of his heart and cash to free a
19:02
Speaker 1: man who very likely helped murder his son. Unimaginable, all
19:06
Speaker 1: for just a sliver of the truth. So they get
19:09
Speaker 1: TJ out on bail and they bring in Cole's mom, Kathy.
19:12
Speaker 2: Wow.
19:14
Speaker 1: She sits down with TJ in a room, not as
19:15
Speaker 1: an aggressive interrogator, you know, but mother to mother. She
19:18
Speaker 1: appeals directly to his humanity, laying bare the absolute agony
19:22
Speaker 1: their family is drowning in. Yeah. She begs him to
19:24
Speaker 1: just tell her where her boy is. You can almost
19:26
Speaker 1: feel the shift in the room. Yeah. TJ finally breaks,
19:30
Speaker 1: but only just enough to look at her and say
19:32
Speaker 1: he's gone, y'all.
19:33
Speaker 2: That is just It is the absolute worst confirmation a
19:36
Speaker 2: parent can hear, the confirmation they always dreaded. Yeah, but
19:39
Speaker 2: legally speaking, it still isn't a location it isn't a body,
19:42
Speaker 2: it isn't a detailed confession, it isn't nearly enough for
19:45
Speaker 2: a homicide conviction.
19:46
Speaker 1: And that brings us to the incredibly tragic limbo of
19:50
Speaker 1: where this case stands today. Four men were initially charged
19:54
Speaker 1: with concealing a death and obstruction of justice, but eventually
19:57
Speaker 1: the state completely dropped all those.
19:59
Speaker 2: Charges, which sounds like a total defeat. But you have
20:02
Speaker 2: to understand the legal mechanism at play here, right, because it's.
20:05
Speaker 3: Not actually a defeat, is it.
20:06
Speaker 2: No, it is a highly strategic move by the prosecution
20:09
Speaker 2: regarding double jeopardy laws.
20:11
Speaker 3: Okay, he's playing that.
20:12
Speaker 2: It's like playing high stakes poker with a terrible hand.
20:15
Speaker 2: You know, you are currently holding losing cards because you
20:18
Speaker 2: don't have a.
20:18
Speaker 1: Body, no body, no murder charge.
20:20
Speaker 3: Right.
20:21
Speaker 2: If you go to trial on a lesser charge like
20:23
Speaker 2: manslaughter right now, and the jury acquits them double jeopardy attaches,
20:28
Speaker 2: you can never ever charge them with murder later, even
20:31
Speaker 2: if you find Cole's remains tomorrow. Oh I see, So
20:34
Speaker 2: the prosecution folds the hand. They drop the lesser charges
20:38
Speaker 2: so they can keep their chips, hoping to play a
20:40
Speaker 2: winning hand. A first degree murder if the body is
20:43
Speaker 2: ever found.
20:43
Speaker 1: But time is the enemy of justice. In twenty twenty four,
20:48
Speaker 1: Jeremy Carpenter passed away, taking whatever he really saw that
20:52
Speaker 1: night and whatever secrets he was hiding, straight.
20:55
Speaker 2: To his grave, leaving the family and the investigators still
20:58
Speaker 2: just waiting in the.
20:59
Speaker 1: Dark, you know, sitting here looking at all the data,
21:01
Speaker 1: the cell tower logs, the surveillance footage. So what does
21:04
Speaker 1: this all mean. It means someone out there still knows
21:08
Speaker 1: exactly where Cole Thomas is. Oh, absolutely, they know the coordinates,
21:12
Speaker 1: but they are stubbornly holding out, gritting their teeth against
21:16
Speaker 1: a mountain of digital data that already proves to the
21:19
Speaker 1: world they are lying.
21:21
Speaker 2: It brings up a paradox that is incredibly unique to
21:23
Speaker 2: our modern age, something that goes far beyond just this
21:26
Speaker 2: one case. What do you mean, Well, we talk all
21:28
Speaker 2: the time about the permanence of the internet, right, about
21:30
Speaker 2: the right to be forgotten. We spend our entire lives
21:33
Speaker 2: generating this indestructible digital ghost. Our texts, our GPS payings
21:39
Speaker 2: are surveillance footage.
21:40
Speaker 1: Right, we leave a massive footprint exactly.
21:43
Speaker 2: This data is immortal. It lives forever in servers and
21:46
Speaker 2: cell towers, and yet despite leaving behind this permanent, high
21:50
Speaker 2: definition digital trail, the actual physical human being can still
21:55
Speaker 2: be violently erased without a trace.
21:57
Speaker 3: That is terrifying.
21:59
Speaker 2: We have built a world where it is basically impossible
22:02
Speaker 2: to delete your data, but shockingly easy to vanish your
22:05
Speaker 2: physical body.
22:06
Speaker 1: Because at the end of the day, a cell phone
22:08
Speaker 1: ping can tell you that a car stopped moving, a
22:10
Speaker 1: security camera can show you a ghost walking behind a
22:12
Speaker 1: bank in the freezing cold. But until the people who
22:15
Speaker 1: are actually standing there decided to finally break their silence,
22:18
Speaker 1: you are still just staring into a pitch black cave,
22:20
Speaker 1: wondering what really happened in the dark