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Man's Body Found in Freezer — Wife Arrested! · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture the absolute perfect summer Sunday.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. The kind where you just totally unplug.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's late June, the 28th to be exact, and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: you are out on Lake Mattoon.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Which, if you aren't familiar with central Illinois, is this
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: really sprawling, just peaceful reservoir.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Right. So the sun is beating down, the water is
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: catching that afternoon glare, and you're on a boat with
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: your family.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: It's a classic summer day.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Everyone is just completely relaxed. You're leaning over
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the edge, feeling that warm summer breeze, you know, soaking
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: in the peace and quiet. But then out in the water,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: maybe a dozen yards away, you spot something bobbing on
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the surface.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Just drifting into your path.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Right. So a dad on the boat squints. He hands
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: his daughter an oar and he points at it. He
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: tells her it looks like a dead fish floating toward
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: them and asks her to just, you know, gently push
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: it away as the boat drifts closer.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Makes sense. You don't want a dead fish bumping the boat.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So you watch her lean over or in hand.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: The boat glides forward. The water ripples. And then the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: object rolls over in the wake.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: And that idyllic summer afternoon just shatters in an instant.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Because what is floating right in front of you, bumping
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: against the hull of your family boat, is not a
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: dead fish. No.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: It is a severed human arm.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: A severed human arm. Yeah. Just drifting in the current
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: right where families are swimming.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Where people are jet skiing and hanging out.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: The sheer visceral horror of that moment is, honestly, it's
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: almost impossible to overstate.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: It's a nightmare.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: It really is. So today we are immersing ourselves in
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: this staggering investigation that was launched the exact second that
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: family called 911.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And we've got a lot of ground to cover.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: We do. We are drawing from this massive collection of
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: primary sources for this deep dive. We've got incident details
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: filed by the Illinois State Police, the really meticulous postmortem
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: reports from the Will County coroner. Right.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: And also those sweeping court documents that local media like
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: the Herald News really fought to bring to light.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Plus, we have the incredibly candid behind the
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: scenes analysis of a retired Chicago Police Department detective commander.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Which is just invaluable.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: It really is. We are going to break down how
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: one gruesome discovery on a sunny afternoon unravels a profoundly
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: twisted domestic nightmare.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: And what makes this case so vital to study isn't
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: just the shock value. It's the mechanics of the unraveling itself.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: How it all fell apart.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. We are going to pull back the curtain on
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: this massive gulf between how criminals think they are hiding
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: a crime. and the unforgiving microscopic reality of forensic science.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Right, because they are rarely the masterminds they think they are.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Never. We'll look at the biological realities of how water
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: interacts with human tissue. We'll look at the devastating digital
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: footprints we leave behind without even realizing it.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, the digital part is wild. It is.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: And finally, we'll get into the incredibly frustrating, deeply counterintuitive
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: legal loopholes that actually govern what prosecutors can and cannot
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: prove in a court of law.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that part is going to blow people's minds. But
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: let's start right there in the water.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's do it.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: We are at Lake Mattoon. Like we said, it's a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: rural recreational lake. It's about three hours south of Chicago.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: It's the kind of place you go to just disappear
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: for the weekend.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Right. And whoever put that arm in the water was
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: clearly counting on the vastness of that lake to make
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a massive problem just disappear forever.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: But they made a huge mistake.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: A massive one. When law enforcement arrives, they recover the arm.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: But this wasn't just an anonymous featureless limb.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: No, it wasn't.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: It featured this highly distinctive, completely unmistakable tattoo. It was
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: a Green Bay Packers helmet with a skull.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the Will County Coroner's report, it takes this
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: a step further. And it's a grim detail, but we
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: have to mention it. Right. They note the recovery of appendages. Plural.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Plural.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: The arm was the first discovery, but it definitely wasn't
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: the last. The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office and the state police,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: they eventually pulled multiple body parts from the lake.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: So the perpetrator really went to the trouble of meticulously
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: dismembering the victim and scattering them.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, likely assuming the lake would act as this permanent
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: watery grave.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: But the recovery of that specific arm with the Packers tattoo,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, that was the absolute worst case scenario for
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the killer.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Total disaster for them.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: But wait, I have to ask. If you are going
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: to the unimaginably gruesome lengths of dismembering a human being,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: why would you just toss the parts into a recreational lake?
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: I know it sounds crazy.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: It seems absurdly careless. You're trying to hide a body,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: but you throw it in a place filled with boaters, fishermen,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you know, swimmers in the middle of summer. Yeah. Why
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: wouldn't they bury it or do something to ensure it
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: never sees the light of day?
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Well, it comes down to the panic of the amateur
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: versus the reality of physics, and biology.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, how so?
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: The retired detective command resource for this, he speaks to
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: this constantly. Perpetrators, they operate under incredible psychological strain.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Like they're just panicking.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They want the evidence gone immediately. And water, water
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: looks like an easy, instant solution.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Out of sight, out of mind. Right.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: You throw something in, it sinks, and your brain just
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: tells you, okay, the problem is solved.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: But it's not.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Unless human remains are meticulously, almost professionally prepared. meaning wrapped
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: tightly in heavy-duty tarps, bound with chains, and weighed down
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: with massive capulated amounts of weight, they are inevitably coming
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: back up.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Because of decomposition.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It is inescapable biology. Yeah. The moment a person dies,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: the bacteria that naturally live inside the human body, particularly
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: in the digestive tract, but, you know, they're present throughout,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: they begin to consume the surrounding tissue.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And as they break down those cells... They excrete gases.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: We were talking about methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Just building up inside.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. As those gases become trapped in the tissue, the
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: body part actually begins to bloat. It essentially becomes a
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: biological balloon.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That is horrifying.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: It is. So no matter how dense the bone or
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: muscle is initially, that gas creates immense buoyancy.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: So even if someone in their frantic state threw the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: parts into standard garbage bags and maybe tossed in a
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: few rocks, it wouldn't be enough. No.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: The bags would just inflate and rise anyway.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Actually, it's worse than that.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Worse? How?
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: The aquatic environment is highly active. A garbage bag is
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: completely useless down there. And Illinois Lake in June is
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: just teeming with aquatic scavengers. Turtles, catfish, crustaceans.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, right. Because they're drawn to it.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're drawn to the biological material. They will tear
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: through a standard plastic garbage bag in a matter of hours.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Just shred it.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. And once the bag is compromised, whatever rudimentary
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: weights the killer used, they just fall out.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: And then the gases continue to expand the tissue.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Yep. And the appendages float right to the surface. The
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: criminal thinks they're executing a master plan, completely ignoring the
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: fact that the ecosystem itself will actively dismantle their cover-up.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Nature literally rejects it.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Which brings us back to the tattoo. The sources noted
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: that the skin on this recovered arm was in pretty
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: good condition. When I read that, it hit me that
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: this wasn't some cold case that had been sitting at
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the lake for a decade. The timeline
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: had to be incredibly tight.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. The preservation of the skin is the crucial
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: metric here. Yeah. Water is highly destructive to human tissue
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: over time.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: If that arm had been submerged for even a few weeks,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: the epidermis would undergo a process called maceration.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Which is what exactly?
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: It's essentially water logging and peeling away. Mm-hmm. The tattoo
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: would distort, it would fade, or it might just slow
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: off entirely.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Wow. But it didn't. No.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: The fact that the ink was vibrant and the skin
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: was intact told investigators instantly that they were dealing with
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: a fresh crime.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: The victim had likely been on the water for mere days.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: So it functions like a biological license plate.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: That is a great way to put it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Instead of law enforcement standing on the shore staring at
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: this unidentifiable tragedy, they have a giant billboard pointing directly
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: to a specific person.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: And the speed that provides is vital to an investigation.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Because normally it takes forever, right?
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Think about the traditional process for unidentified remains. If you
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: recover a generic limb, you are facing a logistical nightmare.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: What do they usually do?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Well, you might try to rehydrate the fingers to pull prints,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: which is this highly specialized, tedious process that often just
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: fails if the skin is damaged.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And if that fails?
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Then the medical examiner has to extract bone marrow or
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: deep tissue for DNA testing.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Which takes a long time.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you send that to a backlogged state lab, wait
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: weeks or months for results, and just pray the victim's
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: DNA is already in the system.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: But a tattoo bypasses all of that agonizing delay.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Totally. Because tattoos are meticulously cataloged now. Oh, really? Yeah.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: It's not just fingerprints and mugshots anymore? No.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Standard booking procedure across the country. mandates the photographing and
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: cataloging of all scars, marks, and tattoos.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. I didn't realize that.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they are entered into databases with highly specific keyword tags.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: So an investigator can sit at a terminal, pull up
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: the regional database, and literally just type in tattoo, Green
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Bay Packers, helmet, skull.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And the system just filters it.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Yep. It cross-references those keywords against anyone who has ever
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: been processed in the system. It takes seconds.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: That's incredible.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: It really is a visual barcode. That instantly strips away
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the anonymity the killer was relying on.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: And that search yields an immediate undeniable match. The arm
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: belongs to a 38-year-old man named Dale Wayne Turner. Right.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: He lives in Plainfield, Illinois, which is a suburb roughly
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: three hours north of where his remains were found. And
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: there is this deeply human aura. almost tragic irony in
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the details of his life.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: He has a Green Bay Packers tattoo. Right. But according
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: to everything known about him, he was actually a diehard
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Chicago Bears fan.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: You know, human beings are walking contradictions. People lose bets.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: They change allegiances. People get tattoos in their youth that
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: make absolutely no sense decades later.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Right. You never know the story behind it.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: But those exact contradictions are what make us distinct individuals.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: In this case, that specific contradiction was the key to
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: giving Dale Turner his name back.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: That's a profound way to look at it. But once
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the police have Dale's name, the case morphs into something
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: profoundly bizarre.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. This is where it gets crazy.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Because identifying the victim doesn't just give them a home address.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: It locks in a tongue in line.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And when investigators start comparing the physical evidence from the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: lake with Dale's digital footprint, they run into this wall
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of cognitive dissonance.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: It makes no sense at first glance.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Let's lay out the exact dates here, because the timeline
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: is where this goes from a physical murder investigation to
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: tracking a digital ghost.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: The chronology is the linchpin of the whole investigation.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, lay it out.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: So the family on the boat discovers the arm on Sunday,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: June 28th. Sunday, got it. The police process the tattoo,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: run the database, and officially identify Dale Wayne Turner. And
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the Will County coroner officially pronounces him dead at 9.100 p.m.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: on Wednesday, July 1st.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Listing his residence in Plainfield as the location, but right
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: in the middle of those two events on Tuesday, June 30th.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Two full days after the arm was found.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Two full days after a severed arm with his tattoo
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: on it was pulled out of Lake Mattoon, Dale Wayne
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Turner's Facebook profile picture was updated.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: The retired detective commander zeroed in on this immediately. In
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: law enforcement, they refer to this as the attempt to
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: create a digital alibi.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It is genuinely hard to wrap your mind around the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: psychology of that.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: You have to picture someone committing an act of extreme
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: intimate violence. They dismember a human being. They load the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: parts into a car, drive three hours south, dump them
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: in a lake, and drive three hours back. And then
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: two days later... While parts of this person are literally
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: bobbing in a lace.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Being called out by police.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: This killer sits down on a couch, opens a laptop,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: or pulls out a smartphone, logs into the dead man's
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Facebook account, and casually changes his profile picture. Who does that?
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It's just wild to think about.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Are they trying to convince his friends he's alive, or
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: are they specifically trying to throw off the police?
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: It is usually a chaotic mixture of both. They're trying
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: to manipulate the narrative on multiple fronts.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, how so?
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Well, The discovery of the arm on Sunday was a
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: catastrophic failure for the perpetrators.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: They likely assumed they had weeks or even months before
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: anyone noticed Dale was gone. When the news hits that
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: body parts are being found in the lake, panic sets in.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Ah, so it's a reaction to the news.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The profile update is a desperate, clumsy attempt to
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: signal to his social circle, you know, hey, I'm still here.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I'm just online. Everything is fine.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: They think if his account is active, nobody will file
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a missing persons report.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: That's the hope. It is the ultimate hubris.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: They think they are being incredibly clever.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: They really do. They think they're manipulating the digital world
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: to cover up their physical crimes. But by logging into
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: that account, they are handing the police a roadmap directly
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: to their front door.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Because of the tracking.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Yes. The lack of technical literacy among criminals is often
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: their undoing. They view the internet as magic.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Like it doesn't leave a trace.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Right. They think updating a photo is an invisible act.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: But from a digital forensic standpoint, changing a profile picture
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: is louder than firing a gun in a crowded room.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Wow. Louder than a gun.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: The moment that update button is clicked, a staggering amount
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: of metadata is generated.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Walk us through what law enforcement actually sees when that happens.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Because they don't just see a new picture of Dale, right?
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: They see the invisible strings attached to it.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When you log into a platform like Facebook... your device,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: whether it's a phone, a tablet, or a computer, has
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: to establish a handshake with Facebook servers.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: That handshake includes your IP address, which is the unique
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: numerical label assigned to every device connected to a computer network.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Like a digital home address.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Yes. So the police subpoena Facebook for the account records.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Facebook hands over the IP address that initiated that profile
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: update on Tuesday.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: And then what?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: The police then trace that IP address back to the
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: specific internet service provider like Comcast or AT & T,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: and the ISP tells them the exact physical address of
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: the Wi-Fi router that was used.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Which points them straight to the house in Plainfield.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the digital trail doesn't end at the router.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: It doesn't.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: No. The retired commander discussed the cascading effect of these
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: digital tools. Once they have the IP address and the
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: home location... They start pulling cell phone data. They can
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: pull the call detail records for the phones associated with
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: the people living in that house. They can track the
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: historical cell site analysis.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Which means looking at which cell phone towers those phones
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: were pinging off of.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Right, over the whole weekend.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So they can literally watch the little digital dots travel
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: from Plainfield, Illinois, three hours south down Interstate 57, right
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to the edge of Lake Mattoon, and then watch the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: dots travel back north.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: They can map the entire journey.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: And the sources brought up the use of geofencing, too.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, geofencing. I've heard of that.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: It has become one of the most powerful and controversial
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: tools in modern policing.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: How does it work in a case like this?
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: A geofence warrant involves law enforcement drawing a virtual boundary
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: around a specific location, say the boat ramp at Lake Mattoon,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: and asking a company like Google to provide the anonymized
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: data of every single device that was inside that boundary
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: during a specific time window.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Wait, I want to clarify how that actually works, because
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: it sounds incredibly invasive. Google just hands over a list
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: of everyone who is at the lake?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Well, no, it is a multi-step process designed to balance
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: investigation with privacy. It's largely dictated by recent Supreme Court rulings,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: like Carpenter v. United States, which heavily restricted warrantless cell tracking.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: So when police serve a geofence warrant on Google as
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: a sensor vault database, Google doesn't give them names initially.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: They give them anonymized device IDs.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Just random numbers.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Yep. The police then analyze the movement patterns of those
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: anonymized dots. If they see a dot arrive at the
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: boat ramp at 3.00 a.m., stay for 20 minutes, and
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: then drive all the way back to Plainfield.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Then they go back to Google and say, we have
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: probable cause for this specific device. Unmask it. And Google
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: provides the name and account information associated with that phone.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: That is wild. Throw in the fact that almost every
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: boat dock, gas station, and toll booth along that three-hour
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: drive has high-definition surveillance cameras.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're everywhere.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: And the idea of a digital alibi completely falls apart.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: The killer thought they were throwing up a smoke screen
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: by changing a Facebook picture.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: But they were actually pulling a fire alarm that directed
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: every investigative resource right to Dale Turner's home.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: The digital ghost they tried to create was the very
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: thing that solidified the timeline and the location for law enforcement.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And once the police have that data, they aren't
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: just wondering what happened to Dale.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: No.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: They are mobilizing to execute a search warrant at his residence.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the threshold of the home in Plainfield.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Dale shared this house with his 62-year-old wife, Robin Monroe Turner.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: They had been married for 12 years. By all outside appearances,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: this is a standard suburban existence.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Very normal looking.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: But when investigators breach that front door, the case instantly
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: transitions from a mysterious death investigation into uncovering a legitimate
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: house of horrors.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: The court documents detailing what was found inside that home
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: are deeply, deeply disturbing.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Tell me about it.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: The focal point of the search quickly became a freezer
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: located on the property. And it wasn't just a standard
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: appliance being used for overflow groceries.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: The police allege this specific chest freezer was purchased in
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath of the murder solely to conceal the crime.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: And the way they found it secured defies all logic.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: It was duct taped shut, draped heavily with a blanket,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: and physically weighed down from the outside with heavy cinder blocks.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Just unbelievable.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Inside that freezer, investigators discovered Dale's head, his neck, and
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: his torso. And underneath the freezer, shoved out of sight...
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: was a saw blade absolutely covered in biological material.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Let's analyze the psychology of the duct tape in the
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: center blocks for a second, because it speaks volumes about
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: the perpetrator's state of mind.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Right, because it makes no sense.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: You have a freezer inside your own home. Who exactly
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: are you trying to keep out? It's a completely irrational
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: attempt at containment.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Are they thinking the police are just going to stop
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: if they see some duct tape? Like, oh, well, it's
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: taped shut. I guess we can't look in there.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: No, it's rarely about law enforcement at that stage. It
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: is about psychological and sensory containment.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: The perpetrators are trapped in a house with the horrific
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: reality of what they have done. The duct tape is
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: an attempt to seal in the smell of decomposition, which
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: even in a freezer, they're likely paranoid about.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, sure.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: The blanket is to hide the visual shape of the
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: freezer so they don't have to look at it and
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: be reminded of what's inside.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: They're trying to hide it from themselves.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the cinder blocks are this heavy-handed, primitive, psychological barrier.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: It is the physical manifestation of guilt and terror. They
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: are trying to walk the nightmare away from themselves.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: But the nightmare is already woven into the fabric of
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the house.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: It is everywhere.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: The retired detective commander. provided some incredibly stark insights into
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the forensic reality of a crime scene where a dismemberment
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: has occurred.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, this part is fascinating.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: He made it clear that cleaning up a scene like
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: this is not just difficult. For an amateur, it is
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: scientifically impossible.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: The average person's understanding of crime scene cleanup It comes
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: from television, you know.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Right, where someone sprays some bleach, wipes a counter, and
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the evidence vanishes. Right.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: But the reality of blood fluid dynamics is entirely different.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: The commander noted that perpetrators almost always attempt these acts
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: in a bathroom, usually a bathtub.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Because it's easy to clean.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: That's what they think. They look at the smooth porcelain
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: in the drain and they think, this is perfect, the
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: evidence will just wash away.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But blood isn't water.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: No.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: It doesn't just neatly swirl down a drain. It is
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: thick water. It coagulates, it splashes, it aerosolizes when tools
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: are used.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Blood is a dynamic, highly viscous fluid. When a saw
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: is used, blood and tissue don't just drop to the floor.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: They are thrown outward in microscopic droplets.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: This is coating everything.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: They coat the ceiling, the underside of the vanity, the
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: shower curtain rod. And even when the killer frantically scrubs
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: the tub and pours gallons of bleach down the drain,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: forensic investigators know exactly the hidden spaces to check.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And the most damning area is often the plumbing itself, right?
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Specifically the P-trap, which is the U-shaped pipe under the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: sink or the bathtub.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Right. The P-trap is designed to hold a small amount
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: of water to prevent sewer gases from coming up into
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: the house. But gravity dictates that heavy biological fluids like
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: coagulating blood and small fragments of tissue will sink and
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: pool at the bottom of that curve.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: So it just sits there.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A killer can run the tap for hours. but
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: the heavy iron-rich blood settles in the trap. Investigators simply
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: unthread the pipe, swab the inside, and they have the
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: victim as DNA.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: The commander also talked about the baseboards. I thought this
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: was fascinating and terrifying.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, the capillary action. Yes.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: When someone is on their hands and knees scrubbing a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: floor with a sponge and soapy water, they think they
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: are erasing the crime, but they are actually making it worse.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: They are acting as a conduit for the evidence. When
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: you mop a bloody floor, you create a mixture of water, soap,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and diluted blood. As you push that mop against the wall,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: that liquid splashes against the baseboards. Through a process called
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: capillary action, that microscopic bloody fluid gets sucked underneath the wood,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: settling in a tiny crevice between the subfloor and the drywall.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: A place you literally cannot clean unless you rip the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: walls apart.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly. To the naked eye, the floor looks spotless. But
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: when crime scene technicians arrive... they darken the room and
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: apply a chemical like luminol or bluestar.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: And what does that do?
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: These chemicals react violently with the iron present in the
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: hemoglobin of human blood. The moment the chemical hits the
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: vase boards, the floor lights up with intense blue luminescence.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: The killer's frantic scrubbing actually outlines the exact boundaries of
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: the room in glowing blue evidence.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned the saw blade found shoved underneath the freezer.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Even if they had tried to wipe the blade down,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the physical structure of a tool like that traps the truth.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: A saw blade is covered in microscopic grooves and teeth
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: designed to rip material apart. When used on bone and tissue,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: fragments get wedged so deeply into the metal that no
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: amount of superficial wiping or soaking in household cleaners will
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: sanitize it.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: It's permanently embedded.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Pretty much.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: The forensic team will extract cellular material from those grooves
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: that definitively links the weapon to the remains in the
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: freezer and the lake.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: So they can't hide it.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: No. The commander summarized it perfectly. The evidence left behind
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: in that house was plentiful. The house itself was screaming
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: the truth.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So the physical environment completely betrays the perpetrators. We know
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the how and the where. We have the torso in
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the freezer, the blood in the plumbing, the saw under
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the appliance. But to understand the why, to understand how
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a suburban home devolves into a slaughterhouse, investigators had to
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: turn the heat up on the people living inside it.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And that's where the interrogations come in.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the suspects. Police take two people into
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: custody at the home. Robin Turner, the 62-year-old wife who
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: had been married to Dale for 12 years, and James Adams,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: who is Dale's 26-year-old half-brother who was also living at
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the residence.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: This is where the digital footprint provides another massive, deeply
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: unsettling contradiction.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Tell me about it. If you look at the social
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: media profiles for this family leading up to this event,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: They project the image of a loving, blended, incredibly normal family.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Just happy pictures everywhere.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Just a year before the murder, in 2023, there
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: are smiling photos of Robin and Dale on a vacation
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: to San Francisco taking a tour of Alcatraz.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Looks totally normal.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And the year before that, in 2022, Dale posted this
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: incredibly emotional public birthday tribute to James. Dale referred to
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: him as his little brother. talked about how immensely proud
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: he was of the man James was becoming, and said
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: their mother looking down from heaven would be so proud
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: of him. It's heartbreaking. Think about the emotional whiplash of that.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: You go from publicly praising your little brother's character and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: celebrating your wedding anniversary to ending up in a freezer
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: with your own family taping it shut.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: It makes no sense.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: How does a dynamic fracture that catastrophically in such a
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: short window?
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate terrifying reality of domestic life. Social
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: media is an aggressively curated museum of our best moments.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: It is so true.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: It tells you absolutely nothing about the financial stress, the
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: substance abuse, the toxic resentments, or the violent tempers that
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: brew in the privacy of a living room.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: When law enforcement steps into a home like this, that
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: polished facade evaporates almost instantly.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I can imagine.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: The retired commander offered a masterclass breakdown on how detectives
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: navigate this exact pivot. specifically the psychology of the initial interview.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Right, because when the police first knock on Robin's door,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: they aren't necessarily knocking with handcuffs out. They initiate what
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: they call a next-of-kin interview.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The approach is intentionally calibrated. The police know they
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: have a body part in the lake, and they know
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: the address.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Right, they have all the cards.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: But when they knock on the door, the initial posture
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: is often administrative. Mrs. Turner, do you know where your
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: husband is? We need to speak with him.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: It's very casual.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. They are delivering vague news or asking for routine help.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: But this is a highly structured behavioral test.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: What are they looking for?
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: They are establishing a behavioral baseline and looking for deviations.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: How is the house kept? Are there overwhelming smells of bleach?
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, checking for smells, right.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Does the wife seem genuinely terrified that he is missing?
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Or is her panic performative? Is the brother hovering in
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the background trying to steer the conversation?
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Just reading the room.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Investigators are trained to absorb the energy in the room.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: They're watching for defensive body language, listening for subtle contradictions
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: in the timeline.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Like what?
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: They might ask, when did you last see him? She
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: says Sunday, but the Facebook account was updated Tuesday. The
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: trap snaps shut.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: And the moment they realize they're being lied to, the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: entire dynamic of the room changes.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: It is a calculated shift from a casual inquiry to
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: an adversarial interrogation. And there is a very strict legal
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: threshold they must respect. The moment the officers determine that
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Robin and James are no longer just grieving family members,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: but are actively suspects in the disappearance and death of
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Dale Turner, they must read them their Miranda rights.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: They have to formally advise them.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Yes. They have to formally advise them of their right
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: to remain silent and their right to an attorney because
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: the psychological pressure of the room has fundamentally changed.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: And incredibly, once those rights are read, the silence doesn't hold. No.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: It rarely does.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: The dam breaks. The alleged confessions that spill out from
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: these two are chaotic, contradictory, and entirely self-serving.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Let's start with the 26-year-old half-brother, James Adams. Prosecutors say
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: that after James was read as Miranda Rights, he offered
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a statement completely unprompted.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: That blurted it out.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: He allegedly told detectives, The one thing I will say
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: is that I did it out of self-defense. I will
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: tell you guys that.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: From a psychological and legal standpoint, that is a wildly
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: reckless yet highly calculated admission. How so? By offering that unprompted,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: James is doing two things simultaneously. First, he is locking
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: himself into the center of the event. He is admitting
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: to the fatal act.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: But second, he is instantly attempting to frame the narrative
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: through a legal loophole. He isn't saying, I murdered him.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: He is saying, I killed him, but the law says
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I was allowed to.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: He's trying to build a lethal shield before the interrogation
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: even really begins. But then you have Robin Rez's story,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: which violently collides with his. She points the finger squarely
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: at James.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Throwing him right under the bus.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: She claims the two brothers got into a heated argument.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: James pulled a knife. James stabbed Dale multiple times. And
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: then James ordered her, under threat or coercion, to help
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: him cover up the aftermath.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: This is the textbook definition of a closed-loop scenario, and
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: it is a detective's bread and butter.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: A closed-loop scenario, what does that mean?
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: You have an isolated crime scene, you have one deceased victim,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: and you have two living suspects who are the only
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: witnesses to what actually transpired. In the absence of third-party
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: video or independent witnesses, the dynamic almost inevitably devolves into
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: the prisoner's dilemma.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: They realize the ship is sinking and they're both trying
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to throw the other overboard to save themselves.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Precisely. They both try to minimize their own culpability by
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: maximizing the guilt of the other person in the room.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: So James says it was self-defense, implying he was the
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: victim of an attack.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: And Robin said, she was a passive, terrified bystander forced
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: into the cleanup, implying James was the sole aggressor.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: But investigators do not rely on the self-serving narratives of killers,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: do they?
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Never. They rely on the physical reality of the house
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: to dismantle those lies.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: And the physical reality of that chest freezer completely shatters
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Robin's narrative of just being a passive, coerced participant.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: It obliterates it. Look at the logistics involved.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Right. Let's break that down.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Police allege that specific chest freezer was purchased after the murder,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: explicitly for the cover-up. Think about the timeline of that action.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: It's not a quick thing. No.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Someone had to leave the house, go to an appliance
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: store or a hardware store, select a large chest freezer,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: purchase it, coordinate loading it into a vehicle... Drive it
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: back to the Plainfield home.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Then unload it, carry it inside, plug it in.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Wait for it to reach temperature, then deposit human remains inside,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: meticulously wrap it in duct tape, cover it with a blanket,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: and haul heavy cinder blocks from the yard to place
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: on top.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: You cannot argue you were just paralyzed by momentary fear
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: when you were executing a multi-day logistical operation involving retail
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: purchases and heavy lifting.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: No, you can't.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: That is the definition of premeditation and active participation in concealment.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: The physical evidence proves she was an active partner in
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: the desecration and concealment of her husband's body. The narrative
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: of the terrified, helpless wife... just crumbles under the weight
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: of those cinder blocks.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's review the board here. We have a
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: victim who is completely identified by a tattoo. Yes. We
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: have a sprawling, bloody crime scene in the victim's own home.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: We have a saw blade underneath a brand new freezer
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: containing a human torso. We have the victim's brother voluntarily
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: confessing to stabbing him, claiming self-defense. And we have the
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: wife admitting she was present for the death and actively
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: participated in chopping up the body and hiding the pieces.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: All of that is true.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: If you are examining this evidence, common sense dictates that
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: this is a murder case. It's a slam dunk. You
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: lock them up and throw away the key.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Which is where the absolute jarring reality of the criminal
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: justice system comes crashing down on public expectation.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this part is infuriating.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Because at the time, the expert commander was offering his
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: analysis on this case. Neither Robin Turner nor James Adams
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: were charged with murder.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: This brings us into the most maddening, complex part of
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: this deep dive. The legal nuances. The charges filed against
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: them were concealing a homicidal death and dismembering a human body.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: And the expert commander reveals a truth about the legal
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: system that just leaves most people speechless. Yes, concealment of
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: a homicide is a felony offense. But in the state
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: of Illinois, depending on the defendant's prior criminal history, a
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: conviction for concealing a death and dismembering a body can
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: legally result in a sentence of mere probation.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Wait. I have to stop you. I am putting myself
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: in the shoes of anyone trying to comprehend this right now.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: You are telling me that under the laws of our society,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: two people can meticulously cut up a family member, wrap
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: their head and torso in duct tape in a freezer,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: drive three hours to scatter their limbs in a recreational lake,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: lie to the police and potentially walk out of a
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: courtroom with probation.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: It sounds impossible.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: They check in with an officer once a month and
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: go on with their lives. How is that legally possible
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: without a murder charge?
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: It's entirely possible, and it hinges on the most foundational
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: principle of our justice system, the burden of proof.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: The burden of proof. Okay.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: The police, and by extension the prosecutors, cannot charge a
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: citizen with the ultimate crime of murder simply because the
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: aftermath of the death was horrific.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Even if it's that bad?
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Even then. The emotional revulsion we feel at the dismemberment
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: does not legally substitute for proof of the act of killing.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: To file a murder charge that will actually survive a trial,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: the state requires one non-negotiable piece of paper. The official
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: cause and manner of death.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And that paper can only come from the medical examiner.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The medical examiner, or M.E., is the most crucial
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: thing even in this stage of the process. This is
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: exactly why the recovery of the torso and the head
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: from the freezer was exponentially more important to the investigation
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: than the appendages recovered from the lake.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, because of the vital organs.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: The expert commander emphasized this heavily. A severed arm can
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: prove a crime was committed after death, but it rarely
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: tells you how the person died.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Right, because unless they were stabbed directly in the arm,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the fatal injury is somewhere else.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The M.E. needs the torso and the head to
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: identify the lethal trauma. They need to find the bullet
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: hole in the skull. They need to trace the path
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: of a blade through the ribs to see if it
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: punctured a lung or the heart.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Or look at the neck.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, they need to examine the hyoid bone in the
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: neck for signs of manual strangulation. They have to be
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: able to stand in front of a jury and say,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: with medical certainty, this specific injury stopped Dale Turner's heart,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: and it was inflicted by another human being.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: But James already confessed. He said he stabbed him in self-defense.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Doesn't that hand the prosecution the cause of death on
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: a silver platter?
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: You'd think so, but a confession is powerful. But it
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: is not infallible, and defense attorneys are masters at exploiting
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: the gap between a confession and scientific proof.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: How would they exploit that here?
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Suppose the autopsy is inconclusive. The remains in the freezer
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: were frozen, which alters tissue.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Or suppose there was advanced decomposition before they were frozen.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: If the M.E. comes back and says, I see sharp
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: horse trauma, but due to the state of the remains,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: I cannot definitively rule out that a toxic substance in
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: his system caused his heart to stop, prior to the stabbing.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Then the prosecution is in deep trouble.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because that sliver of doubt is all the defense needs.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Let's play this out. Put us in the courtroom. How
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: does a defense attorney look at a jury, point to
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: a freezer full of body parts, and argue their client
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: isn't a murderer?
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: The retired commander walked through a scenario he has actually
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: witnessed in his career. The defense attorney stands up and
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: addresses the jury. They don't deny the horror. They embrace
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: it to control the narrative.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: What do they say?
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: They say, ladies and gentlemen, my clients are guilty of
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: a profound moral failing. They are guilty of panic. They
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: are guilty of desecrating a corpse in a moment of
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: sheer terror. But they are not murderers.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: And then they offer an alternative theory.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They say, Dale Turner struggled with substance abuse. On
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: the night in question, Dale suffered an accidental fatal overdose.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: When my clients found him dead on the floor, they panicked.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: So they blame the drugs. Right.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: There were drugs in the house. They were terrified of
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: being charged with distribution or drug-induced homicide. In their frantic,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: irrational state of mind, they made the abhorrent decision to
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: hide his body so they wouldn't go to prison. They're idiots.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: They're felons for what they did afterward.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: But the state cannot prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that they
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: caused his heart to stop.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Wow. And if the medical examiner can't definitively prove the
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: exact cause of death to refute that story.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: The jury has a reasonable doubt about the murder itself.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: That is just, it's a bitter pill to swallow.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: It is. The defense is essentially conceding the lesser charge concealment,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: which carries a later sentence or probation, to insulate their
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: clients from the life sentence that accompanies a murder conviction.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: So without an ironclad, scientifically bulletproof autopsy, prosecutors are forced
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: to build an overwhelmingly tight circumstantial case before they will
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: even risk bringing a murder charge to a grand jury. Right.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: It requires us to intellectually separate two things that feel
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: emotionally inseparable.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: The law mandates a firewall between the act of causing
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: a death and the act of hiding a body.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: And it really has to. We have to separate our
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: visceral revulsion from the application of law. The post-mortem actions
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: of Robin and James are monstrous. But the legal standard
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: of beyond a reasonable doubt is the bedrock of a
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: free society.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: It exists to protect citizens from wrongful convictions.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If a mother genuinely finds her teenager dead of
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: an overdose and in a state of psychotic grief and panic,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: She hides the body in the woods. She has committed
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: a crime, but she did not commit murder.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: The justice system must maintain the structural integrity to differentiate
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: between the two acts, even when the optics of the
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: crime scene scream that they are connected.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: It is a labyrinth of meticulous, deeply frustrating red tape.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: But as you said, it is the necessary scaffolding of
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: the entire justice system.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the culmination of this deeply unsettling journey.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: We started this deep dive on a sun-drenched, relaxing summer
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: afternoon on a boat to pushing away what looked like
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: debris only to unearth a biological barcode, that vibrant Green
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Bay Packers tattoo that instantly shattered a killer's illusion of safety.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: And then we tracked the breathtaking arrogance of a clumsy
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: digital cover-up where a single click to update a Facebook
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: profile generated a tidal wave of metadata, cell phone pings,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: and geofence data that led law enforcement straight to the
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: perpetrator's front door.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: We stepped across the threshold of a totally unremarkable suburban
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: home in Plainfield, Illinois, to confront a horrific secret sealed
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: behind duct tape and cinder blocks. And we learned the
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: absolute futility of trying to wash away the microscopic chemical
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: reality of human blood from the hidden spaces of our
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: plumbing and baseboards.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: And ultimately, we navigated the incredibly strict, emotionally taxing requirements
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: of the legal system, where the presence of a body
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: in a freezer and a confession to a stabbing are
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: somehow not always enough to legally prove a murder without
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: the undeniable scientific backing of a medical examiner.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Through every layer of this case, there is one observation
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the expert commander made that is so profoundly chilling and
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: so universally relatable. He said, we have absolutely no idea
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: what is going on inside our neighbors' houses.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: It's the absolute truth.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: We are just regular people living our lives. It is
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: fundamentally impossible for a normal brain to comprehend how a
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: family dinner table how a 12-year marriage, how a bond
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: between two brothers who publicly praise each other devolves into
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: a saw glade and a freezer.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: We see the manicured lawns. We see the happy vacation
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: photos from Alcatraz on Facebook.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: But the reality brewing behind closed doors in the private
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: spaces of a home can be unfathomably dark.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate reminder that physical proximity to someone
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: sharing a property line or even a roof does not
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: equal true knowledge of their character or what they are
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: capable of when pushed into a corner.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: So as we wrap up this deep dive, I want
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: you to carry this thought with you. In today's hyper-connected world,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: our existence is fundamentally split in two. There is our
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: physical reality, our physical bodies, the houses we live in,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: the people we share our oxygen with.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: And then there is our digital footprint.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Our social media accounts, our constant location data, our online ghosts.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: If something unthinkable were to happen to you tomorrow, how
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: easily could someone in your own home hijack your digital
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: ghost to tell a story that simply isn't true? It's
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: a terrifying thought. And perhaps even more unsettling to consider,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: what story would the hidden microscopic spaces of your physical home,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the dust under your baseboards, the metadata stored in your
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Wi-Fi router, the sediment resting in your pee traps, Tell
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to the strangers and law enforcement tasked with piecing the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: final days of your life together. Think about that the
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: next time you are enjoying the quiet of a Sunday afternoon.