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Chilling Booking Footage Released in Missing Teen Case · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to just think about this for
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: a second. How does a 39-year-old man, a guy with
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: a completely pristine criminal record, end up being the primary
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: suspect in the dismemberment of a 17-year-old girl across state lines?
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and living in this really beautiful, affluent, historic neighborhood, too.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: It's not the usual profile.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly. I mean, the answer doesn't start in some dark
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: alley somewhere. It doesn't start with, like, a sketchy van
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: creeping down the street.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: No, it really doesn't.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It starts in the video games that your kids are
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: probably playing right now in the next room.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate modern paradox, really. We have this deeply
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: ingrained evolutionary fear of the stranger in the bushes.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Right. The boogeyman outside.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But the statistical reality is so much darker. The
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: most dangerous people are often invited directly into our homes
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: digitally long before they ever step foot on our actual property.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And the trail of breadcrumbs they leave behind is just,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it's completely invisible to the naked eye. Which is terrifying.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Completely invisible. And that invisible trail is exactly what we
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: are going to be following today on this deep dive.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we are going to unpack the incredibly complex multi-state
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: investigation into the disappearance and the death of Haley Busby.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: And we've got a ton of material for this deep dive.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: So much documentation.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Seriously. We've gone through detailed breakdowns from the Law and
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Crime Network, actual police search warrants. silent booking footage, and
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: some really brilliant legal commentary from former Judge Fernan Rucker.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: And our mission here isn't just to, you know, recite
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: a timeline for you. We really want to guide you
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: through the actual mechanics of how an investigation like this
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: unfolds in real time.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Because it's messy.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: It is incredibly messy. We need to decode this complex,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: high stakes, legal chess game that prosecutors are playing right now. Like,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: how and when they filed certain charges.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Right. And crucially, we're going to explore the aftermath, too,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: like the systemic legislative changes that Haley's family is currently
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: fighting for so this doesn't happen to anyone else.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: So let's just jump right in.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it. Because the best way I can
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: describe the reality of this case is, well, it's like
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: trying to put together a terrifying puzzle, but the pieces
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: aren't just sitting in one box on the table. Right.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: They're everywhere. They're everywhere.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They are scattered across state lines. They are buried
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: in encrypted digital servers. And they're hidden in hundreds of
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: acres of dense physical forest.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: And law enforcement, I mean, they weren't just trying to
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: solve a mystery. They were racing against this massive ticking
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: clock just to figure out where the board was even
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: set up.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: That is so true.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: That's a really accurate way to frame it.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Because to understand how all those disparate pieces eventually came together,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: you first have to understand what was missing.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Right. The starting point.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You have to start with Haley herself.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So Haley Busby, she's 17 years old. She's living in Fishers, Indiana,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: which for those who don't know the area, it's this
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: really nice, quiet, very affluent suburb just north of Indianapolis.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: It's a place where people move specifically for the safety
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: and the schools.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And she's described by everyone who knew her as
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: this smart, Beautiful teenager who just had her sights firmly
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: set on college. I mean, she had a vibrant future
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: ahead of her.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: She had the kind of normal, completely predictable routine that
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: we all sort of take for granted every day.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Right. So I want you to picture this. It's January 5th.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It's about 10.00 p.m. Haley says goodnight to her family,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: goes to her room.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: The lights go out. The house gets quiet.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: It is the exact same routine playing out in millions
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: of households across the country, right?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, nothing out of the ordinary at all.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But by the time the sun comes up on the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: morning of January 6th, her family wakes up and Haley
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: is just gone. Her room is totally empty.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: And this is where the procedural machinery of the fleece
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: kicks in. And it's something we really need to dissect here.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Because it's controversial, right?
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Very. Because initially, the Fishers police classify this as a
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: runaway case.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Which just, it blows my mind. When a 17-year-old girl
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: goes missing from her home in the middle of the night,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: how does law enforcement differentiate between a runaway... and a
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: potential abduction in those early hours.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: It's arguably one of the most fraught, consequential decisions law
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: enforcement makes, because the first 24 to 48 hours of
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: any missing person case are statistically the most critical for
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: a safe recovery.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So why default to runaway?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Well, when you have a 17-year-old, there is an inherent
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: bias built into the system. It's a matter of statistical
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: reality colliding with municipal resources.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess teenagers do run away all the time.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: They do.
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  Speaker 2: They get into explosive arguments with their parents, or they
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: sneak out to see a boyfriend, or maybe they just
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: experience a mental health crisis and need space.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, but still, to just assume she walked away, that
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: feels like a massive systemic failure right out of the gate.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I get that. But if police arrive at a house
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and there are absolutely no signs of forced entry, like
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: no broken window, no sign of a struggle in the bedrooms,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: The default assumption leans toward voluntary departure.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Like maybe her phone charger is missing or backpack is gone.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's triage. They're looking at the physical scene and
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: the physical scene just isn't screaming kidnapping.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: So they don't immediately assume the worst because they just
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: don't have the proof. Right.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: But the danger of that runaway classification is that it
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: dictates the entire allocation of resources.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, because a runaway doesn't trigger the big response.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It doesn't trigger a massive multi-agency task force. You
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: aren't getting helicopters or those public emergency alerts buzzing on
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: people's cell phones.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Which means the investigators have to rely on circumstantial evidence
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: to prove she's in danger before they can escalate things. Yeah.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And that means for those first crucial days, the family
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: is essentially left to fill that massive void.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: And you see this in Fishers. There is this massive,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: totally heartbreaking grassroots mobilization. The community basically deputizes itself.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: They were putting flyers in the windows of like every
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: single local business.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Every business. And Haley's father, Bo Busby, he's taking to
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: social media every single day, just posting photos, videos, these
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: desperate pleas for any information.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: It really highlights the absolute agony of ambiguous loss.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The family is operating at a level 10 emergency,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: but the legal system is cruising at a level two
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: or three. just waiting for proof of a crime.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: And there's this one detail from the source material that just,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: it really grounds you in the human stakes of all this.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: The birthday post.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. During this massive, frantic search, it was actually Haley's birthday.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Ugh, that broke me. Her dad posts this devastating happy
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: birthday to you message into the digital void. He's just hoping,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: praying she has access to a phone and is out
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: there somewhere to see it.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: It anchors you. It reminds you. that behind every single
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: procedural step we are about to discuss, there is a
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: real family living an absolute nightmare.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: It really is profoundly tragic. But while the family is
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: doing everything publicly to keep her face in the news,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes, the Fishers police are actually doing some
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: heavy lifting.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Right. They are executing the fundamental grueling block and tackle
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: of police work. They start canvassing the neighborhood.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Which sounds super exciting on television, but in reality, it's
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: just incredibly tedious.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's the worst. It means knocking on hundreds of doors,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: asking people what they saw three days ago. And most
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: importantly today, pulling security footage.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Right. They're looking for ring cameras, driveway cameras, anything that
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: might have captured a street view on the night of
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: January 5th.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: And that is when they finally get their first real break.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Amidst all the footage of, you know, neighbors walking
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: their dogs and postal workers, They identify an unknown vehicle
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood around the exact time Haley is believed
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: to have disappeared.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: This is the pivot point of the entire investigation. Yeah.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Because that unknown vehicle did not belong to some local
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: high school kid. It didn't belong to a neighbor. No,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: it didn't. The shift in this case from runaway to
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: endangered missing juvenile happened the second they realized this local
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: teenager was had a connection that originated far outside of Fishers, Indiana.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Because they didn't meet at the local mall. They didn't
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: meet at a coffee shop or through friends at school.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Law enforcement discovers that Haley and the suspect driving that
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: car met in an online gaming community.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And we really need to pause and drill down into this.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Because this completely shifts the paradigm of how we think
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: about stranger danger.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It really does. It is the ultimate Trojan horse.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When we think of grooming, we usually picture physical spaces, right?
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Like parks, schools, youth groups.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, places where you can physically see the adult interacting
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: with the kids.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: But online spaces, particularly these massive multiplayer gaming communities, they
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: are structurally designed to foster camaraderie.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Right. They are built on teamwork, shared objectives, and just
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: constant real-time communication. You're wearing a headset. You're talking to
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: this person for hours, working together to beat a level
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: or win a match.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: And for a predator, those game mechanics are completely weaponized.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: How so? Like, what does that grooming actually look like
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: in a game?
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Well, it provides an environment where an adult can build
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: a false intimacy with a minor over weeks or even months.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: And they completely bypass all the physical safeguards a parent
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: might have set up.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Because the parent checks on the teenager, sees them safely
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: in their bedroom playing a game, and thinks, okay, they're secure.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But digitally, the predator has already bypassed the front door.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: And it usually happens in very specific stages.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Like targeting and gaining trust first.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: I assume. Yes. The adult might offer in-game currency, rare items,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: or simply offer to help the teenager level up their character.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: It establishes this dynamic of the adult being helpful, powerful,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: and generous. Wow.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So they become this sort of mentor figure.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Right. And then it moves to isolation. They transition the conversation.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: out of the public game lobbies and into private messaging apps.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Places like Discord or Snapchat.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Places where the parents can't easily monitor the chat logs.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So they basically build a walled garden around the victim.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. And inside that walled garden, they fill an emotional need.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: They listen to the teenager complain about their parents, their school,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: their friends. They become the ultimate confidant.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And they use what's called love bombing, right? Overwhelming the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: victim with praise and affection to create an us versus
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: them narrative.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Precisely. By the time that unknown vehicle actually pulls into
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: the driveway in Indiana, the teenager doesn't view the driver
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: as a stranger at all.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: They view them as their savior or their best friend.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Yes. It's virtual interactions bleeding directly into physical, real-world dangers.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the driver of that unknown vehicle.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Because when Fisher's police run the plates and trace that car,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: they don't find some stereotypical monster hiding in a basement.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: No, they find 39-year-old Tyler Thomas. And his profile is
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: fascinating and just deeply troubling, precisely because of how unremarkable
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: it appears on the surface.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Unremarkable is almost an understatement. Let's look at this guy.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: He lives in Columbus, Ohio.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Specifically, he's associated with a house on Hunter Avenue in
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: the Victorian Village neighborhood.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Right. And for those who don't know Columbus, Victorian Village
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: is not a rough part of town. It is a
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: highly sought after, historic, very affluent area. Think tree-lined streets
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and beautiful old homes.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: But here is the absolute craziest part of his profile.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Tyler Thomas has absolutely no prior criminal history. None.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Not a single blip on the radar. It's wild. But wait,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: there is this really bizarre anomaly in the documentation about
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: him that we have to talk about.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, the booking record.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: When he is eventually booked into the Franklin County Jail,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: his address is officially listed as homeless.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Which makes no sense on paper.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Despite the house in Victorian Village, despite the fact
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: that police later find a short-term rental in another county
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: connected to him, he's booked as transient. Why would that happen?
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Is that just a clerical error?
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: It could be, but it's highly suspicious. It could speak
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: to this phantom-like existence he was trying to cultivate.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Like trying to hide his assets or his location. Yeah.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Sometimes individuals engaged in illicit online activities try to untether
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: themselves from physical addresses to avoid subpoenas or search warrants.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Or it could be an asset protection strategy, putting properties
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: in other names or LLCs.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: So it paints a picture of a man who was
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: living a dual life, a respectable surface in Victorian village
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and an untraceable shadow life everywhere else.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: But that shadow life was about to catch up to
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: him very quickly because within just a few days of
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Haley vanishing, police actually make contact with Thomas.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: They don't waste any time. They trace the car, they
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: knock on his door in Ohio, and they ask him
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: about the night of January 5th.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: And his reaction is very calculated. He doesn't deny being
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: in Indiana.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Right. He actually admits to driving from Columbus, Ohio to Fishers,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Indiana in the middle of the night just to pick
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: up a 17-year-old girl from her house.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Which, from a legal standpoint, is a jaw-dropping admission.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: If I'm the police, I'm thinking, we got him. But
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: then he gives them this wild alibi.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Right, the drop-off story.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He claims he picked her up, drove her back
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: toward Ohio, but they got into some sort of disagreement,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and he just dropped her off on the side of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: a road in western Ohio.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: And he claims he never saw her again.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: He essentially says, yeah, I picked her up, but I
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: just left a teenager on the side of a freezing
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: highway in the middle of January, and that's it.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: You really have to look at this from an interrogator's perspective.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: It is a highly calculated, albeit desperate, lie.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: It's the classic technique of giving law enforcement a piece
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of the truth to hide the larger lie.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He knows they have his car on camera in
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: her neighborhood. He likely suspects they have some initial digital
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: communications showing he planned to meet her. So he can't
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: deny he was there.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: So he's conceding the map, but completely changing the destination.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Precisely. He is trying to explain away the undeniable physical
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: evidence that while completely severing himself from whatever happened to
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: her next.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: He's banking on the idea that without a body and
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: without a crime scene, they can't prove otherwise. He's basically saying,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a jerk who left a kid on the road,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: but I'm not a murderer.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: But he drastically underestimated the speed and the power of
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: modern digital forensics.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Because the gears of this investigation are moving at lightning
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: speed now. By January 16th, so this is just 10
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: days after she's reported missing, Columbus police detectives join the fray.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: They realize this is crossing state lines, so the jurisdiction expands.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And five days after that, on January 21st, they execute
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: a coordinated massive strike. They obtain search warrants for his
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: home in Victorian Village, his car, and critically, his electronic devices.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: This is the absolute turning point of the entire case.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: But wait, how do they get warrants for his electronics
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: just based on a bad alibi and a missing girl?
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches, right?
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: They don't get warrants just on a bad alibi.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: By January 21st, the cyber divisions of these police departments
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: have been working around the clock.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: So they already had digital evidence before they took his phone?
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. They would have subpoenaed the cell phone providers. They
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: would have geolocation data showing his phone and her phone
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: traveling together. They would also have the ISP, the Internet
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Service Provider data, showing the IP addresses where those gaming
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: communications actually originated.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So it's that combination of physical proximity, digital communication history,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and his own admission of picking her up that provides
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: the probable cause needed for a judge to sign off
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: on seizing his devices.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And physical evidence can be cleaned, right? A car
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: can be detailed and bleached. Carpets can be replaced. But
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: digital evidence is incredibly resilient.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: And when they seize those devices, the bottom completely falls
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: out of his alibi. The police find a cache of
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: sexually explicit photos and videos of Haley on Thomas' phone.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: And the really chilling part is they allege he had
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: tried to delete some of them.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Which obviously demonstrates consciousness of guilt.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Very much so. And to your point about digital resilience,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: people think when they hit delete on a smartphone, the
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: file is gone forever. It isn't.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? It doesn't actually delete it?
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Not immediately. Solid-state drives in modern phones don't actually erase
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the file. They simply delete the pathway to the file,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: marking that space as available to be overwritten.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, so just sitting there invisibly until a new photo
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: or text overwrites that exact spot.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Until new data overwrites that exact sector, forensic extraction
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: tools can pull those deleted files right back up.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: That is terrifying for a criminal, but incredible for an investigation. Plus,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: they find physical evidence in both the car and his
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Victorian village home that definitively places Haley there.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Proving that his whole, I dropped her off on the
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: side of the road in western Ohio story was a
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: flat out lie. She was in his house.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to a really brilliant piece of
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: commentary from Judge Fernand Rucker regarding this exact moment in
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the timeline.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Because when the public hears about a 39-year-old man committing
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: an offense of this magnitude, and then they hear he
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: has absolutely no criminal record, the natural reaction is profound shock.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Right, because how does someone escalate from zero to a
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: crime like this? It makes no sense. You don't just
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: wake up one day and decide to do something this horrific.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: There has to be a buildup.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: And there almost always is. Judge Rucker used to tell
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: defendants from the bench, just because it's the first time
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: you're standing in front of me, it most certainly does
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: not mean that's the first time you've committed an offense.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Ah, so it's just the first time they were caught.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. What it usually means, especially in cases involving sophisticated
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: digital grooming and exploitation, is that the offender has simply
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: been incredibly successful at evading authorities up to that point.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: It's the iceberg analogy.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Precisely. A clean criminal record in a case like this
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: isn't proof of innocence. It's just the pristine white tip
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: of the iceberg visible above the water.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: It looks completely harmless to the neighbors in Victorian Village.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: But then law enforcement gets a search warrant for the phone.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: They dive under the water and suddenly they're shining a
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: flashlight on this massive, dark, jagged reality. hidden completely beneath
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the surface.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: He just hadn't been caught yet. And finding that explicit
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: material on his phone gave them the immediate, tangible evidence
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: they needed to take him off the street.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Because up until January 21st, they just had a missing girl,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a suspicious guy, and a bad alibi. But now they
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: have a provable felony. Right.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: So Thomas is arrested in Franklin County, Ohio, on some
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: very heavy initial charges.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Pandering sexually-oriented material involving a minor and tampering with evidence...
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: which relates to him trying to delete the files.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: And the judge sets his bond at $ 1. 5 million. The
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: conditions are intense. No internet access whatsoever and no unsupervised
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: contact with minors.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: But the arrest is really only the beginning of a
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: much larger, much darker puzzle. Because while Thomas is sitting
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: in a cell in Franklin County... The investigation into Haley's
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: physical whereabouts is accelerating.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Law enforcement is using every technological tool at their disposal
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: to reconstruct his movements after January 5th.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: And when we say technological tools, we are talking about
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a full digital dragnet. They are looking at cell phone
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: pings off local towers.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: They're pulling financial records, credit card swipes at gas stations.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: They are likely using automated license plate readers, you know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: those cameras you see at intersections, to map exactly where
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: his car went.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: And this tracking leads them completely out of the city
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: of Columbus. It leads them south to Hocking County, Ohio.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Which is a very, very different environment.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Completely different. Hocking County is rural. It's heavily wooded. It's
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: an area famous for the Hocking Hills State Park.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Lots of hiking trails. deep ravines, and isolated cabin rentals, right?
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Yes. It is a stark contrast to the dense urban
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: environment of Victorian Village. And police discover that Thomas had
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: access to a short-term rental property down there.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: And suddenly the Hawken County Sheriff's Office has to get
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: involved because investigators begin to believe this rural rental is
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: where Haley was actually taken.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And critically, they believe it is where she was killed.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Now, this is where we enter the most complex phase
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of this whole jurisdictional jigsaw puzzle.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Because Thomas is in jail in Franklin County, the alleged
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: murder scene might be this rental in Hawken County. The
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: victim is from Indiana.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And then the legal strategy of the defense introduces another
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: location entirely. Thomas hires a prominent Columbus defense attorney named
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Sam Shemansky.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: And shortly after that, on Saturday, February 1st, there is
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: a massive grim development.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: This part is just, it's devastating. Thomas actually cooperates. Through
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: his attorney, he leads local authorities and the FBI to
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: a completely different area.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: A trailhead in the Wayne National Forest in Perry County, Ohio.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: So now we have yet another county involved.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: And that is where Haley's remains are found.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: And the details released by the Hocking County Sheriff confirm
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: a horrific reality. Her body was dismembered.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: It's just a brutal end to the search. And it
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: brings us to a piece of evidence we have to
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: talk about because it is so chilling. Around this time,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the Columbus police released booking footage of Tyler Thomas.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: And it is completely silent. It's just him standing there
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: being processed.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: It is deeply unsettling footage to watch because you are
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: expecting to see a monster.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Right. You expect someone unhinged. or angry, or at least
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: showing some form of emotional breakdown given that he just
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: led police to the dismembered remains of a teenager.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: But he is entirely calm. He is expressionless. He follows
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the officer's instructions perfectly. I mean, he looks like a
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: guy waiting in line at the DMV.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: It speaks to the terrifying psychology of compartmentalization.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: We want our villains to look like villains. We want
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: them to act erratically so we can spot them in
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: a crowd.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: So we can feel safe. Right.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: But the reality of a predator who can groom a
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: teenager over months, lie to the police, and orchestrate a
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: multi-state cover-up is that they're often highly organized, highly controlled individuals.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: The banality of evil is on full display in that
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: booking footage. He is able to completely detach the reality
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of what he has done from his current physical behavior.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: It gives you chills. But legally, this is where the
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: maneuvering becomes almost dizzying. Because you have this attorney, Shemansky.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: who comes out publicly and says two things that seem
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: entirely contradictory to anyone watching.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. First, he says he fully expects his client to
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: face murder charges in Hawking County. But in the exact
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: same breath, he states that Thomas maintains he did not
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: kill Haley.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: It is a fascinating and highly specific legal needle to thread.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, I have to challenge this because this makes absolutely
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: zero sense to me.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: How so?
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: He led them to the body. He had the explicit
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: photos of her on his phone. He admitted to picking
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: her up. His own lawyer openly anticipates a murder charge.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: How on earth can his lawyer stand in front of
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a microphone and say Thomas didn't kill her?
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: It feels like they are insulting our intelligence, doesn't it? Yes.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: What possible defense could they be telegraphing here?
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the broader strategy of criminal defense,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Szymanski is actually doing something very deliberate and very smart.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: He is looking at the board and realizing he has
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: a losing hand on the facts.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: So he's trying to mitigate the damage?
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Yes. By admitting Thomas knows where the body is, and
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: by admitting he anticipates a murder charge, he is getting
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: out in front of the undeniable evidence.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Because the police know Thomas picked her up, they know
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: he had the photos, they found the body because of
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: his direction.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If the defense goes into a courtroom and tries
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: to deny those basic facts, they will instantly destroy all
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: of their credibility with a future jury.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Right. You can't fight the math. The jury will tune
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: you out immediately.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: So what is left to argue? Causation and intent. By
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: saying he didn't kill her, the defense is preserving their
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: right to argue how she died, even while conceding he
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: was involved in what happened before and after.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So what does that look like in court? What's the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: story they tell?
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: They could lay the groundwork for a few different narratives.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Could they argue an accidental death occurred?
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Like what, an overdose or something?
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Perhaps. They claim she suffered a medical emergency, and Thomas,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: terrified because he had kidnapped her, panicked and tried to
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: hide the body rather than call 911. Wow.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: That would be, what, abuse of a corpse?
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Abuse of a corpse, maybe manslaughter, but it's an attempt
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: to avoid an aggravated murder charge.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, what else could they argue?
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Well, consider this. Judge Rucker explicitly pointed out that we
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: don't yet know if other people were involved. Could the
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: defense argue that someone else was present at that short-term
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: rental in Hocking County?
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. They claim Thomas brought her there, but
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: a third party actually committed the murder.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Making Thomas merely an accessory after the fact. He
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: is conceding the map, but he is arguing fiercely over
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: who drove the car, so to speak.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: That makes terrifying sense. He's trying to introduce just enough
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: reasonable doubt about the exact moment of her death to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: save his client from a life sentence or the death penalty.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Which transitions us perfectly into what the prosecution is doing
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: in response. Because despite all of this, despite finding the body,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: the photos, the rental, the confession of location, as of
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: right now, Thomas has not been charged with murder.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: And this is where the concept of the holding charge
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: becomes paramount, right?
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Yes. Judge Rucker provided incredible insight into the prosecution's restraint here.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: The prosecutors are currently using those undeniable charges, the possession
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: of child sex abuse material and tampering with evidence, as
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: holding charges.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It's a chess game. You don't just throw all your
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: pieces at the board at once.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The standard of evidence required to withstand a motion
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: to dismiss on a murder charge is vastly different than
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: the standard for possessing illegal digital materials.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Because the digital materials are binary, right? They are either
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: on the hard drive or they aren't.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They have them. Case closed on that charge. But murder,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: especially when a body has been altered or dismembered, requires
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: a rock-solid chain of custody, a definitive cause of death,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: and a forensic link connecting the suspect's actions directly to
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: the cessation of life.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: But the public is screaming for justice. The media is swarming.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Why not just charge him with murder immediately? To keep
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the community calm and show you mean business.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Because of the massive risk of rushing. Judge Rucker explained
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: that if prosecutors rush a murder charge to appease the
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: public and the defense attorney finds a procedural loophole or
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: pokes a hole in that specific charge before it goes
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: to a grand jury.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Then what happens? The judge might have to dismiss it.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If that happens, double jeopardy issues could arise or
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: the suspect could potentially walk out the door on bail.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Law enforcement needs time.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And they need science.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They have to wait for the autopsy. And because
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: of where the body was found, the autopsy is being
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: conducted in Licking County, yet another jurisdiction.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Right. When you are dealing with dismembered remains exposed to
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the elements in a national forest, a forensic anthropologist and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: pathologist have to work meticulously.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: It can take four to six weeks just to confirm
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: the exact cause of death. They have to analyze tool
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: marks on the bones to match a potential murder weapon
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: and verify DNA.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Plus, they need to interview neighbors around that Hocking County
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: rental and recheck all the traffic cameras spanning the route
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: from Indiana to Ohio to ensure no other vehicles were
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: following him.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: It is a massive undertaking.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: OK, let me try out an analogy here to see
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: if I'm getting this right. It's like imagine you're trying
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: to build a house, but you have to do it
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: in the middle of a Category 5 hurricane.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: I like where this is going.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: The public pressure, the media scrutiny, the absolute horror of
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the crime. That's the hurricane, right? It is constantly battering
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the investigation. Now, you don't try to build the roof first.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: The roof is the murder charge.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Right, because if you try to build the roof while
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: the wind is howling, it'll just get blown away by
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: a good defense attorney.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You have to pour the concrete foundation first.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And the foundation is the digital evidence charges.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, those undeniable binary charges. You pour that concrete. You
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: lock the structure down so the suspect can't go anywhere.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: And then you buy yourself the time to build the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: walls and the roof safely, brick by brick. regardless of
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the storm outside.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy. You are securing the perimeter.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: You use the tools you have to neutralize the immediate threat,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the suspect walking free, while you meticulously assemble the ultimate weapon,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: which is the murder indictment.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: And interestingly, the defense seems to understand this dynamic completely
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: because Thomas's attorney stated they have absolutely no intention of
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: trying to post that $ 1. 5 million bond.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Which is fascinating. Judge Rucker speculated about this. He said, sure.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: It could just be a lack of funds. $ 1. 5 million
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: is a lot of money to raise.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: But he also suggested it could be a strategic realization
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: that heavier charges are inevitable, right? So why waste the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: money on a bail bondsman now?
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Or more psychologically, it could be evincing a guilty mind.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Explain that. Like an internal resignation.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, I know what's coming. I know what they
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: found in the woods. I know what I did. There's
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: no point in fighting the inevitable right now.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: He used the behavior of a man who knows the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: walls have closed in.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It's a highly strategic standoff. And layered on top of
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: this intricate state-level chess game is the looming massive presence
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: of the federal government. Okay.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: This is where I really need to push back on
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the legal analysis we've seen because this is driving me crazy.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Go for it.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: He took a minor across state lines. He drove from
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Ohio to Indiana and back to Ohio. That is the
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: literal textbook definition of a federal kidnapping charge. It invokes
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the Lindbergh Law.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: So why on earth would the FBI willingly take a
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: back seat here? That feels like a massive dereliction of
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: duty by the federal government to let local county sheriffs
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: handle a multi-state kidnapping and murder.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I completely understand the frustration. And it's a very common
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: reaction when people watch these cases unfold on the news. Technically,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: you are absolutely right. Crossing state lines during the commission
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: of a felony does invoke federal jurisdiction.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: So why aren't they leading the charge?
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: But it's not a dereliction of duty. It's a tactical deference.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: It's about the dual sovereignty doctrine and resource allocation.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: OK, unpack that for me.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Judge Rucker noted that in practice, the FBI generally lets
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: the state authorities take the lead unless a few very
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: specific conditions are met. First, the feds will step in
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: if they believe the state penalties won't be sufficient to
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: punish the crime.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Which isn't the case here. Right.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Ohio has severe penalties for aggravated murder, including life without
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: parole and the death penalty. The federal government couldn't punish
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: him any more severely than Ohio can.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: So they don't want to step on Ohio's toes if
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Ohio can get the job done.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The second trigger for federal takeover is complexity beyond
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: state capability.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Meaning what exactly?
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Well, if the FBI looks at Thomas' digital footprint and
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: finds he is part of a massive multi-state sex trafficking ring,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: or if they find evidence he has been communicating with
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: 10 other girls in 10 other states.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Then it becomes a federal racketeering or trafficking case and
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: they will absolutely take over.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. But for a single perpetrator, single victim crime, they
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: support the state.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: So they provide the tools, but let the state build
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the case.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Yes. The FBI's Cincinnati office actually put out a public
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: statement Basically saying they are assisting with resources, likely their
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: cyber divisions and behavioral analysis units, but they are specifically
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: asking the public for patience to protect the integrity of
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: the state's investigation.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: They are letting Ohio build that house in the hurricane
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: because Ohio has the immediate jurisdiction over the physical crime scenes.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: It makes sense when you explain it, but it's still
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: agonizing for the public to watch this slow bureaucratic grind.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: It really is. And while the legal system grinds away
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: at Tyler Thomas, We have to look at the broader,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: lasting impact of this tragedy, because from this unimaginable grief,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Haley's family hasn't just retreated. They have ignited a massive
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: push for systemic change.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: This is a crucial pivot, moving from the grim, reactive
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: reality of dealing with a perpetrator to the proactive fight
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: to protect others. We are talking about Haley's Law.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: They have gathered over 75,000 signatures in support of this legislation,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: and it has gained serious traction at the highest levels
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: of state government. even getting public support from the lieutenant
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: governor of Indiana.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: And the proposed legislation really rests on two main pillars.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: The first pillar is the creation of what they're calling
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: pink alerts.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Let's explain why this is necessary, because it goes right
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: back to the very beginning of our timeline. When Haley
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: was discovered missing on January 6th, why didn't an amber
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: alert go out?
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: That's the question everyone asks. Everyone knows what an amber
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: alert is. Why didn't our phones bust?
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And it surprises because the criteria for an Amber
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Alert are incredibly rigidly defined by federal and state guidelines.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: They are designed for a very specific type of abduction. Generally,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: the person has to be under 18. Haley was 17,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: so she fits that criteria.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: But there's more to it than just age.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Right. There also has to be a reasonable, articulable belief
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: by law enforcement that the child is in imminent danger
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: of serious bodily injury or death. And crucially... There must
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: be descriptive information about the child, the suspect, or the
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: suspect's vehicle to broadcast to the public.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: And because the initial evidence in Haley's case suggested she
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: may have left the house voluntarily, like we talked about,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: there was no broken window, no screaming heard by neighbors.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: It didn't trigger that rigid threshold of imminent danger of
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: bodily injury.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Even if she was manipulated, the system viewed it as
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: a runaway.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: The pink alert is designed to bridge that exact gap.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: It would create a new intermediate tier of alert for
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: missing persons or children when there are credible risk indicators,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: like a sudden uncharacteristic disappearance in the middle of the night.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Even if the strict violent abduction criteria of an Amber
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Alert aren't perfectly met.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: But this introduces a massive legislative and sociological friction point,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't it?
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: It does. And Judge Rucker offered a highly nuanced perspective
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: on this alert system debate. On a human level, he
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: fully supports any tool designed to bring a missing child home.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: But he also highlights the practical systemic difficulties of implementing
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: a new tier of alerts.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: What's the pushback? Why would lawmakers resist a tool that
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: helps find missing kids?
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: It comes down to a sociological concept known as alert fatigue,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: combined with the massive resource drain on police departments. If
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: you create a pink alert for every teenager who runs
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: away or goes missing under ambiguous circumstances, the frequency of
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: these alerts would skyrocket.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: People's phones would be buzzing every single day.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And human psychology dictates that when an alarm goes
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: off constantly for situations that don't immediately threaten the receiver,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: people stop paying attention.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: They just turn the alerts off in their phone settings.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the boy who cried wolf. Lawmakers fear that by
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: diluting the urgency of emergency alerts, citizens will become blind
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: to them, which could cost lives during an active violent
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: kidnapping where public eyes are desperately needed.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: That is a brutal reality to weigh. How do we
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: balance the risk of alert fatigue with the terrifying reality
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: that modern predators use sophisticated digital coercion to make a
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: kidnapping look exactly like a voluntary runaway?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate challenge for lawmakers right now. The technology
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: of grooming has completely outpaced the rigid criteria of our
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: emergency systems.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: The predator is in the house, on the phone, manipulating
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the child to walk out the door. and our systems
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: are still looking for broken glass and forced entry.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: And that is exactly why the second pillar of Haley's
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Law is so vital. It attempts to address the root
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: cause before the alert is ever needed.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Right, the education piece. The law mandates predator awareness education
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: in Indiana schools.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: But it's complete modernization of the curriculum. It's not the
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: old stranger danger, don't get in the van with candy
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: stuff we grew up with.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: This education is specifically focused on online grooming... recognizing digital
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: manipulation and identifying the exact coercive tactics that a 39-year-old
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: man used to convince a 17-year-old girl to leave the
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: safety of her home.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: It teaches kids how to spot the red flags in
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: their Discord chats and game lobbies.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Which is essential because, as Judge Rucker pointed out, we
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: are dealing with a massive gray area of missing teens.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: He brought up a really uncomfortable truth about the disparity
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: in how these cases are handled. He noted the heartbreaking
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: reality that so many young girls, especially in marginalized or
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: urban communities, go missing every single day.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: And they do not get task forces. They do not
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: get massive media coverage.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: They are routinely written off as runaways, or their cases
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: are ignored due to their age, their background, or simply
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: how the initial report was filed by an overworked patrol officer.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: The fight for Haley's Law is partly a fight to
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: force the system to take all of these ambiguous disappearances
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: seriously from hour one. It is a fight to change
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: the default assumption.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: We have covered a tremendous amount of ground today on
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: this deep dive. We've traced this from a quiet bedroom
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: in Fishers, Indiana, following an invisible digital trail to a
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Victorian village home in Columbus.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: We've tracked a web of calculated lies to a rural
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: rental in Hocking County, and finally, tragically, to a national
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: forest in Perry County.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: We've watched a multi-jurisdictional legal machine begin the slow, deliberate...
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: hurricane-proof process of building an ironclad case against an online
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: predator who was hiding in plain sight.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: And as we've discussed throughout this entire journey, it was
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: ultimately his digital footprint, the cell tower pings, the ISP data,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: the deleted cache on his phone that allowed law enforcement
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: to tear down his alibi and find Haley.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: The digital realm is where he hunted, but it is
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: also what caught him.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: But there is a flip side to that digital coin
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: that we all need to consider.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And that is exactly the thought we want to leave
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: you with today. We've talked a lot about the digital
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: breadcrumbs the predator left behind. But in an era where
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: we focus so heavily on what we are voluntarily sharing online,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: our photos, our location tags, our daily thoughts and routines,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: how much of our own or our children's digital footprints
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: are unknowingly leaving a map for predators?
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: People who have completely clean, ordinary, real-world records right up
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: until the exact moment they decide to strike.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: It is a chilling question, and it requires constant vigilance
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: in how we navigate the digital world. Thank you for
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: joining us on this deep dive. We appreciate you taking
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the time to explore the complex mechanisms and profound stakes
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: of this case with us. Stay safe out there, and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: we will see you on the next deep dive.