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Man Allegedly Kills Transgender Girlfriend to Hide Their Relationship · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So you are statistically far more likely to be murdered
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: by someone desperately trying to protect their reputation than, you know,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: by a stranger just trying to steal your wallet. Right.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Which is wild to think about. We're so conditioned to
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: fear the unknown.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: We look for threats hiding in dark alleyways. But today
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: we are taking a deep dive into a much more
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: terrifying reality.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're looking at two individuals who completely weaponize society's
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: default setting of trust.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, they used it to commit unthinkable violence. And
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: one hid behind this idolized, untouchable mask of a local
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: hero on a football field in Texas.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Right. And the other hid behind the really sympathetic, tragic
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: mask of a grieving father in upstate New York.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Two completely different worlds. But they are totally united by
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the horrifying lengths to which human beings will go, you know,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: just to maintain a carefully constructed facade.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: It really is a fascinating psychological intersection. When you look
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: at the source material for these two investigations, you're essentially
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: looking at masterclasses in the psychology of deception.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, masterclasses in how to lie to everyone around you.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In both cases, the perpetrators operated on this assumption
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: that their social capital, whether it was athletic fame or
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: just profound communal sympathy... would render them immune to any
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: real scrutiny.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: They thought they were untouchable.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: They did. They truly believed their personal narratives were stronger
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: than physical reality.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: But thankfully, they were wrong.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: And in both instances, they were undone not by, like,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: eyewitnesses pointing a finger, but by the silent, unyielding testimony
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: of physical forensics.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: And their digital footprints, too.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Right. So I want to jump right into the first scenario.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I want to drop you, the listener, right into the
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: middle of this scene because the physical evidence here tells
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a story that completely contradicted what first responders.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Thought they were walking into.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: It's a classic misdirection.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: So we are in Tyler, Texas. It's 2, 3, 6 a.m.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: on this very quiet residential street. And the silence is
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: just suddenly shattered by the sound of a really violent
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: car crash.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Followed almost immediately by gunfire.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Right. The distinct crack of a gun. So a woman
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: looks out her window and she sees a car that
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: has totally jumped the curb. Its front end is wrapped around.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: A telephone pole.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: And it's just sitting there.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the headlights are glaring out into the darkness. The
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: engine is just revving relentlessly. And neighbors start calling 911 saying,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: you know, they think they just heard a shootout.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: So when paramedics and the police arrive, their initial framework
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: is that this is a tragic high-speed collision.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Right, someone just lost control in the dark.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the body camera footage actually shows them approaching
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the vehicle, shining their flashlights, and asking the driver, who
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: is completely unresponsive, if she can hear them.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: But then the light hits the interior of the cabin.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the traffic accident theory just evaporates instantly.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Because there is blood everywhere. I mean, enormous volume of
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: blood on the steering wheel, the dashboard, the windshield.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Right, far more blood than you would ever see in
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: a low-speed impact with a wooden pole.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And then they see the bullet holes everywhere. The victim
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: hasn't just crashed, you know. She has been shot to death.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: And this is where the forensic reconstruction of the scene
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: becomes incredibly crucial to the deep dive.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I was so fascinated by how investigators pieced together a chaotic,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: moving shootout like this.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: It's incredible work. The source material notes they found five
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: shell casings, and the medical examiner ultimately determined four rounds
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: struck the victim.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: But it's the trajectory analysis that really, you know, blows
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the case wide open.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Right. Because trajectory analysis in confined space, like a vehicle,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: is a highly precise science.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: They aren't just looking at where the bullets ended up,
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: are they?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. They're looking at the angles of
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: the perforations in the seats, the shatter patterns in the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: safety glass, and of course the entry and exit wounds
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: on the victim's body.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: And they literally use these physical rods, right?
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: By inserting trajectory rods through these data points... They can
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: basically string the scene together to determine the exact origin
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: point of the gunfire.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And in this case, the rods showed a definitive right-to-left
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: downward path.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, which means the shooter wasn't standing out on the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: street firing into the driver's side window.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The shooter was sitting right there inside the car.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: In the passenger seat.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Firing point-blank at the driver.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: That is terrifying.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't a static event either. The crime scene
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: actually stretched way down the block.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: It was a very dynamic scene.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the physical evidence like tire marks tearing through the mud,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: paint scrapes on several mailboxes, broken glass scattered all the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: way down the asphalt. It shows that the victim didn't
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: just take a.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Bullet and crash.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Right. She initiated a desperate fight for survival.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: She hit the accelerator while actively bleeding from fatal wounds
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: just trying to drive away.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: It's agonizing to picture.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: It really reads like a terrifying high-stakes escape room scenario
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: in the dark. The police believe the shooter jumped out
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: of the passenger seat, but instead of fleeing into the night,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: he actually chased.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: The car on foot.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Continuing to fire into the vehicle as he ran.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She throws the car into reverse to try and
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: back away from him, hits a mailbox, And finally, the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: tires just get bogged down in the wet dirt.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: She's trapped.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: It's a horrific final moment.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: It really is.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: But my biggest question here is about the psychology of
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: that pursuit. Like, why they overkill?
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: That's the main question.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: If you've already shot someone at point-blank range, why chase
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a fleeing, mortally wounded person down a street just to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: make sure the job is finished?
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Well, from a behavioral standpoint, that level of relentless pursuit
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: implies eradication, not just murder.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Eradication.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. It suggests a desperate, overriding need to ensure
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: this person absolutely does not survive to identify the shooter.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: It speaks to a deeply personal motive, which naturally leads
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: investigators to ask, who was the victim? And what secret
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: could she possibly have been carrying that someone was willing
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: to execute her to protect?
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: So let's talk about the victim. Her name was Ty Underwood.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: She was a 24-year-old transgender woman.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: And the sources provide a really vivid, beautiful picture of
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: who she was.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: They really do.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Vivacious, totally unique, fearless. Her friends say she lived by
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the motto, you know, if there was a will, there
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: was a way.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: She sounded like a force of nature.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: She was.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: She had recently moved from Lufkin, Texas, which is a tiny,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: podunk country town, to Tyler. For Ty, moving to Tyler
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: was her version of moving to the big city to
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: really live her truth and find her community.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: But we do have to contextualize Tyler, Texas in 2015
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: to truly understand the immense pressures at play here.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's crucial.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: The sociological backdrop provided by the sources is vital. Tyler
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: is described as the buckle of the Bible Belt.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Which means it's a heavily religious, highly conservative area.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The documentation explicitly notes that the LGBT community there
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: largely kept quiet. They simply didn't feel safe being open
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: or visible because the social structures were fundamentally hostile to them.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Yet Ty absolutely refused to live in fear. She was out,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: she was proud, and she was actively trying to navigate
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: dating in an environment that, honestly, heavily stigmatized her very existence.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Which took an incredible amount of bravery.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: It really did.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: So investigators are processing her car, right, trying to figure
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: out who she was meeting at 2.30 in the morning,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: and they immediately find a few anomalies that point them
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: far away from, like a random attack.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: The physical clues at the scene.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. First, there is Cash just sitting right out in
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: the open in the center console. I look at that
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: and immediately think, well, this wasn't a carjacking.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly the deduction law enforcement makes. If the motive is financial,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: that cash is the first thing to go.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: The presence of the money confirms the motive was interpersonal.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: It was about Ty, not her belongings.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: The second anomaly is this piece of paper with an
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: address on it that leads police to Ty's roommate, Kenya.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: But before we even get to Kenya's testimony, there is
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: a third incredibly crucial clue inside that car.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, the phone.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Yes. The officers keep hearing this faint sound. At first,
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: they actually think the car stereo was left on.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: But it's Ty's cell phone.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: It was just sitting there playing music until the battery
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: slowly drained and the screen went completely black.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: And a dead cell phone at a modern murder scene
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: is essentially a locked vault.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Right, because everything is in there.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Investigators know the answers are likely inside that device. Who
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: she was texting, where she was going... But.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Before they even have to begin that really arduous process
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: of digital forensics, human intelligence gives them their first major lead.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Which is often how these cases break.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Right. So they go knock on Kenya's door to deliver
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the horrific news. And Kenya is obviously devastated, but she
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: immediately points them in a very specific direction.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: She doesn't hesitate.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: No. She tells detectives that Ty had recently started seeing
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: a new boyfriend, a man who had actually stayed over
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: at their apartment just a few nights prior.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: And Kenya is adamant that the only reason Ty would
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: leave the house at 2.30 in the morning was to
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: meet up with this specific guy.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: She gives them a name. Carlton.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Carlton Champion.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: At the time, he is a 21-year-old freshman at nearby
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Texas College. And the sources give us a psychological profile
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: of him that is totally critical to understanding his actions.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Tell us about his background.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Well, he had a rough, fairly unstable childhood. He got
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: into some trouble as a youth, but eventually he found
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: his footing through athletics. Exactly. He gets accepted into college,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: moves into a dorm, and makes the Texas college football team.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: He literally becomes the star, you know, the big man
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: on campus.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: And being a college football player in a small Texas
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: town carries a very specific, heavy sociological weight.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sure. It's like a religion down there.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: It is. Athletes in these communities are put on a
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: massive pedestal. They are revered. But that reverence comes with
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: immense pressure to maintain a flawless, traditionally masculine public image.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Right. You can't step out of line.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: You are insulated by your local fame, sure. But you're
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: also terrified of losing it. For a 21-year-old who finally
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: escaped a troubled past to achieve this elevated status... His
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: public reputation was likely the single most valuable asset he possessed.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: So investigators bring the big man on campus in for
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: an interview. And honestly, his demeanor is completely incongruous with
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: someone whose girlfriend has just been violently murdered.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: He plays it incredibly cool. Too cool.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he tells them he only met Ty one single time.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And he vehemently denies knowing she was a transgender woman.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: But then he makes a classic mistake.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. He offers up a very specific, totally unprompted detail.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: He looks at the police and tells them that Ty
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: drove a white car and he swears up and down
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: he had never, ever been inside it.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Which is fascinating. As an investigator, when a suspect volunteers
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: a specific denial about a piece of evidence you haven't
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: even brought up yet, like the interior of a white car,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: it acts like a neon sign pointing directly to their guilt.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Why bring it up if you weren't there?
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I found it equally suspicious when they asked him how
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: he communicated with Ty. He says they used a messaging
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: app called KeyIK.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: But he claims, incredibly conveniently, that he had deleted the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: KeyIK app from his tablet that very morning. Like, he
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: just woke up and decided he didn't need it anymore,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: literally hours after the person he was messaging was found dead.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Deleting the primary mode of communication on the morning of
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: a murder is textbook spoliation of evidence.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he was covering his tracks.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Law enforcement knows he's lying, but knowing it, And proving
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: it in court are two very different things.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Since Carlton destroyed his end of the digital trail, they
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: are entirely dependent on extracting the data from Ty's dead phone.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Which brings us back to that locked iPhone sitting in
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the evidence room. And we have to remember, in 2015,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: bypassing iOS encryption was a massive problem. massive hurdle for
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: local police departments.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: It was a huge technological bottleneck.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This is right around the era when the FBI
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and Apple were having those very public showdowns over encrypted devices.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: You couldn't just plug it into a machine and brute
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: force the password.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Because Apple's security protocols included a feature that would permanently
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: wipe all the data after a certain number of failed attempts.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Right. It's essentially a digital tripwire.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Which places investigators in this agonizing position. The complete narrative
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: of the murder is likely sitting right there on a
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: silicon chip, but one wrong keystroke could permanently incinerate the evidence.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: It's so tense.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So, relying on raw human psychology rather than, like, high-tech algorithms,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: a detective decides to take a massive gamble.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: A Hail Mary.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: They think about how ordinary people construct their passwords. They
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: look at Ty's file, they find her birth date, and
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: they type the four digits of her birth month and day.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Into the phone.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: And it unlocks.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: It unlocks.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: It's almost profound when you think about it. Despite all
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the advanced encryption algorithms Apple engineered, a simple four-digit expression
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: of human habit became the key.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: That solved a murder.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: It's incredible. And once that encryption is bypassed, Ty's digital
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: ghost rises to point the finger directly at Carlton.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: The Kiai messages are recovered in their entirety.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: And they immediately obliterate Carlton's narrative.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Utterly destroy it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: The messages definitively prove an ongoing, deeply intimate sexual relationship.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: There are X-rated selfies being exchanged.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And the contextual language makes it indisputable that Carlton knew
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: exactly who Tai was. His claim of ignorance was a
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: completely calculated fabrication.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Reading the transcripts of those final messages, it's honestly like
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: watching the murder unfold in slow motion.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: You can feel the panic setting in.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You really can see the tension escalating minute by minute.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: It starts with this dispute.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Ty accuses Carlton of meeting up with other people online.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: She is furious and she finally texts him.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I'm on my way up there. I'm coming to the school.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: And Carlton's response is immediate visceral panic. He texts back. No,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: you're not.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: He's terrified.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: This reaction goes right back to the psychological profile of
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: the protected athlete we discussed. He is terrified of his
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: secret colliding with his public persona.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: If Ty arrives at his dorm, if his teammates see
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: them together, his carefully curated facade is instantly destroyed. To
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: a young man whose entire identity and social standing are
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: wrapped up in this hyper masculine football culture, the threat
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: of exposure was perceived as an absolute existential crisis.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And then the final message Ty sends from her car
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: is just two words.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: I'm here.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. And that digital timestamp places her exactly at
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Carlton's location moments before the shooting.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: It's chilling. It is.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Now, I do want to touch on a brief investigative
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: detour here because the sources mentioned police had to clear
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: another suspect first before moving on Carlton.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: That's right. Standard procedure.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. While mining the phone, they found Ty was also
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: texting a man named George who just coincidentally lived right
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: near the crime scene.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And it is standard protocol to eliminate all viable alternative
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: theories before locking in on a prime suspect.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: So they bring George in and he admits to communicating
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: with Ty, but he strongly denies meeting her that night.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: And to prove it, he actually demands a polygraph.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he practically yells at them like, hell yeah, let's go.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to get the hell out of here.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Which is a strong indicator of innocence.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Now, I know polygraphs aren't actually admissible in court because,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: you know, they measure stress, not objective truth. But in
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a fast-moving investigation like this, they act as a decent.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Filter, right?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They're an investigative tool used to appropriately allocate resources.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: George passes the polygraph, which, combined with his corroborated alibi,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: allows police to clear him completely.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: And swing the spotlight with full intensity back to Carlton.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Yes. They start cross-referencing the digital timeline they got from
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: the phone with physical reality.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Right, so they pull the CCTV footage from Carlton's dormitory. Now,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Carlton had insisted he never left his room that night.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Not even once.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: But buried in the grainy tape, they find him. The
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: cameras capture Carlton exiting his dorm during the exact window
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Ty texted, I'm here, and returning just minutes after the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: gunfire was reported by the neighbors.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: The digital timeline and the video evidence are incredibly damning.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: But the definitive proof, the evidence that ties him directly
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: to the violence, comes from the forensic biology lab.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Because remember his unprompted insistence that he had never, ever
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: been inside Ty's white car?
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: The lab analyzed the swabs taken from the interior of
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Ty's vehicle, and they found Carlton's DNA on the passenger
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: side seatbelt and the interior door handle.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Right. With a trajectory Rod said the shooter was sitting.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And I'd love to dig into how this works because
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: we aren't talking about pools of blood here. We are
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: talking about touch DNA. Right.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Touch DNA or trace DNA. It relies on the biological
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: fact that humans constantly shed epithelial or skin cells.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Everywhere we go.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Yes. And when a person is in a state of
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: high physiological stress, such as during a physical altercation or
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: a murder, their autonomic nervous system kicks in.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Like the fight or flight response.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Precisely. They sweat profusely, their grip tightens, and the friction
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: between their skin and textured surfaces, like a woven seatbelt
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: strap or a molded plastic door handle, acts almost like
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: a cheese grater for those microscopic cells.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's a vivid image.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: It is virtually impossible to wipe down a porous or
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: textured surface in the dark and successfully remove all traced
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: genetic material.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: You're going to leave something behind. Always.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: And that microscopic transfer plays Carlton physically inside the vehicle.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: sitting in the exact seat from which the fatal shots
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: were fired.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: So the police have an airtight case now. They have
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the texts, the timeline, the video, and the DNA.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: It's bulletproof.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: So they bring Carlton back into the interrogation room in handcuffs,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and this is the moment you expect the facade to break.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: You expect reality to set in.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: You expect the suspect to realize the game is over.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: They usually cry or confess, maybe beg for a plea deal,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: or at least launch into this panicked, frantic string of lies...
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: to try and explain away the DNA.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: But what actually happens is a chilling display of what
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: forensic psychologists refer to as sociopathic indifference.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: It's unbelievable.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: The detectives are laying out the evidence of this brutal murder,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and Carlton is just sitting there smiling.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: He's just smiling. Yeah.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: He's dodging their questions with the casualness of a post-game interview.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: He shows zero anxiety, no elevated heart rate, no stress
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: response whatsoever.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Instead, he starts complaining that he is hungry.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Right, the autonomic nervous system response we just talked about.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: The sweating, the panic is completely absent here.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: It's like he's empty inside.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Psychologically, this profound nonchalance in the face of irrefutable evidence
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: of murder tells investigators exactly who they are dealing with.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: He literally tells the detectives, I played him, what a burger.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: He is facing life in a Texas prison and he's
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: actively trying to negotiate for fast food. He says, Burger King, McDonald's,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I'm hungry.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: It's hard to even process that level of detachment.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: And the detective finally leans in trying to break through
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to him and says, Carlton, listen to me. I'm going
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: to arrest you for murder. And Carlton's response is just, sir,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I'm hungry.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: It requires a complete structural detachment from human empathy to
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: behave that way.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: To Carlton, Ty was never a human being whose life
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: he ended. She was just a variable that threatened his
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: social status. An obstacle. Right. He neutralized the variable. The
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: problem was solved. And now his biological imperative was simply
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: that he wanted a burger. The capacity to compartmentalize violence
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: so cleanly is the absolute hallmark of a highly dangerous individual.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: And he carries that exact same apathy straight into the courtroom.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: He completely refuses to take a plea. He forces a
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: full trial and he treats the entire judicial process like
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a joke.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: A literal joke to him.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: He's laughing. He's chuckling at the defense table.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: His lawyer constantly has to physically tap him just to
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: get him to sit up and pretend to.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Take it seriously.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: The jury must have been appalled.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, they saw right through the sociopathic smirk. They convict
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: him of first-degree murder in no time, and the judge
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: sentences him to life in prison. He won't even be
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: eligible for parole until 2045.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: But even the reality of a life sentence didn't puncture
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: his ego.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: No.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: As he was being escorted out of the courtroom, he
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: actively taunted Ty's grieving family. He was so aggressive it
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: required four officers to physically restrain him.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Just totally remorseless.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: He later sent a letter from prison to a news
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: program claiming he was, quote, looking good, feeling good, waiting
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: to get free so I can see what the world
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: got to offer me.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: It perfectly encapsulates the horrific reality of crimes driven by
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: social self-preservation. You know, he prioritizes reputation over a human life.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: And when that reputation was finally stripped away, all that
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: was left was an empty, hungry ego.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: But to really understand the gravity of this case... We
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: have to look at the statistics the sources provide.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's talk about the broader picture here.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Ty's murder was part of a much larger, darker trend.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: In 2015, she was one of 21 transgender women murdered
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: in the United States. And in 2016, that number rose
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: to 27.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And the sources explicitly note that nearly all of these
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: victims were transgender women of color, right?
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, they were. It highlights a deeply vulnerable demographic being
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: repeatedly targeted by individuals driven by toxic shame.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Because they keep it a secret.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The perpetrators engage in these relationships in secret. And
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: when the reality of their own desires conflicts with the
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: rigid conservative social structures they inhabit, they resort to lethal violence.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Just to eradicate the evidence of their perceived transgression.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating systemic failure.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: It really is.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: And Ty's life was cut short by a man who
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: was just too much of a coward to face his
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: own reflection.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Beautifully put.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So... I want to shift our focus now, moving from
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a crime of sudden panicked violence to a scenario that
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: requires a completely different psychological makeup.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: This next one is a slow burn.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I want you to imagine a threat that doesn't
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: come from a secret lover hiding in the dark, but
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: from the person standing right in the light. The person
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: who is legally and morally bound to protect you.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: We are transitioning from the psychology of immediate panic to
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: the psychology of calculated opportunistic patience. Right. It's a shift.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: From a killer who acts to protect a social secret
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: to a killer who uses social sympathy as a shield
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: to mask pure, unadulterated greed.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: So our setting is Seneca Falls, New York.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: And if that name sounds familiar, the sources know it
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: is widely believed to be the inspiration for Bedford Falls
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in the classic movie It's.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: A Wonderful Life.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: It's very picturesque.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, totally. It's the kind of.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Wholesome, community-oriented town where everyone knows their neighbors. And residing
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: in this town is Carl Carlson. Right. By all external appearances,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Carl is a hardworking, doting father. He is also seemingly
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the unluckiest man on the face of the earth.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: If you examine the timeline of Carl Carson's life, the
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: sheer volume of catastrophic tragedy he has endured is just staggering.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Let's review the events, because stacking them up is really
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the only way to see the pattern.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: You have to see them all together.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So years prior, when Carl lived out in California,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: his first wife, Christina, died in a horrific house fire.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Carl managed to pull his children from the burning structure,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: but claimed the flames were just too intense to reach
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: his wife.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: And the community rallied around him.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: They did.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: The local newspaper even wrote a glowing piece about him,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: hailing him as a tragic hero who braved the inferno
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: to save his kids.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: But the shadow of fire follows him.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: It haunts him relentlessly.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Sometime after moving to New York, he buys a brand
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: new car, and mysteriously it bursts into flames and burns
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: to the frame right in his driveway.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Out of nowhere.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Later, a barn on his property catches fire and
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: burns to the ground, killing three of his prized Belgian horses.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Another devastating fire.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And then the ultimate tragedy strikes. His adult son, Levi,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the exact same boy Carl supposedly saved from the California
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: house fire years earlier, is crushed to death underneath a
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: truck in Carl's own garage.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Now, in forensic investigation and actuarial science, there is a
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: fundamental reliance on probability and pattern recognition.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Right. Looking at the odds.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If you look at any one of those events
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: in isolation, a house fire, a vehicle fire, a barn fire,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a fetal garage accident, they are terrible tragedies. They're statistically rare,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: but they happen.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Sure, bad things happen to good people.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: However, when you cluster four catastrophic, lethal, and highly specific
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: accidents around a single individual over a span of two decades...
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: The math changes. Dramatically. The statistical probability of that being
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: a coincidence... drops to near zero.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: It moves from a streak of bad luck to a
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: mathematical impossibility.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: And the first person to.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Truly realize this wasn't the police, it was Carl's second wife, Cindy.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: The psychological burden placed on Cindy in this narrative is
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: just immense.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: I can't even imagine.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: She married Carl, truly believing she was comforting a tragic hero.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: She felt deep empathy for this single father who had
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: suffered unimaginable losses. Right. But as she lived with him
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: day in and day out, the facade began to slip.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: She started noticing sensory anomalies and logical inconsistencies in his stories.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: A perfect example of this is the barn fire that
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: killed the horses. Cindy tells investigators that on the night
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: of the fire, Carl woke her up in a really
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: frantic state, telling her to call 911 because the barn
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: was burning.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: And he had a very specific reason for knowing that. Right.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: When she asked him how he knew the barn was
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: on fire, because their bedroom was situated in a way
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: that you couldn't actually see the barn without physically leaning
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: backward out of a specific window, Carl claimed he heard
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the crackling of the flames.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: But Cindy applied basic logic to that claim.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she did.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: She noted that the barn was located far too deep
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: into the property for the sound of crackling wood to
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: penetrate the walls of their closed bedroom. It's impossible.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Carl had fabricated a sensory detail to justify how he
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: discovered the fire so quickly, but the physics of sound
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: simply didn't support his narrative.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: It's those little details that start driving her crazy, but
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the real tipping point is the death of his son, Levi.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: This part of the source material is deeply unsettling.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: It is so sad.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Levi was a really troubled young man. He had been
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: profoundly traumatized by the fiery death of his mother, Christina.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: He suffered from night sweats and woke up crying because
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: he could still hear his mother screaming from that California fire.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: He was carrying so much trauma.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And despite the fact that Carl was notoriously mean and
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: emotionally distant with him growing up, Levi was just desperate
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: for his father's approval.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: And Carl understood that vulnerability perfectly.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: And he exploited it.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: He did. On the day of Levi's death, Carl offered
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: him $ 50 to do some odd jobs. specifically asking him
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: to work on the undercarriage of a truck parked in
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: the garage.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Which Cindy noted was highly unusual because it was a
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: truck they rarely, if ever, drove.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Boy, the sudden urgency to repair it.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: So Carl tells Cindy they need to run some errands.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: He walks into the garage, ostensibly to tell Levi they
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: were leaving. He comes back out, gets in the car
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: with Cindy, and they leave the property for four and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: a half hours.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Four and a half hours.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: When they return, Carl goes into the garage to check
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: on his son. Moments later, he comes running out, banging
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: his hands against the windows, screaming for Cindy to call 911.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Because the truck had fallen.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: The truck had fallen off the jack. Levi's chest is crushed.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: He is dead.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: And Carl puts on this massive theatrical display of grief
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: for the arriving officers, you know, throwing his body against
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the walls of the barn, wailing, rolling on the ground.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: But Cindy isn't buying the performance anymore.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Not for a second.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Her intuition is screaming that Carl is not the victim
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: of a curse, but the architect of it. And her
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: suspicions force the police to cast a highly skeptical eye
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: back to the foundational tragedy of Carl's life.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: The California house fire that killed his first wife.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Yes. When investigators apply modern forensic skepticism to a decades-old fire,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: the hero narrative disintegrates entirely.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: It falls apart so fast.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: The sources outline that Carl provided three entirely contradictory accounts
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: of how the fire started to the medical examiner, the
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: responding officers, and the fire marshals.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: And in forensic interviewing, conflicting origin stories are a massive
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: red flag, right?
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. The truth, by its very nature, is static. It
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: doesn't change. Lies require constant maintenance, and over time, the
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: details inevitably clash.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Carl claimed he suffered burns on his hands and arms
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: while trying to pull Christina from the flames. But Cindy
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: told police she had seen him shirtless countless times, and
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: there was not a single burn scar anywhere on his body.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Then he claimed their dogs had knocked over a kerosene heater,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and that they had used old clothes to soak up
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the spill days prior, providing fuel for the fire.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: But fire marshals read burn patterns, like spalling on concrete
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: or V patterns on walls, to determine where and how
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: a fire accelerated.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: The science of fire.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Right. The physical evidence of the fire's behavior didn't align
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: with a simple accidental spill at all.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: The most damning detail, however, was the location of Christina's body.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: She was found trapped inside a bathroom where the only
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: window had been heavily boarded up.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Which is horrifying.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: When questioned at the time.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Carl told investigators he had boarded up that window months
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: earlier for security reasons.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: But when police tracked down witnesses and neighbors decades later.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they testified that Carl had boarded up that specific
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: window just the day before. or perhaps that very morning.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: The implication is horrific. He didn't just start a fire.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: He engineered a death trap.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: He locked her in.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: He boarded up the only viable egress route, ensured there
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: was an accelerant near the door, and just waited for
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: the inferno to consume her.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I found myself thinking deeply about Cindy's mental state during
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: this time. I mean, imagine living in a house with
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: a man, sharing meals with him, sleeping next to him,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: while your brain is slowly connecting the dots that he
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: might be a prolific serial killer.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: It would drive you insane.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: She actually goes to an emergency session with a therapist
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: to articulate these fears.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: And the therapist laughs at her.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: You're kidding.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: No.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: The therapist dismisses it as paranoia. So Cindy starts gaslighting herself.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: She literally begs a close friend, Please just tell me
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: that I'm crazy because I would rather hear that I'm
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: losing my mind than accept what I'm actually thinking.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: That psychological isolation is a unique form of torture. You
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: are trapped between your own survival instincts and a society
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: that demands you trust the grieving father narrative.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: But the validation finally comes. Another family member contacts the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: police with their own dark suspicions about Carl, and the
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: police quietly bring Cindy in for questioning regarding Levi's death.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: And that must have been such a relief for her.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, the relief she feels in that room, just realizing
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: that trained detectives see the exact same monster she sees,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: is overwhelming. But that relief comes with a terrifying mandate.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Right, because to stop him, she has to help them
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: catch him.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Cindy realizes she and her young son, Alex, are in
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: immediate mortal danger. She takes Alex, flees the house, and
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: goes into hiding.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Smart move.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: But she agrees to work with law enforcement on a
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: really high-spakes undercover sting operation. She reaches out to Carl
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and tells him she will only consider coming back home
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: if he tells her the whole truth about what happened
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: in the garage with Levi.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: And this sting operation actually takes two attempts.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it didn't work the first time.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: For take one, Cindy meets Carl for lunch at a
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: local diner. She is wearing a rudimentary homemade wire. Just
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: a small digital voice recorder hidden in her bra.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Very old school.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: During this lunch, she looks him in the eye and
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: flat out asks if he pushed the truck off the
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: jack onto his own son.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: And Carl doesn't deny it.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: No, he doesn't.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: In fact, he gives her a physical demonstration of how
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: easy the truck was to push, and he tells her
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: that he saw the opportunity and took advantage of it.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: It is the golden confession every single investigator dreams of.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: But it is destroyed by technical failure.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: When she rushes the recorder back to the precinct, The
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: detectives plug it in, and all they hear is the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: clattering of silverware, background chatter, and restaurant noise.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: The confession is completely muffled.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: It is legally useless.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Which means the police have to ask Cindy to do
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: something incredibly dangerous. She has to go back into the
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: lion's den.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: And face him again.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: She has to meet a man she knows is a murderer,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: a man who has already killed multiple family members, and
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: extract the confession a second time without making him suspicious.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: So we get to take two.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: This time, she is outfitted with proper police-grade surveillance equipment.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: She meets Carl at Abigail's restaurant.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: But Carl is on edge this time.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: He is highly suspicious of her motives. He even declines
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: an offer to look through her purse, which is a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: move Cindy believes was him trying to appear unbothered while
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: secretly trying.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: To gauge if she was a threat.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: He's testing her.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She knows she has to push him, so she says,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I asked you if you pushed the truck and you
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: said yes.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: And this is where the hidden microphone captures the exact
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: phrase that will ultimately seal his fate.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Got him.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Carl replies, I didn't push the truck. I took advantage
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: of the situation once it happened. I panicked and saw
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: the opportunity.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I really want to pause on that phrase. Saw the opportunity.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: It's chilling.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Your own child is crushed beneath a multi-ton vehicle. His
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: chest cavity is collapsing. He's dying on the cold concrete.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: And your brain does not register paternal terror?
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Your adrenaline does not fuel a desperate attempt to lift
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the vehicle. Your instinct is not to scream for an ambulance.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Your brain calmly calculates an opportunity.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: It is the defining clinical hallmark of psychopathy.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: The absolute absence of empathy. As the lead investigator notes
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: in the sources, referring to your own child's agonizing death
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: as an opportunity cannot be spun, mitigated, or explained away
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: as grief.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: It's premeditative.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: It is the language of a predator. And investigators immediately
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: knew what that opportunity was.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: The payout.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: This is where we follow the money. And the true
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: horrifying motive crystallizes. Carl Carlson wasn't cursed by bad luck.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: He was executing a highly lucrative, murderous business model.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I want to look at the math provided in the
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: source material because it shows how he exploited the blind
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: spots of the life insurance industry.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: The insurance industry relies heavily on localized underwriting and actuarial
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: tables that basically assess the risk of a single event.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: They don't look at the big picture.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Rarely.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: They rarely cross-reference localized data with out-of-state historical claims from
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: decades past.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: And Carl exploited this fragmentation of data perfectly.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Let's break down the payouts. Levi, a young man with
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: a modest income, had recently taken out a life insurance
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: policy through his employer. He named Carl the sole beneficiary.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: And the payout upon his death, $ 700, 000.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: When police reopened the California investigation into his first wife, Christina,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: they discovered a similar pattern.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Carl, a man working your minimum wage at the time,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: had suddenly taken out a $ 200, 000 life insurance policy on
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: her just weeks before she was trapped in that boarded-up bathroom.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: It is the financial equivalent of a venture capitalist hedging bets.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Only the commodity here is human life. That's disgusting. He
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: invests a small premium, engineers the catastrophic event, and reaps
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: an astronomical return on investment.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: And he didn't stop with humans. That barn fire that
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: killed his three horses? That yielded a $ 115, 000 payout.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Even the brand new car that mysteriously burned to a
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: crisp in the driveway netted him a quick $ 10, 000.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: So when you calculate the total.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Carl Carlson profited over $ 1 million from the engineered, agonizing
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: deaths of his family members and animals.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Armed with the wiretap confession and the financial records... Police
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: bring Carl in for a final interrogation.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: The walls are closing in.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: They confront him directly about the truck falling on Levi.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: And realizing he is completely cornered, Carl attempts a desperate pivot.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: He changes the story again.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: He abandons the narrative that he wasn't there, and instead
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: claims he opened the door of the truck to adjust
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: to mechanical linkage, and the truck simply tipped off the
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: jack and fell on his son by accident.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: But the detective in the room brilliantly pushes back against
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the sheer... physical insanity of Carl's admitted actions immediately following.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: This so-called accident.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Right, because his reaction makes no sense.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: The detective says, if it was an accident and you
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: love your kid, you grab that jack and you pump
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: it back up.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Any parent would.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: But Carl admits that when the truck fell, he didn't
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: try to lift it. He says he just walked away.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: He claims his mind went blank and he ran out
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: of the garage like a kid that threw a rock
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: through a glass window.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: But he didn't run away in a frantic panic to
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: get help.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: No. No. He calmly walked out of the garage, got
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: into the passenger seat of a car with his wife,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: and drove around town running mundane errands for four and
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: a half hours while his son slowly asphyxiated on the
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: garage floor.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: The detective is furious in the recording.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, he's so angry.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: He points out that Carl had the absolute nerve to
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: sit in the car and casually ask Cindy, Hey, hon,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: are you ready to go to the funeral? Referring to
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: a wake they were scheduled to attend while his own
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: son was bleeding.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: Out back at the house.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: It is beyond depraved.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: And when the detective finally forces him to face the
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: brutal reality that he caused the truck to fall and
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: consciously left his son to die, Carl just shrugs and says, yeah,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: that's what happened.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: And this admission triggers a very specific legal mechanism in
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: the state of New York. Carl's charged with second degree
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: murder under the theory of depraved indifference.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Which is a really fascinating legal philosophy.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: The law dictates that if you create a gravely dangerous
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: situation and you act with such a profound, callous disregard
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: for human life that a death results, even if you
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: didn't explicitly plan the murder weeks in advance, your inaction
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: is morally and legally equivalent to intentionally pulling a trigger.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Leaving your son crushed under a truck for four hours
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: to secure a payout perfectly meets the standard of depraved indifference.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Perfectly.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: On the eve of his trial, facing a mountain of
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: evidence on the prospect of a much harsher penalty, Carl
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: calls the police. He decides to plead guilty.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: He took the deal.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. In the courtroom, the judge asks him point blank
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: if he enticed Levi underneath the truck, caused it to fall,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: and left him there knowing he would die.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: And how did he respond?
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: The sources note that Carl answers yes to these questions
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: with the casual, bored demeanor.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Of someone discussing the weather.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Just zero emotion.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: He is sentenced to 15 years to life. Cindy states
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: that he is dead to her, that he is a
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: void entirely incapable of remorse. And once he is locked
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: up in New York, the state of California officially indicts
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: him for the murder of his first wife, Christina.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: But before we conclude our analysis of Carl Carlson, we
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: really must examine the near misses.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: The ones that got away.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: The tragedies he was actively orchestrating before Cindy's intuition stopped him.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: This is honestly the most horrifying revelation in the entire
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: source material. Carl wasn't planning on retiring after cashing the $ 700, 000.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: Check for Levi.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: No, he was just getting started.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: He was already lining up his next targets.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Investigators discovered that Carl had secretly taken out life insurance
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: policies on Levi's two young daughters, his own granddaughters.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: They're granddaughters.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: He had secured $ 350, 000 policies on each child, and he
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: did it without their mother ever knowing.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Cindy recalled to police that while she and Carl were separated,
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: he became aggressively adamant about having the granddaughters come over
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: to his house for visits.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: Which is terrifying.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: She told investigators she was terrified because she knew exactly
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: how his mind worked. She knew he was trying to
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: isolate those little girls to set up the next tragic accident.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: Thank God he was stopped.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Levi's widow eventually brought those little girls to the police
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: station to meet the detectives, telling them, you know, I
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: wanted my daughters to meet the officers that saved their lives.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: That's incredibly powerful.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: And Cindy herself had a million reasons to be thankful
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: she listened to her gut and fled when she did.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Quite literally a million reasons.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: During the financial audit, investigators found that Carl had taken
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: out a life insurance policy on Cindy worth over $ 1 million.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: She was undoubtedly the next big payday on his ledger.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: So when we synthesize the source material from both of
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: these investigations, the murder of Ty Underwood in Texas and
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: the decades-long reign of terror by Carl Carlson in New York,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: we are confronted with a deeply unsettling reality.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: We really are.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Both Carlton Champion and Carl Carlson successfully hid in plain sight.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Carlton used the idolized, hyper-masculine mask of a star athlete
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: to deflect suspicion.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: And Carl used the sympathetic, tragic mask of a grieving
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: father to obscure a trail of bodies. They both recognize
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: that society relies on cognitive shortcuts. We naturally assume the
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: star athlete is an honorable community leader.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: And we instinctively assume the weeping father is a victim
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: of cruel circumstance.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Right. They weaponize those assumptions. using our empathy and our
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: admiration as literal shields while they committed unspeakable violence.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: And it leaves you with a really provocative, lingering thought
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: to chew on. Both of these men relied heavily on
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: society's default setting of trust. We want to believe the
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: crying father. We want to cheer for the star athlete.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: It's human nature.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: But when you strip.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Away the social masks and look at the cold, hard
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: data like the trajectory of a bullet, the microscopic transfer
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: of touch DNA, the timestamps on key IK messages... and
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the calculated payouts of life insurance policies, it makes you wonder.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: It certainly does.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: In an age where our digital forensics and financial algorithms
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: track our every move, how much of our own physical
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: safety still relies purely on the blind, optimistic assumption that
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: the people closest to us actually have our best interests
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: at heart?
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: A truly chilling question to end on. It is.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. We'll
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: see you next time.