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Teen Brothers Found Murdered Behind Abandoned House · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Usually, you know, when you get handed a medical diagnosis,
0:02
Speaker 1: there's there's like the certain comfort in the sheer undeniable precision.
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Speaker 2: Of it all. Right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: It's very definitive.
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Speaker 1: Exactly. Like think about the last time you saw an
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Speaker 1: X-ray of a broken bone. You hold up that black
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Speaker 1: and white film to the light and there is this jagged,
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Speaker 1: glowing white line right across the humerus or the femur.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. And the doctor points a pen at it and
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Speaker 2: gives you a definitive answer. Broken or not broken.
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Speaker 1: Right. It's totally binary. You can see the damage with
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Speaker 1: your own eyes. You categorize it and you put a
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Speaker 1: cast on it.
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Speaker 2: Well, we're neurologically wired to crave that kind of visual confirmation.
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Speaker 2: I mean, we really want our chaos neatly boxed up
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Speaker 2: with a clear label on the outside.
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Speaker 1: We really do. But then you step out of the
0:45
Speaker 1: sterile environment of a hospital and you walk into the
0:48
Speaker 1: world of homicide investigation.
0:50
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. That's a whole different ballgame.
0:52
Speaker 1: Specifically, cases involving these really intertwined tragedies. juvenile suspects and
0:59
Speaker 1: the kind of darkness that just doesn't show up on
1:01
Speaker 1: an X-ray, suddenly that diagnostic machine is just completely shattered.
1:05
Speaker 2: It really is. You're left staring into a void, just
1:07
Speaker 2: sort of trying to make sense of shadows. Yeah.
1:10
Speaker 1: And we are looking at an investigative landscape today that
1:13
Speaker 1: is incredibly murky. And that is exactly the terrain we
1:16
Speaker 1: are navigating for you today in this deep dive.
1:19
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
1:20
Speaker 1: We're pulling you into this profoundly tragic and deeply complex
1:24
Speaker 1: true crime case out of Louisville, Kentucky. And what initially
1:29
Speaker 1: presents to the local detectives as a seemingly isolated, albeit
1:33
Speaker 1: very tragic, murder of a 40-year-old man walking home just
1:37
Speaker 1: completely spirals.
1:38
Speaker 2: It does. It mutates into this tangled labyrinthine web involving,
1:43
Speaker 2: you know, stolen youth, misplaced loyalty and a horrific double
1:48
Speaker 2: homicide of two teenage brothers.
1:49
Speaker 1: Right. And our mission today, because we always have a mission,
1:52
Speaker 1: our goal today is to pull back the curtain on
1:54
Speaker 1: the actual mechanics of a homicide investigation of this magnitude.
1:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to look under the hood of the
1:58
Speaker 2: psychology driving these juvenile suspects and analyze the destructive gravity
2:03
Speaker 2: of a local predator operating right in plain sight.
2:05
Speaker 1: And we really want to map out the exact forensic
2:09
Speaker 1: and psychological pathways that detectives use to connect two completely
2:13
Speaker 1: disparate crime scenes. Because, I mean, it's wild how they
2:17
Speaker 1: did it.
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Speaker 2: It really is. The uphill battle these investigators were facing.
2:23
Speaker 2: You really need to understand the environment they're operating in.
2:26
Speaker 1: Right. Setting the stage.
2:27
Speaker 2: Exactly.
2:28
Speaker 1: Right.
2:28
Speaker 2: Louisville is a major city. And like a lot of
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Speaker 2: major cities, it grapples with a high volume of violent crime.
2:34
Speaker 2: We are looking at a baseline of anywhere from 100
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Speaker 2: to nearly 200 homicides in a single calendar year.
2:41
Speaker 1: Which is just a staggering number to process.
2:43
Speaker 2: It is. Think about the logistical strain that puts on
2:46
Speaker 2: a police department. I mean, when you have a statistical
2:48
Speaker 2: reality hovering around 150 murders a year, the entire system
2:52
Speaker 2: is just, it's constantly operating at maximum capacity.
2:55
Speaker 1: From the beat cops to the medical examiners.
2:57
Speaker 2: Right. The homicide detectives, the crime lab technicians there is
3:00
Speaker 2: absolutely no downtime.
3:01
Speaker 1: Wow.
3:02
Speaker 2: And against that backdrop of relentless high volume crime, it
3:06
Speaker 2: becomes terrifyingly easy for a single tragedy to just get
3:09
Speaker 2: lost in the ambient noise.
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Speaker 1: Like it just becomes another file on a desk.
3:13
Speaker 2: Exactly. A person's life is violently ended. Yeah. And if
3:17
Speaker 2: there isn't an immediate, you know, screaming headline or a
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Speaker 2: glaring piece of physical evidence, that file can very quickly
3:24
Speaker 2: get pushed to the side.
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Speaker 1: The victim just becomes a statistic out of pure necessity.
3:29
Speaker 2: Yes. And as we're going to explore, that systemic overload
3:33
Speaker 2: is exactly what almost allowed this entire nightmare to go unsolved.
3:36
Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this. Let's put you right on the
3:38
Speaker 1: pavement where this all begins. The first victim is a
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Speaker 1: man named Christopher Jones. Right. He's 40 years old, is
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Speaker 1: around midnight on a weeknight, and he's doing the most
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Speaker 1: mundane thing imaginable. He's simply walking home from a friend's house.
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Speaker 2: Just a totally normal evening.
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Speaker 1: Completely normal. He's strolling through a relatively quiet west side neighborhood.
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Speaker 1: There is no altercation, no shouting match preceding this. Out
4:03
Speaker 1: of nowhere, gunshots just shatter the quiet of the street.
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Speaker 1: Christopher is gunned down in the dark. And as if
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Speaker 1: that wasn't horrific enough, he is then actually run over
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Speaker 1: by a vehicle.
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Speaker 2: Which is just an awful detail. And the initial response
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Speaker 2: is standard protocol. You know, the beat officers are dispatched,
4:21
Speaker 2: they arrive on the scene with their lights flashing, and
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Speaker 2: they find him lying there on the asphalt. Right. But
4:26
Speaker 2: almost immediately, the entire investigative machine runs headfirst into a massive,
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Speaker 2: unmovable wall. And this hurdle... it isn't born out of
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Speaker 2: malicious interference or a clever covet up by the killers.
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Speaker 1: No, it's actually born out of the harsh reality of
4:42
Speaker 1: emergency medicine, which is so crazy to think about.
4:45
Speaker 2: It is. Because Christopher Jones didn't take his last breath
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Speaker 2: on that neighborhood street.
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Speaker 1: He died much later. Right. On a surgical table under
4:53
Speaker 1: the bright lights of a trauma center.
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Speaker 2: Right. Put yourself in the shoes of the first responding EMTs.
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Speaker 2: When an ambulance crew rolls up to a gunshot victim
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Speaker 2: lying in the street, Their one and only mandate is
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Speaker 2: the preservation of human life.
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Speaker 1: Right. They're not thinking about evidence.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. They operate in what trauma surgeons call the golden hour.
5:12
Speaker 2: They do not care about preserving the pristine forensic orientation
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Speaker 2: of a crime scene.
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Speaker 1: They're not looking at blood spatter patterns or taking measurements. No.
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Speaker 2: They immediately swarm the victim. They move him. They rip
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Speaker 2: off his clothing to look for exit wounds destroying any
5:27
Speaker 2: potential evidence. close range stippling or gunpowder residue evidence in
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Speaker 2: the process.
5:31
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. I mean, they're just trying to save him. Right.
5:34
Speaker 2: They initiate emergency interventions, load him onto a stretcher and
5:37
Speaker 2: rush him to the hospital. So by the time the
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Speaker 2: actual homicide detectives and crime scene technicians tape off the street,
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Speaker 2: the scene is completely compromised.
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Speaker 1: I've always found this friction between emergency medicine and forensics fascinating.
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Speaker 1: It must drive detectives absolutely crazy.
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Speaker 2: Oh, it's a massive point of friction.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Because of that life-saving intervention, the spatial reality of the
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Speaker 2: crime scene is just blown to pieces. Investigators arrive, and
6:04
Speaker 2: they don't even know the exact resting place of the
6:06
Speaker 2: body relative to where the initial impact happened. Did the
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Speaker 2: shooting happen exactly where the EMTs found him, or did
6:12
Speaker 2: he stumble 10 yards down the sidewalk before collapsing?
6:15
Speaker 1: Which changes everything about the investigation.
6:17
Speaker 2: Completely. When you lose the original positioning of the body...
6:21
Speaker 2: You lose the ability to accurately calculate bullet trajectories. You
6:26
Speaker 2: lose the context of the blood pooling. The forensic frame
6:29
Speaker 2: of reference is just gone.
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Speaker 1: You essentially show up to process a crime scene. And
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Speaker 1: the most important piece of evidence, the victim has been removed,
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Speaker 1: leaving behind this chaotic, trampled footprint. It's like trying to
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Speaker 1: put together a jigsaw puzzle. where someone has stolen all
6:45
Speaker 1: the edge pieces.
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Speaker 2: That's a perfect analogy.
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Speaker 1: And the hurdles just kept compounding for these detectives. There
6:51
Speaker 1: was no crowd of onlookers holding up smartphones. There were
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Speaker 1: no eyewitnesses peeking out from behind their curtains.
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Speaker 2: Nothing.
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Speaker 1: When investigators start doing their background checks, you know, digging
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Speaker 1: into Christopher Jones's life, they find nothing salacious. He's just
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Speaker 1: a normal guy. He doesn't have an extensive criminal history.
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Speaker 2: Right. There are no known ties to organized crime or
7:09
Speaker 2: the drug trade.
7:10
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a list of obvious enemies that detectives
7:13
Speaker 1: can just go around.
7:15
Speaker 2: And in homicide investigations, victimology is often your very first roadmap.
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Speaker 2: Detectives look at who the victim was to figure out
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Speaker 2: who would want them dead.
7:25
Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 2: If a victim is involved in high-risk behaviors, say dealing
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Speaker 2: narcotics or running with a gang, you immediately have a
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Speaker 2: pool of suspects and motives to start pulling apart.
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Speaker 1: But here, the well of victimology was just completely dry.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. When a 40-year-old man with a clean background is
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Speaker 2: gunned down while taking a walk, investigators have to assume
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Speaker 2: it was a targeted hit.
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Speaker 1: Because random thrill kills are statistically incredibly rare, right?
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Speaker 2: Very rare. But who on earth would target a guy
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Speaker 2: like Christopher Jones? And more importantly, why?
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Speaker 1: So they fan out across the neighborhood, knocking on doors,
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Speaker 1: waking people up, literally begging for any scrap of surveillance footage.
8:03
Speaker 1: And they do manage to locate one single ring camera
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Speaker 1: on a nearby porch.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, just one.
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Speaker 1: It captures one fleeting angle of a vehicle speeding away
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Speaker 1: into the night. But the resolution is terrible. There is
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Speaker 1: no visible license. Is, for all intents and purposes, just
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Speaker 1: a ghost car?
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Speaker 2: And this is where that backdrop of a stressed high
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Speaker 2: crime city comes into play. You have a victim with
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Speaker 2: no controversial background, a blown crime scene, Zero eyewitnesses and
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Speaker 2: a blurry video of a car that could belong to anyone.
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Speaker 1: There is literally no thread to pull.
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Speaker 2: None. So the case stalls out. Christopher Jones's murder gets
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Speaker 2: maybe a 15-second mention on the local morning news broadcast.
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Speaker 1: It's viewed by the city as a terrible tragedy, absolutely,
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Speaker 1: but an isolated one, a random act of violence in
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Speaker 1: the dark. Right. There are no alarm bells ringing in
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Speaker 1: the police precinct, signaling that this isolated murder is actually
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Speaker 1: the opening act of something much, much darker.
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Speaker 2: The police are operating under the entirely reasonable assumption that
9:02
Speaker 2: this is just a one-off event. Days pass. The trail
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Speaker 2: goes cold.
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Speaker 1: The narrative violently pivots just a couple of weeks later.
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Speaker 1: A new 911 call lights up the dispatch board, and
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Speaker 1: the details coming through the radio are unimaginably brutal.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is where it turns.
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Speaker 1: The caller is frantic, reporting a scene in a narrow,
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Speaker 1: overgrown alleyway situated between 40th and 39th Street, right behind
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Speaker 1: an abandoned, dilapidated house on River Park Drive.
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Speaker 2: And the dispatcher struggles to get clear information because the
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Speaker 2: caller is in a state of sheer panic.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I would be too.
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Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. They are reporting two dead bodies lying in
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Speaker 2: the dirt of this alley. The caller says it looks
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Speaker 2: like two kids and that someone has set them on fire.
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Speaker 1: Imagine being the responding investigator pulling up to that. You
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Speaker 1: are expecting a routine property dispute or maybe a trespassing
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Speaker 1: call at an abandoned house, and you step out of
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Speaker 1: your cruiser into a literal nightmare.
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Speaker 2: It's unimaginable.
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Speaker 1: The detective later described having to do a complete methodical...
10:00
Speaker 1: sweep of the entire abandoned property just to figure out
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Speaker 1: the logistical reality of the scene. Like, how did the
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Speaker 1: bodies get back there?
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Speaker 2: Did a vehicle drive up the narrow rear alley? Did
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Speaker 2: perpetrators physically carry them down the side yard in the dark?
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Speaker 1: Right. And then he actually approaches the victims, two young boys.
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Speaker 1: They are partially covered by a discarded sheet, they are burned,
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Speaker 1: and they have been heavily, heavily mutilated.
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Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the forensic reality of arson as
10:27
Speaker 2: it pertains to homicide. Because this is an area where
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Speaker 2: criminal psychology completely clashes with scientific reality.
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Speaker 1: Oh, really? How so?
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Speaker 2: Well, it is an incredibly common misconception among violent offenders
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Speaker 2: that applying fire to a body or a crime scene
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Speaker 2: will just eradicate all the evidence.
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Speaker 1: They think it burns everything away.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. They view fire as this ultimate purifying reset button.
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Speaker 2: They think it will burn away DNA, fingerprints and the
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Speaker 2: cause of death. But in reality, fire is actually quite
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Speaker 2: poor at destroying forensic evidence unless it reaches the sustained
11:01
Speaker 2: extreme temperatures of a professional crematorium.
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Speaker 1: Which a localized alleyway fire simply does not do.
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Speaker 2: Not even close. So the fire doesn't actually hide the
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Speaker 2: murder weapons tracks. Not at all. Fire might burn away
11:13
Speaker 2: the superficial epidermis, the top layer of skin. but is
11:17
Speaker 2: not going to disguise the deep trauma inflicted on the
11:19
Speaker 2: muscle tissue, the cartilage, or the bone.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: In fact, in many forensic analyses, the application of fire
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Speaker 2: only serves to starkly highlight the sheer, terrifying level of
11:28
Speaker 2: violence that was inflicted prior to the burning. The wound
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Speaker 2: tracks remain perfectly preserved underneath the charring.
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Speaker 1: And I really want to focus on that violence for
11:37
Speaker 1: a moment because the details released from the autopsy are
11:40
Speaker 1: just staggering. This was not a quick, chaotic crime. The
11:44
Speaker 1: brutality is breathtaking.
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Speaker 2: It really is.
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Speaker 1: One of the young victims was stabbed 18 to 19 times.
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Speaker 1: The other victim suffered stab wounds in the low to
11:54
Speaker 1: mid 20s. Now, I have to stop you here and
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Speaker 1: ask a question.
11:57
Speaker 2: Sure.
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Speaker 1: When investigators walk into a scene and see that level
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Speaker 1: of absolute overkill combined with burning the bodies, standard true
12:04
Speaker 1: crime logic usually dictates that this is a deeply personal vendetta.
12:08
Speaker 2: Right.
12:09
Speaker 1: But couldn't this also just be the result of a
12:10
Speaker 1: botched robbery? Imagine a teenager with a knife, hopped up
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Speaker 1: on adrenaline, panicking because the victim fought back, and just
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Speaker 1: wildly stabbing in the dark. Why do investigators immediately assume
12:20
Speaker 1: this is personal rather than just panic?
12:23
Speaker 2: That is a really crucial distinction to make. When you
12:26
Speaker 2: look at the pathology of a panic-induced stabbing, like a
12:30
Speaker 2: robbery gone wrong, you generally see a very erratic pattern.
12:33
Speaker 2: The wounds are often shallow. They are clustered around the
12:36
Speaker 2: hands and arms as the victim fights back. And the
12:39
Speaker 2: primary goal of the offender is to incapacitate the victim
12:42
Speaker 2: just enough to flee the scene.
12:44
Speaker 1: Right. A panicked offender stabs and runs.
12:46
Speaker 2: Exactly. But what you see in this alleyway is vastly different.
12:50
Speaker 2: Overkill of this magnitude, 20 plus deep stab wounds on
12:55
Speaker 2: two separate victims, requires an enormous exertion of sustained physical
13:00
Speaker 2: energy and time.
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Speaker 1: So it's very deliberate.
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Speaker 2: Yes. This isn't a quick flurry of defensive slashes. These
13:06
Speaker 2: are deep, methodical, punitive thrusts.
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Speaker 1: It is the difference between trying to get away from
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Speaker 1: someone and trying to completely obliterate them.
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Speaker 2: Out of all the causes of death a medical examiner sees,
13:16
Speaker 2: shark force injuries are arguably the most intimate. You are
13:19
Speaker 2: physically gripping a weapon, standing inches away from another human being,
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Speaker 2: feeling the resistance of their flesh, and driving that edge
13:26
Speaker 2: weapon into them over and over again.
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Speaker 1: It's so visceral.
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Speaker 2: It is. When you combine that prolonged, intimate physical attack
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Speaker 2: With the subsequent act of dumping their bodies in an
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Speaker 2: alleyway like trash and setting them on fire, it provides
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Speaker 2: investigators with a very clear psychological profile.
13:43
Speaker 1: This was not panic.
13:44
Speaker 2: No. This was a demonstration of absolute contempt. It shows
13:49
Speaker 2: a complete and utter devaluation of human life. The perpetrator
13:53
Speaker 2: didn't just want these boys dead. They wanted them punished, degraded,
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Speaker 2: and erased.
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Speaker 1: But before the police can even begin to build a
14:01
Speaker 1: suspect profile or figure out who would harbor that much hatred,
14:05
Speaker 1: they face a much more immediate and foundational problem. They
14:08
Speaker 1: have to figure out who these two burned boys actually are.
14:11
Speaker 2: And identifying juvenile victims presents a uniquely frustrating challenge for
14:15
Speaker 2: forensic teams. Think about how adults are usually identified in
14:18
Speaker 2: these scenarios.
14:19
Speaker 1: Adults carry wallets, driver's licenses, credit cards.
14:22
Speaker 2: Right. These boys were found with nothing. They had no
14:24
Speaker 2: identification on them.
14:26
Speaker 1: So the medical examiner's office falls back on biometrics, right?
14:29
Speaker 1: They take fingerprints from the victims.
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Speaker 2: They do. They manage to secure viable fingerprints despite the
14:35
Speaker 2: fire damage. They run those prints through AFIS, the automated
14:39
Speaker 2: fingerprint identification system, expecting a hit.
14:42
Speaker 1: But the system comes back totally blank.
14:44
Speaker 2: Blank. And that tells the investigator something important. These kids
14:49
Speaker 2: don't have a criminal record. They had never been arrested
14:52
Speaker 2: or fingerprinted for a crime. that would put their biometrics
14:56
Speaker 2: into a state or federal database.
14:58
Speaker 1: They are just ghosts in the system.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. And to compound the tragedy, days are passing, and
15:04
Speaker 2: absolutely no one has called the police to report two
15:06
Speaker 2: young boys missing.
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Speaker 1: The detectives are essentially paralyzed. They have two brutalized bodies
15:11
Speaker 1: and no names. Out of sheer desperation, they bring in
15:14
Speaker 1: a forensic artist. Right.
15:15
Speaker 2: They use the unburned portions of the victims' faces to
15:18
Speaker 2: create composite sketches.
15:19
Speaker 1: And they release those sketches to the local media, just
15:22
Speaker 1: pleading with the public for help. And the very next morning,
15:24
Speaker 1: the phone rings.
15:25
Speaker 2: A huge break.
15:26
Speaker 1: An assistant principal from a local middle school calls the
15:29
Speaker 1: tip line. She has seen the morning news, and she
15:32
Speaker 1: recognizes the faces in the sketches. She identifies the victims
15:36
Speaker 1: as two of her own students, 16-year-old Maurice Gordon and
15:40
Speaker 1: 14-year-old Larry Ordway.
15:42
Speaker 2: Getting those names is the breakthrough of the case needed.
15:45
Speaker 2: But it also triggers what every police officer will tell
15:49
Speaker 2: you is the single most grueling, soul crushing responsibility in
15:54
Speaker 2: all of law enforcement. The death notification.
15:57
Speaker 1: I really want to slow down and walk you through
15:59
Speaker 1: the specific moment because we talk about true crime so
16:02
Speaker 1: analytically sometimes we forget the devastating human gravity of it.
16:05
Speaker 2: It's so true.
16:06
Speaker 1: The detectives get the address for the boy's mother. They
16:08
Speaker 1: pull their unmarked car up to her house. As they
16:11
Speaker 1: walk up the driveway, the mother is already sitting outside
16:14
Speaker 1: in the front yard. She sees the badges. She sees
16:16
Speaker 1: the solemn looks on their faces. And her very first
16:19
Speaker 1: words to them are, what'd they do this time? Where
16:22
Speaker 1: are they at?
16:22
Speaker 2: From a psychological standpoint, her reaction is a powerful defense mechanism.
16:27
Speaker 2: She sees the police, and her brain immediately jumps to
16:30
Speaker 2: the most manageable, familiar scenario.
16:32
Speaker 1: Like they were just caught shoplifting or something.
16:34
Speaker 2: Exactly. She assumes her teenage boys got into a fight.
16:38
Speaker 2: Or they were sitting in the back of a squad
16:39
Speaker 2: car for truancy. Her mind literally cannot comprehend the magnitude
16:45
Speaker 2: of the horror that is standing on her front lawn.
16:47
Speaker 1: The lead detective is standing there holding this impossible weight.
16:51
Speaker 1: He has to bridge the gap between her reality where
16:54
Speaker 1: her kids are just in minor trouble and his reality
16:57
Speaker 1: where her kids have been slaughtered. Right. Words almost fail him.
17:02
Speaker 1: He realizes he can't just say the words. She won't
17:04
Speaker 1: process it. So he makes the gut-wrenching, highly controversial choice
17:09
Speaker 1: to reach into his file and pull out a post-mortem
17:11
Speaker 1: photograph of one of the deceased children.
17:14
Speaker 2: A huge, heavy decision.
17:15
Speaker 1: He shows it to her to shatter that psychological barrier.
17:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:18
Speaker 1: And the reaction is immediate and visceral. She leaps out
17:21
Speaker 1: of her chair screaming, that's him. Where's my baby?
17:24
Speaker 2: It is a moment of pure, unadulterated trauma that will
17:27
Speaker 2: just echo through that family for generations. But the cruel
17:30
Speaker 2: reality of police work is that the detective cannot stop
17:33
Speaker 2: to comfort her for long.
17:34
Speaker 1: Because the clock is ticking?
17:36
Speaker 2: The first 48 hours after an identification are critical. Once
17:41
Speaker 2: that initial shock breaches her defenses, the detectives have to
17:45
Speaker 2: gently but firmly pivot to information gathering. They have to
17:48
Speaker 2: understand the victimology. They start asking, who are Maurice and Larry?
17:53
Speaker 1: And what they learn paints a picture of intense vulnerability.
17:57
Speaker 1: Maurice and Larry were incredibly close as brothers. They were
18:01
Speaker 1: navigating the awkward years of middle school. But they were
18:03
Speaker 1: doing it with a very rough home life.
18:06
Speaker 2: Right.
18:06
Speaker 1: There wasn't a strong, consistent father figure in the house.
18:09
Speaker 1: And because of the socioeconomic pressures on the family, the
18:12
Speaker 1: boys were often left to fend for themselves. They spent
18:15
Speaker 1: a lot of time out on the streets, unsupervised, looking
18:18
Speaker 1: for guidance wherever they could find it.
18:19
Speaker 2: That structural void in their lives. The absence of a protective,
18:23
Speaker 2: guiding authority figure is the crucial puzzle piece that unlocks
18:27
Speaker 2: the entire investigation.
18:28
Speaker 1: Because nature abhors a vacuum.
18:30
Speaker 2: And so do predators on the street. Detectives start gently
18:34
Speaker 2: pressing the mother, asking her to map out the boys'
18:36
Speaker 2: social circles. Who are they hanging out with? Who has
18:39
Speaker 2: influence over them? Who was the last person you saw
18:41
Speaker 2: them with?
18:42
Speaker 1: The mother is racking her brain, trying to piece together
18:45
Speaker 1: the last few days. And suddenly, she throws out a
18:48
Speaker 1: name that shifts the entire trajectory of the case. She
18:51
Speaker 1: looks at the detectives and says, I know it was him.
18:54
Speaker 1: I know they got in a car with him. She
18:56
Speaker 1: points the finger at a man known around the neighborhood
18:59
Speaker 1: by his street name, Rambo. His real name is Bryce Rhodes.
19:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bryce Rhodes is a fascinating and troubling figure for
19:08
Speaker 2: the detectives to analyze. He is not a peer. He
19:11
Speaker 2: is a man in his late 20s. He's an adult. Right.
19:14
Speaker 2: Yet he is spending all his free time hanging around
19:17
Speaker 2: these 14- and 16-year-old boys.
19:19
Speaker 1: And the connections get even messier. Bryce Rhodes had previously
19:22
Speaker 1: spent time in the local jail... And while he was
19:25
Speaker 1: locked up, he shared a cell with the boy's uncle.
19:27
Speaker 2: Which is wild.
19:28
Speaker 1: Furthermore, Bryce had actually casually dated the boy's mother at
19:32
Speaker 1: one point in the past.
19:33
Speaker 2: This creates a massively complex dynamic for the investigative team.
19:37
Speaker 2: When a grieving mother points the finger at her ex-boyfriend,
19:40
Speaker 2: you have to tread very carefully.
19:42
Speaker 1: Because is she providing a legitimate lead or is this
19:45
Speaker 1: the grief talking?
19:46
Speaker 2: Exactly. Is she lashing out at an ex-partner she resents?
19:50
Speaker 2: Detectives have to weigh the credibility of the source while
19:53
Speaker 2: simultaneously treating the lead as a potential golden ticket. It
19:57
Speaker 2: gives them a name, a face, and a direction to
20:00
Speaker 2: start pointing their resources.
20:01
Speaker 1: But here's where it gets really interesting. As it turns out,
20:05
Speaker 1: the biggest, most undeniable break in this entire case is
20:10
Speaker 1: doesn't come from a sophisticated forensic lab analyzing the arson debris.
20:14
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
20:15
Speaker 1: It doesn't come from a highly coordinated stakeout of Bryce Rhodes.
20:18
Speaker 1: It comes from a simple piece of technology. While the
20:21
Speaker 1: detectives are still at the house, the mother mentions that
20:24
Speaker 1: Maurice's cell phone is missing. It wasn't found in the
20:27
Speaker 1: alley with the bodies. Right. So on a whim, the
20:29
Speaker 1: mother dials Maurice's cell phone number. The phone rings, and
20:33
Speaker 1: someone actually answers it.
20:34
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just a random bystander who happened to
20:36
Speaker 2: pick up a lost phone off the sidewalk. The mother
20:39
Speaker 2: instantly recognized the voice on the other end of the line. Oh, wow.
20:43
Speaker 2: It was another teenager from the neighborhood, a 16-year-old kid
20:46
Speaker 2: named Anwan Carter.
20:47
Speaker 1: The detectives don't hesitate. They get Anwan Carter's address and
20:51
Speaker 1: they speed over to his house. They knock on the
20:54
Speaker 1: door and an adult relative who owns the property answers
20:58
Speaker 1: and gives the detectives consent to search the premises.
21:01
Speaker 2: Right.
21:01
Speaker 1: They walk into the back bedroom and they catch Anwan
21:04
Speaker 1: completely off guard. As a detective steps into the room,
21:08
Speaker 1: he literally catches Anwan in the act of desperately trying
21:12
Speaker 1: to shove a cell phone under his mattress to hide it.
21:14
Speaker 2: It's a beautifully raw moment of juvenile panic. I mean,
21:18
Speaker 2: he knows the police are at the door. He knows
21:20
Speaker 2: he has a murdered boy's phone. And his adolescent brain's
21:24
Speaker 2: only solution is to just hide it under the bed.
21:26
Speaker 1: But the phone isn't even the most shocking part of
21:27
Speaker 1: this encounter. While the detective is questioning Anwan, asking him
21:31
Speaker 1: why he's hiding the phone... the detective happens to glance
21:34
Speaker 1: down at the teenager's feet.
21:35
Speaker 2: This part is unbelievable.
21:37
Speaker 1: Anwan is wearing a pair of highly distinctive custom sneakers
21:40
Speaker 1: that cost nearly $ 300. Now, recall the crime scene. Maurice
21:45
Speaker 1: and Larry were found barefoot in the alley. The mother
21:48
Speaker 1: had shown detectives a recent photograph of the boys, and
21:51
Speaker 1: in that photo, Maurice is wearing those exact, highly recognizable,
21:56
Speaker 1: expensive sneakers. And here is Anwan Carter standing in his bedroom,
22:01
Speaker 1: looking the police in the eye, physically wearing the shoes
22:04
Speaker 1: of his murdered friend.
22:06
Speaker 2: This detail is absolutely critical because it offers us a
22:09
Speaker 2: profound insight into the neurobiology of the juvenile offender. As
22:14
Speaker 2: an adult, you look at this and think, how could
22:16
Speaker 2: he be so incredibly stupid?
22:18
Speaker 1: Right. Why would someone keep a victim's cell phone, which
22:21
Speaker 1: they know has GPS and can be tracked, and why
22:23
Speaker 1: would they physically wear the dead victim's recognizable shoes when
22:27
Speaker 1: the police are inevitably going to come knocking?
22:29
Speaker 2: It seems like a total suspension of basic self-preservation.
22:32
Speaker 1: Completely.
22:32
Speaker 2: But you have to look at it through the lens
22:34
Speaker 2: of adolescent brain development. In a teenager, the amygdala, the
22:38
Speaker 2: part of the brain responsible for seeking immediate reward, social status,
22:42
Speaker 2: and processing intense emotions, is hyperactive and fully developed. Meanwhile,
22:47
Speaker 2: the prefrontal cortex, the area behind the forehead that is
22:50
Speaker 2: responsible for evaluating long-term consequences, assessing risk, and logical planning,
22:55
Speaker 2: is still years away from being fully formed.
22:58
Speaker 1: So the logic center is just offline.
23:00
Speaker 2: Exactly. The myelin sheath that insulates those logical pathways is
23:05
Speaker 2: literally incomplete. So when Anwan looks at those $ 300 shoes,
23:09
Speaker 2: his amygdala screams, status symbol, reward. I want those.
23:14
Speaker 1: Wow.
23:14
Speaker 2: His underdeveloped prefrontal cortex completely fails to run the calculation
23:18
Speaker 2: that says, wait, these shoes will physically link me to
23:21
Speaker 2: a horrific double homicide. The desire for the shiny object
23:26
Speaker 2: completely overrides the instinct for survival.
23:28
Speaker 1: That neurological blind spot is exactly what lands Anwan Carter
23:31
Speaker 1: straight into an interrogation room down at police headquarters. And
23:34
Speaker 1: this begins a fascinating, high-stakes psychological dance between the veteran
23:38
Speaker 1: homicide detective and the 16-year-old suspect. At first, Anwan sticks
23:43
Speaker 1: to a classic, clumsy script of denial. He claims he
23:46
Speaker 1: bought the phone off the street from some random guy
23:48
Speaker 1: named Moo Moo. He says the phone was already wiped
23:51
Speaker 1: clean when he handed over the cash. And when they
23:53
Speaker 1: press him about Bryce Rhodes, he shakes his head. and
23:57
Speaker 1: completely denies knowing anyone named Rambo.
24:00
Speaker 2: The detectives sitting across the table know unequivocally that he
24:04
Speaker 2: is lying. They have already confirmed the IMEI number on
24:08
Speaker 2: the phone belongs to Maurice, and this Moo Moo character
24:11
Speaker 2: is a blatant fabrication. However, there is a thick smokescreen
24:15
Speaker 2: hanging over this interrogation that is complicating the detectives' theories.
24:19
Speaker 2: While Anwan is in the box, other investigators have been
24:22
Speaker 2: polling the victim's social media history, and what they find
24:25
Speaker 2: is troubling.
24:26
Speaker 1: The photos, right.
24:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. Maurice and Larry, these young middle schoolers, had been
24:30
Speaker 2: posting pictures of themselves online trying to cultivate a hardcore
24:34
Speaker 2: tough guy image. They were posting photos holding up firearms
24:38
Speaker 2: and flashing large stacks of cash.
24:40
Speaker 1: Which completely shifts the narrative possibilities, right? Initially, if you
24:44
Speaker 1: just look at those photos, you have to entertain the
24:46
Speaker 1: theory that these kids were playing a dangerous game and lost.
24:49
Speaker 2: Exactly.
24:49
Speaker 1: Maybe they flashed that money to the wrong person or
24:52
Speaker 1: maybe they tried to rip off a drug dealer or...
24:54
Speaker 1: And this is a robbery gone horribly wrong.
24:57
Speaker 2: That is the obvious surface level assumption.
24:59
Speaker 1: Right.
24:59
Speaker 2: It has the smoke screen. But this is where the
25:01
Speaker 2: expertise of veteran homicide detectives comes into play. They don't
25:05
Speaker 2: just look at Facebook photos. They read the physical biomechanics
25:09
Speaker 2: of the crime scene.
25:09
Speaker 1: The wound tracks.
25:10
Speaker 2: Remember what we discussed earlier about the wound tracks? Yeah.
25:13
Speaker 2: A robbery gone wrong, even one involving a struggle, generally
25:17
Speaker 2: results in a fast, chaotic escalation. A shot is fired
25:21
Speaker 2: or a few frantic stabs are made. And the perpetrators
25:24
Speaker 2: run away with the cash.
25:26
Speaker 1: Right.
25:27
Speaker 2: A botched robbery does not end with two boys being
25:30
Speaker 2: systematically bound, tortured, stabbed over 40 times collectively, transported in
25:35
Speaker 2: a vehicle, dumped in an alley, and methodically set on fire.
25:39
Speaker 2: The protracted, exhaustive violence of the crime scene loudly dictated
25:44
Speaker 2: that this was not a robbery. This was a message.
25:46
Speaker 2: This was punitive.
25:47
Speaker 1: So the initial detective in the room knows Anwan is lying.
25:50
Speaker 1: And he knows this wasn't a robbery. He starts turning
25:52
Speaker 1: up the heat. He is pressing Anwan hard, challenging his
25:55
Speaker 1: lies about Mumu, demanding to know why he's wearing a
25:58
Speaker 1: dead boy's shoes. And the pressure tactic backfires. Anwan's defenses
26:03
Speaker 1: go all the way up. He folds his arms, shuts down,
26:06
Speaker 1: and invokes his right to an attorney. Now, in the
26:09
Speaker 1: United States, when a suspect asks for a lawyer, that
26:12
Speaker 1: is an impenetrable wall. All questioning must cease immediately. The
26:16
Speaker 1: interrogation is legally over.
26:19
Speaker 2: And that could have been the end of the line.
26:20
Speaker 2: Anwan would have been booked, lawyered up, And the trail
26:23
Speaker 2: leading to Bryce Roads might have gone ice cold.
26:26
Speaker 1: But they do something wild here.
26:27
Speaker 2: They do. The command staff makes a highly unconventional, incredibly
26:31
Speaker 2: risky tactical decision. Anwan's mother and oldest sister had rushed
26:36
Speaker 2: down to the police station and were sitting in the lobby.
26:39
Speaker 2: The detectives decide to open the door to the interrogation
26:41
Speaker 2: room and allow the mother and sister to go in
26:43
Speaker 2: and speak privately with Anwan.
26:45
Speaker 1: I cannot overstate how wild of a gamble this is
26:48
Speaker 1: in police procedure. Standard operating procedure dictates that you isolate
26:51
Speaker 1: your suspect at all costs. You never let them speak
26:54
Speaker 1: to the outside world, especially family. Because nine times out
26:57
Speaker 1: of ten, a parent is going to walk into that room,
27:00
Speaker 1: put their arm around their kid and say, keep your
27:02
Speaker 1: mouth shut. Don't say another word to these cops. Do
27:05
Speaker 1: not be a snitch. We are getting a lawyer.
27:07
Speaker 2: It was a massive roll of the dice. But the
27:10
Speaker 2: detectives were reading the room. They had inferred just how
27:14
Speaker 2: deep N1 was drowning in this mess.
27:16
Speaker 1: Right.
27:16
Speaker 2: They gambled on the hope that Anwan's family might recognize
27:20
Speaker 2: the sheer apocalyptic gravity of the situation. Two boys are dead,
27:24
Speaker 2: burned in an alley, and their son was caught red-handed
27:27
Speaker 2: with the victim's belongings. The police hoped the family would
27:30
Speaker 2: realize that Anwan's only chance of surviving this legally was
27:34
Speaker 2: to cooperate and point the finger at the mastermind.
27:37
Speaker 1: And miraculously, the gamble pays off. After a tense conversation
27:41
Speaker 1: behind closed doors, Anwan's sister walks out of the interrogation room.
27:45
Speaker 1: She looks the detective dead in the eye and says,
27:48
Speaker 1: he wants to talk to you. He's ready.
27:49
Speaker 2: But the police are smart enough to realize they can't
27:51
Speaker 2: send the same detective back into that room.
27:53
Speaker 1: Right. The first guy was too aggressive.
27:55
Speaker 2: Exactly. The first detective was the hammer. He brought the
27:58
Speaker 2: heat and that caused Anwan to turtle up. They need
28:01
Speaker 2: a completely different psychological dynamic. So they tap a different investigator.
28:06
Speaker 2: Sergeant John Lear.
28:08
Speaker 1: Sergeant Lear's approach is legendary in this case. Other officers
28:11
Speaker 1: described him as having this calm, almost reverend-style demeanor. He
28:15
Speaker 1: doesn't kick the door open. He doesn't slam his hands
28:18
Speaker 1: on the middle table. Right. He walks in quietly, pulls
28:21
Speaker 1: out a chair, and sits down close to Anwan. He
28:24
Speaker 1: looks this terrified 16-year-old in the eye and simply makes
28:27
Speaker 1: him promise, man to man, that he isn't going to
28:29
Speaker 1: lie to him anymore. It is an incredibly disarming, empathetic tactic.
28:34
Speaker 2: It is textbook rapport building. Interrogation is not about yelling.
28:38
Speaker 2: It is about providing psychological off-ramps. Sir Delir comes in
28:42
Speaker 2: and essentially offers Anwan a blank canvas. He subtly communicates, look,
28:46
Speaker 2: there are two ways this story gets written. In version one,
28:50
Speaker 2: you are a cold-blooded psychopathic killer who slaughtered two kids
28:53
Speaker 2: for their shoes. In version two, you're a normal kid
28:57
Speaker 2: who got swept up in the orbit of a dangerous monster.
29:00
Speaker 2: You got in way over your head, and now you
29:02
Speaker 2: need my help to find a way out. By offering
29:05
Speaker 2: that second narrative, he gives Anwan a way to confess
29:08
Speaker 2: while still preserving a shred of his own humanity.
29:10
Speaker 1: And then, once Anwan is listening, Sergeant Lear deploys a classic,
29:15
Speaker 1: devastating interrogation bluff. In the United States, police are legally
29:20
Speaker 1: allowed to lie to a suspect about the evidence they possess.
29:23
Speaker 2: Yes, they are.
29:24
Speaker 1: Lear leans in and tells Anwan, listen to me very carefully.
29:28
Speaker 1: Bryce Rhodes is sitting in the interrogation room right next door,
29:32
Speaker 1: and he is singing like a bird. He is throwing
29:34
Speaker 1: you completely under the bus. He is telling us that
29:36
Speaker 1: this whole thing was your idea, and he is putting
29:39
Speaker 1: all the blood, squirming, on your hands.
29:41
Speaker 2: Now, in reality, Bryce Rhodes wasn't even in the building.
29:43
Speaker 2: He wasn't in custody. The police didn't even know where
29:45
Speaker 2: he was at that moment. But Anwan didn't know that.
29:48
Speaker 1: No clue.
29:49
Speaker 2: And the sheer panic of realizing that his mentor, this
29:52
Speaker 2: older guy he looked up to, was betraying him to
29:55
Speaker 2: save himself. That completely breaks the dam. And Wanda's loyalty
29:59
Speaker 2: evaporates and he begins to spill the horrific, unvarnished truth.
30:04
Speaker 1: Before we dive into the nightmare Anwan unloads on that table,
30:07
Speaker 1: we have to pause and deeply analyze the dark figure
30:10
Speaker 1: at the absolute center of this web, Bryce Rambo Rhodes.
30:13
Speaker 1: We need to understand how a 20-something man ends up
30:16
Speaker 1: holding the puppet strings of a group of middle schoolers.
30:19
Speaker 2: Bryce Rhodes was a known entity in the neighborhood. He
30:22
Speaker 2: fancied himself a local rapper, making small-time music videos. But
30:26
Speaker 2: his true skill set lay in manipulation.
30:28
Speaker 1: Right.
30:29
Speaker 2: He specifically positioned himself as a surrogate father figure, a mentor,
30:33
Speaker 2: to a very specific profile of teenager. He targeted Maurice, Larry, Anwan,
30:37
Speaker 2: and another teen named Jacory Taylor.
30:39
Speaker 1: The way he operated reminds me of a concept from biology.
30:42
Speaker 1: It's not just a cult leader dynamic, it's more like
30:44
Speaker 1: a parasitic wasp.
30:46
Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting.
30:47
Speaker 1: There is a type of wasp that finds a larger insect,
30:50
Speaker 1: injects it with a venom that paralyzes its ability to
30:53
Speaker 1: think for itself, but keeps it alive so it can
30:56
Speaker 1: be used to serve the wasp's needs. Wow. Bryce Rhodes
31:00
Speaker 1: identified these boys who had a massive structural void in
31:03
Speaker 1: their lives. Absent fathers, mothers working multiple jobs to survive,
31:07
Speaker 1: growing up in a tough environment. He saw that void
31:11
Speaker 1: and he swooped in to fill it.
31:13
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, that is
31:15
Speaker 2: the perfect analogy. Because the venom he used was resources
31:18
Speaker 2: and status. He didn't use violence to recruit them initially.
31:21
Speaker 2: He bought them hot meals when they were hungry. He
31:24
Speaker 2: bought them expensive new clothes and sneakers.
31:26
Speaker 1: Right.
31:26
Speaker 2: To a 14-year-old kid feeling invisible on the streets, Bryce
31:30
Speaker 2: was the ultimate, cool, older guy who had cash and
31:33
Speaker 2: commanded respect. He made them feel seen and important. But
31:37
Speaker 2: he wasn't doing this out of altruism.
31:38
Speaker 1: Not at all.
31:39
Speaker 2: He was deliberately buying their loyalty. He was indebting them
31:42
Speaker 2: to him, pulling them deeper and deeper into his criminal orbit.
31:45
Speaker 1: He was grooming them to be his soldiers. He wanted
31:48
Speaker 1: these kids to worship him to the point where they
31:51
Speaker 1: would eagerly commit crimes, do his... Dirt, as they say
31:55
Speaker 1: on the street, just to prove their toughness to him
31:58
Speaker 1: and to solidify their place in his inner circle. Yeah.
32:01
Speaker 1: And it is exactly that toxic parasitic dynamic that sets
32:05
Speaker 1: the stage for the catastrophic collision of our two seemingly
32:09
Speaker 1: unrelated crime scenes.
32:10
Speaker 2: This is the moment in the interrogation where the detectives
32:13
Speaker 2: realize they are dealing with something far bigger than they
32:16
Speaker 2: ever imagined. And one is talking, detailing the events of
32:19
Speaker 2: the last few weeks. And casually mentions that Bryce had
32:22
Speaker 2: been acting incredibly paranoid lately.
32:24
Speaker 1: Because of the other murder. Right.
32:26
Speaker 2: Bryce was terrified that Maurice and Larry were going to
32:29
Speaker 2: snitch on him for killing a guy over in the
32:31
Speaker 2: West End a few weeks prior.
32:32
Speaker 1: The detectives in the room just freeze. They look at
32:35
Speaker 1: each other. Up until this exact second, they had absolutely
32:38
Speaker 1: zero idea that there was any connection whatsoever between the
32:42
Speaker 1: burned boys in the alley and the unsolved murder of
32:44
Speaker 1: Christopher Jones, the 40-year-old man walking home.
32:47
Speaker 2: It's jaw-dropping revelation.
32:49
Speaker 1: Right.
32:50
Speaker 2: Anwan then begins to painstakingly connect the dots for them.
32:53
Speaker 2: He confesses that on the night Christopher Jones was killed,
32:56
Speaker 2: the entire crew was out hunting. It was Bryce, Anwan, Ja'Cory,
33:01
Speaker 2: and the two brothers, Maurice and Larry. They were rolling
33:04
Speaker 2: deep in two separate vehicles.
33:06
Speaker 1: And one of those vehicles, which Anwan was driving, was
33:08
Speaker 1: a stolen truck. This adds a whole new layer of
33:11
Speaker 1: tension to the night. They are driving around and Bryce
33:14
Speaker 1: is highly agitated.
33:15
Speaker 2: Right.
33:15
Speaker 1: He is claiming that someone in the neighborhood had put
33:18
Speaker 1: a hit out on him or owed him money and
33:20
Speaker 1: he is determined to find this person and exact revenge.
33:24
Speaker 1: They are cruising the streets looking for a target and
33:27
Speaker 1: that is when Bryce spots a man walking alone in
33:29
Speaker 1: the dark. It's Christopher Jones.
33:32
Speaker 2: This is where the sheer scentlessness of the tragedy peaks.
33:35
Speaker 2: Christopher Jones was not the man Bryce was looking for.
33:38
Speaker 2: He was a completely innocent civilian who happened to fit
33:41
Speaker 2: a vague description in the dark. Right. It was a
33:43
Speaker 2: fatal case of mistaken identity. Bryce pointed Christopher Jones and
33:47
Speaker 2: barks an order to his teenage crew. He tells them
33:49
Speaker 2: to shoot him.
33:50
Speaker 1: Put yourself in the shoes of those teenagers in that moment.
33:53
Speaker 1: They are desperate to impress Bryce, terrified of looking wheat
33:57
Speaker 1: and caught up in the adrenaline of the hunt. They
33:59
Speaker 1: follow his orders. Yeah. Someone opens fire from the vehicle,
34:02
Speaker 1: gunshots ring out, and Christopher Jones goes down in the street.
34:06
Speaker 2: And then panic ensues.
34:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:08
Speaker 2: Anjuan, sitting behind the wheel of the stolen truck, realizes
34:12
Speaker 2: they have just committed a drive-by murder. The adrenaline spikes,
34:16
Speaker 2: his foot slams on the gas pedal to flee the area,
34:19
Speaker 2: and in his blind haste to escape, he accidentally runs
34:21
Speaker 2: over Christopher Jones' body as it lies in the street.
34:24
Speaker 1: So, in the span of 60 seconds, these young, impressionable
34:27
Speaker 1: kids are suddenly complicit in a brutal, random murder. They
34:32
Speaker 1: speed off into the night, leaving Christopher Jones to be
34:34
Speaker 1: found by the EMTs later. But the psychological fallout begins immediately.
34:38
Speaker 1: They have crossed a line they can never uncross.
34:41
Speaker 2: And that fallout manifests primarily as intense, suffocating paranoia in
34:45
Speaker 2: Bryce Rhodes. Bryce is an experienced criminal. He knows that
34:48
Speaker 2: the weakest link in any conspiracy is a teenager with
34:51
Speaker 2: a guilty conscience.
34:52
Speaker 1: Because they talk. Right.
34:54
Speaker 2: A few days after the shooting, Bryce happens to overhear
34:57
Speaker 2: a phone conversation. Jacori is talking to Maurice. And Bryce
35:02
Speaker 2: pieces together that Maurice and Larry have been struggling with
35:04
Speaker 2: the guilt. They had been talking about the Christopher Jones
35:07
Speaker 2: murder to other people. They'd even broken down and told
35:10
Speaker 2: their mother some details about it.
35:11
Speaker 1: To Bryce, this is the ultimate betrayal. In the twisted
35:15
Speaker 1: logic of the streets, they are massive liabilities. They are snitches.
35:19
Speaker 1: And a predator like Bryce Rhodes only has one permanent
35:22
Speaker 1: solution for a snitch. He decides, coldly and calculatingly, that
35:27
Speaker 1: Maurice and Larry have to be silenced permanently.
35:29
Speaker 2: What follows is one of the most harrowing accounts of
35:32
Speaker 2: psychological and physical torture ever. you will ever encounter in
35:35
Speaker 2: a police file. I have to warn you, the details
35:38
Speaker 2: Anne Watt provides are deeply disturbing, but they are essential
35:41
Speaker 2: to understanding the sheer magnitude of Bryce's sadism.
35:44
Speaker 1: Bryce sets a trap. He lures Maurice and Larry over
35:47
Speaker 1: to his condo under the completely normal guise of just
35:50
Speaker 1: hanging out. The boys arrive, completely unaware of the danger.
35:53
Speaker 1: They're sitting in the living room, smoking, playing video games,
35:56
Speaker 1: acting like regular teenagers. At some point, a minor, typical,
36:00
Speaker 1: adolescent physical scuffle breaks out between Maurice and Jacory. Just
36:04
Speaker 1: boys wrestling. But Bryce seizes this distraction as his tactical opening.
36:10
Speaker 2: He drops the mentor facade instantly and takes terrifying, violent
36:13
Speaker 2: control of the room. He physically overpowers the brothers. He
36:17
Speaker 2: restrains them, tying them up so they cannot fight back.
36:21
Speaker 2: He takes what they call toboggan's winter beanies and pulls
36:23
Speaker 2: them down over the boys' heads. plunging them into darkness
36:26
Speaker 2: and completely disorienting them.
36:28
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
36:29
Speaker 2: He aggressively stuffs socks deep into their mouths to muffle
36:32
Speaker 2: their terrified screens, and he drags one of the brothers
36:35
Speaker 2: into the bathroom, isolating them from each other.
36:38
Speaker 1: The psychological terror of being blinded, gagged, and separated from
36:41
Speaker 1: your brother by the man you trusted is unimaginable. But
36:44
Speaker 1: here is the most insidious, purely evil part of Bracer
36:47
Speaker 1: Rhodes' plan. He did not just execute the boys himself. No.
36:51
Speaker 1: He physically brought the knives out, and he handed them
36:54
Speaker 1: to Anwan and Jakori. He ordered them to stab their
36:57
Speaker 1: own friends to death.
36:58
Speaker 2: This is not just murder. This is a calculated psychological mechanism.
37:02
Speaker 2: It is a tactic frequently utilized by high-level gang leaders
37:05
Speaker 2: and cartel bosses. It is called forced complicity.
37:09
Speaker 1: Forced complicity.
37:11
Speaker 2: Yes. Bryce knows that if he kills the brothers himself,
37:14
Speaker 2: Anwan and Jakori become witnesses who could eventually testify against him.
37:18
Speaker 2: But by forcing Anwan and Jakori to physically plunge the
37:21
Speaker 2: knives into their friends, he ensures that their hands are
37:24
Speaker 2: permanently stained with the same blood.
37:27
Speaker 1: It binds them to him forever.
37:28
Speaker 2: Exactly. He binds them to him through shared unspeakable trauma.
37:32
Speaker 2: He believes this guarantees their eternal silence because they cannot
37:36
Speaker 2: turn him in without confessing to capital murder themselves.
37:39
Speaker 1: Anwan detailed how, while standing in that bathroom, paralyzed by fear,
37:43
Speaker 1: Bryce actually prompted them to take a vote, a verbal
37:46
Speaker 1: vote on whether Maurice and Larry should live or die.
37:49
Speaker 2: Which is just chilling.
37:50
Speaker 1: And Anwan and Ja'Cory, looking at this terrifying adult who
37:53
Speaker 1: was clearly prepared to kill them next if they defied him,
37:56
Speaker 1: went along with it. They participated in the slaughter of
37:58
Speaker 1: their fans.
37:59
Speaker 2: Over 40 stab wounds were inflicted. It was a frenzied,
38:03
Speaker 2: horrifying scene of violence born out of absolute coercion and terror.
38:08
Speaker 1: After the boys are dead, the practical problem of disposal begins.
38:11
Speaker 1: They load the bloodied bodies into plastic laundry baskets. They
38:15
Speaker 1: carry them out to Bryce's vehicle, drive them to that
38:18
Speaker 1: overgrown alleyway on River Park Drive, dump them in the dirt,
38:21
Speaker 1: and set them on fire. Yeah. And there is one
38:24
Speaker 1: detail from Anwan's confession that just haunts me. It highlights
38:28
Speaker 1: the sheer chilling dissociation these kids were experiencing. While they're
38:32
Speaker 1: in the condo, shoving the bodies into the laundry baskets,
38:35
Speaker 1: Anwan looks down at Maurice's feet and says out loud, well,
38:38
Speaker 1: I'm going to take his shoes. He don't need those anymore.
38:41
Speaker 2: It is a devastating illustration of how completely warped and
38:44
Speaker 2: broken Anwan's reality had become under Bryce's influence. I mean,
38:48
Speaker 2: he has just participated in the butchering of his friend.
38:51
Speaker 2: and his brain defaults to the superficial acquisition of status symbols.
38:55
Speaker 1: It's sickening.
38:56
Speaker 2: The trauma has completely short-circuited his humanity.
38:59
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? The detectives sitting across
39:01
Speaker 1: from Anwan now have this sprawling, monstrous confession. But from
39:06
Speaker 1: a legal standpoint, you cannot just waltz into a courtroom
39:09
Speaker 1: and convict a man of a triple homicide based solely
39:12
Speaker 1: on the uncorroborated word of an admitted teenage accomplice.
39:16
Speaker 2: No, definitely not.
39:17
Speaker 1: A defense attorney would shred that in five minutes immediately.
39:20
Speaker 1: Claiming the kid is just making up a story to
39:22
Speaker 1: save himself, the police have to prove Anwan is telling
39:25
Speaker 1: the truth. They need hard, physical evidence.
39:28
Speaker 2: And that necessity triggers a massive, multi-pronged tactical operation across
39:32
Speaker 2: the city. The immediate priority is neutralizing the threat. They
39:36
Speaker 2: have to secure Bryce Rhodes before he realizes Anwan has
39:40
Speaker 2: flipped and decides to flee or silence more witnesses. The
39:43
Speaker 2: tactical unit locates Bryce at a local gas station. They
39:46
Speaker 2: execute a high-risk takedown aggressively boxing his vehicle in with
39:50
Speaker 2: armored trucks and pulling him out of the car before
39:52
Speaker 2: he even has time to reach for the ignition or
39:54
Speaker 2: a weapon?
39:55
Speaker 1: They transport Bryce to an interrogation room, and his demeanor
39:58
Speaker 1: is entirely different from Anwan's frantic confession. Bryce is incredibly composed.
40:04
Speaker 1: He plays it extremely cool. He's aloof, detached, and plays dumb.
40:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, he doesn't give him anything.
40:10
Speaker 1: When the detectives ask him if he knows the two
40:12
Speaker 1: dead boys from the news, he doesn't deny it. He
40:15
Speaker 1: casually leans back and says, yeah, I knew them. Good kids.
40:17
Speaker 1: I used to play basketball with them at the park.
40:20
Speaker 1: He even casually drops the fact that he used to
40:22
Speaker 1: date their mom, almost daring the police to use that
40:24
Speaker 1: against him.
40:25
Speaker 2: It is a highly calculated performance.
40:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:27
Speaker 2: Bryce is treating the interrogation like a chess match.
40:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:30
Speaker 2: He is offering innocuous truths to build a veneer of
40:33
Speaker 2: cooperation while simultaneously probing the detectives' questions to figure out
40:38
Speaker 2: exactly how much they know. Right. He is stonewalling them brilliantly.
40:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:42
Speaker 2: But while he is sitting in that room feeling confident,
40:45
Speaker 2: He is unaware that the police are simultaneously executing a
40:48
Speaker 2: completely different maneuver.
40:49
Speaker 1: Which brings up a great procedural question. How do the
40:52
Speaker 1: police legally keep Bryce locked in an interrogation room when
40:56
Speaker 1: he isn't confessing to anything and they don't have hard
40:59
Speaker 1: evidence yet? Don't you have to let him go?
41:02
Speaker 2: They utilize what is called an investigative detention. Because Anwan
41:06
Speaker 2: is confession provided specific details implicating Bryce in a felony,
41:11
Speaker 2: The police have probable cause to hold him for a
41:14
Speaker 2: limited amount of time while they attempt to corroborate the story.
41:17
Speaker 1: Got it.
41:18
Speaker 2: The clock is furiously ticking. While Bryce is stonewalling the interrogators,
41:23
Speaker 2: another team of detectives is standing in front of a
41:26
Speaker 2: judge using N1' s statement to secure a search warrant for
41:29
Speaker 2: Bryce's condo. Once the ink on that warrant is dry,
41:32
Speaker 2: The crime scene technicians kick the door in.
41:34
Speaker 1: And the scene inside that condo is a forensic goldmine,
41:37
Speaker 1: despite the fact that Bryce had spent hours trying to
41:39
Speaker 1: sanitize the slaughterhouse. When the detectives walk through the front door,
41:42
Speaker 1: the chemical smell of bleach is so intense and overpowering
41:45
Speaker 1: that it literally makes their eyes water and their throats burn.
41:48
Speaker 1: The carpets are soaked in it.
41:50
Speaker 2: As an investigator, smelling bleach at a suspected crime scene
41:53
Speaker 2: makes your stomach drop. Bleach is a highly aggressive chemical
41:57
Speaker 2: that destroys the long, fragile chains of DNA.
41:59
Speaker 1: Right, it denatures proteins.
42:01
Speaker 2: Exactly. making traditional blood typing and DNA extraction incredibly difficult,
42:06
Speaker 2: if not impossible. Bryce knew exactly what he was doing.
42:10
Speaker 2: He was engaging in chemical warfare against the forensic evidence.
42:13
Speaker 1: But science has an answer for that, right? The technicians
42:16
Speaker 1: deploy a chemical called Bluestar.
42:18
Speaker 2: Exactly. Bluestar is an advanced proprietary formulation of luminol. And
42:22
Speaker 2: to understand why this works, we need to look at
42:25
Speaker 2: the chemistry of blood. Hemoglobin, the protein molecule in red
42:28
Speaker 2: blood cells that carries oxygen, contains a core component. Iron.
42:33
Speaker 1: Iron.
42:33
Speaker 2: Yes. Iron is an elemental metal. You cannot bleach away
42:36
Speaker 2: a base element. You can destroy the DNA around it,
42:39
Speaker 2: but the iron remains embedded in the carpet fibers that
42:41
Speaker 2: grout the floorboards. When the technicians spray the Blue Star
42:44
Speaker 2: chemical across the dark room, it reacts with the elemental
42:47
Speaker 2: iron in a process called chemiluminescence.
42:50
Speaker 1: And the reaction in Brace's condo was massive. The lead
42:54
Speaker 1: detective on the scene described the moment they turned off
42:56
Speaker 1: the lights. The carpet didn't just have a few specks
42:59
Speaker 1: of light. It illuminated the entire room. glowing, as he
43:03
Speaker 1: described it, like a full moon in the sky. It
43:06
Speaker 1: revealed the exact drag marks when the bodies were moved.
43:09
Speaker 1: They even found microscopic droplets of blood cast off onto
43:12
Speaker 1: the petals of fake plastic flowers sitting in a vase
43:15
Speaker 1: across the room. Despite gallons of bleach, the undeniable footprint
43:20
Speaker 1: of the murders was glowing in the dark.
43:22
Speaker 2: It was a forensic triumph. But the corroboration didn't stop
43:25
Speaker 2: at the condo walls, and Juan had provided another highly
43:29
Speaker 2: specific detail in his confession. He told detectives that after
43:32
Speaker 2: they dumped the bodies, they gathered all the bloody towels,
43:35
Speaker 2: the pillows, the victim's clothing, and the plastic laundry baskets,
43:38
Speaker 2: threw them into a commercial dumpster across town, and set
43:41
Speaker 2: the dumpster on fire.
43:42
Speaker 1: Now, think about the needle in a haystack this represents.
43:46
Speaker 1: And as a major city, dumpster fires happen constantly. But
43:50
Speaker 1: detectives go to the fire department and pull the dispatch
43:53
Speaker 1: records for every single dumpster fire reported on the night
43:56
Speaker 1: of the murders. They cross-reference the locations. And they pinpoint
44:00
Speaker 1: the exact dumpster Anwan described.
44:02
Speaker 2: But pinpointing it isn't enough. They have to recover evidence
44:06
Speaker 2: from it. And remember, it was on fire.
44:08
Speaker 1: These detectives literally put on full-body, white Tyvek hazardous material suits.
44:14
Speaker 1: They climb into this massive, foul-smelling dumpster, and they spend
44:17
Speaker 1: hours methodically digging through wet ash, charred garbage, and debris.
44:21
Speaker 2: Incredible dedication.
44:22
Speaker 1: And their exhausting effort pays off in spades. Deep at
44:25
Speaker 1: the bottom, insulated from the flames by layers of trash,
44:28
Speaker 1: they find unburned, blood-soaked towels and pillows. And they don't
44:32
Speaker 1: just find blood. They find pillows that perfectly match the
44:34
Speaker 1: specific decorative decor of Bryce Rhodes' condo. The physical link
44:38
Speaker 1: is undeniable.
44:39
Speaker 2: Plus the witnesses. Yes.
44:41
Speaker 1: Furthermore, the detectives canvas the area around the dumpster and
44:45
Speaker 1: locate two independent civilian witnesses who positively placed Bryce Rhodes'
44:51
Speaker 1: specific vehicle at that exact dumpster At the exact time
44:54
Speaker 1: the fire was started.
44:55
Speaker 2: It is a master class in corroboration. And the final
44:58
Speaker 2: piece of the physical puzzle clicks into place a few
45:01
Speaker 2: days later. The other teen, Ja'Cory Taylor, had given his
45:04
Speaker 2: boots to his girlfriend and told her to hide them.
45:06
Speaker 1: The ones he wore during the murder.
45:08
Speaker 2: Right. The guilt and fear got to her and she
45:11
Speaker 2: contacted the police, turning the boots over. When the crime
45:14
Speaker 2: lab analyzed them, they were covered in blood that matched
45:17
Speaker 2: the victims. The physical evidence completely undeniably locked in the
45:21
Speaker 2: narrative provided by the teenagers.
45:23
Speaker 1: Armed with this mountain of evidence, the police formally charged
45:26
Speaker 1: Bryce Rhodes, Anawan Carter, Ja'Coria Taylor, and a fourth teen
45:30
Speaker 1: who was present that night, Taryn Coleman, with the murders. Now,
45:33
Speaker 1: you hear all of this, the glowing carpet, the matching pillows,
45:36
Speaker 1: the confessions, and you think, OK, open and shut case.
45:39
Speaker 1: Swift justice is coming.
45:41
Speaker 2: Oh, not even close.
45:42
Speaker 1: No. If you believe that, you are in for a
45:46
Speaker 1: profoundly frustrating reality check regarding the American judicial system. The
45:51
Speaker 1: murders occurred in 2016. Bryce Rhodes did not stand trial
45:54
Speaker 1: until December of 2023. There was a maddening, agonizing seven-year
45:59
Speaker 1: gap between the crime and the courtroom.
46:02
Speaker 2: Seven years is an eternity for the grieving families waiting
46:05
Speaker 2: for closure. To put that in perspective, a complex capital
46:09
Speaker 2: murder case might normally take two to three years to
46:11
Speaker 2: work its way through the pretrial motions and discovery phases.
46:14
Speaker 1: Seven years is insane. It is.
46:17
Speaker 2: A seven-year delay indicates a system that is being actively
46:19
Speaker 2: manipulated and gridlocked by severe procedural breakdowns and relentless legal maneuvering.
46:24
Speaker 1: And Bryce Rhodes was the architect of that gridlock. He
46:27
Speaker 1: intentionally turned the legal process into an absolute, unmitigated circus.
46:31
Speaker 1: He fired attorney after attorney, invoking his right to counsel,
46:34
Speaker 1: only to claim they were incompetent months later, forcing the
46:37
Speaker 1: clock to reset. And it wasn't just filing paperwork. His
46:40
Speaker 1: behavior in the courtroom during pretrial hearings was violent and chaotic.
46:44
Speaker 1: He physically fought with his own lawyers. In one horrific instance,
46:49
Speaker 1: he spat directly in the face of his own defense
46:52
Speaker 1: attorney in open court.
46:53
Speaker 2: His behavior escalated to such an extreme level of physical
46:56
Speaker 2: threat that the judge had to implement extraordinary, unprecedented security
47:01
Speaker 2: measures just to hold a hearing.
47:03
Speaker 1: They literally had to bring Bryce Rhodes into the courtroom,
47:07
Speaker 1: strapped into a specialized full-body restraining suit, and they placed
47:10
Speaker 1: a mesh spit mask over his head.
47:12
Speaker 2: Like Hannibal Lecter.
47:14
Speaker 1: Exactly. The journalist sitting in the gallery covering the hearings
47:17
Speaker 1: explicitly compared the visual to Hannibal Lecter. And even while
47:21
Speaker 1: bound and masked, he refused to stop. He verbally threatened
47:24
Speaker 1: the life of a sitting judge, telling him he was
47:25
Speaker 1: going to find out where he lived. He filed bizarre
47:28
Speaker 1: motions accusing another judge of being a member of the KKK.
47:31
Speaker 1: It was a relentless, calculated campaign of disruption to break
47:35
Speaker 1: the system.
47:36
Speaker 2: And this raises an important question about the intersection of
47:39
Speaker 2: severe mental illness and calculated manipulative evil within the justice system.
47:45
Speaker 2: Because of his documented psychological history and this erratic combative behavior,
47:50
Speaker 2: Bryce's defense team repeatedly requested competency hearings. Eventually, due to
47:56
Speaker 2: diagnoses of severe mental illness, the state determined he was
47:59
Speaker 2: legally ineligible to face the death penalty. Yet, as the
48:03
Speaker 2: lead prosecutor brilliantly argued, while his actions in the courtroom
48:07
Speaker 2: appeared chaotic and mentally unstable, his actions on the night
48:10
Speaker 2: of the murders were highly organized, calculating, and cruel.
48:13
Speaker 1: Very calculated.
48:14
Speaker 2: He knew how to isolate victims. He knew how to
48:16
Speaker 2: force complicity to ensure silence. and he knew how to
48:19
Speaker 2: use bleach to destroy DNA. That is not the behavior
48:22
Speaker 2: of someone disconnected from reality. That is the behavior of
48:24
Speaker 2: a cunning predator.
48:26
Speaker 1: When the trial finally officially gets underway in December of 2023,
48:29
Speaker 1: the prosecution's entire strategy hinges on the testimony of Anwang
48:33
Speaker 1: and Jacory. Both of the teens had taken plea deals,
48:37
Speaker 1: agreeing to accept lesser sentences in exchange for getting on
48:39
Speaker 1: the stand and telling the jury exactly what Bryce forced
48:42
Speaker 1: them to do.
48:43
Speaker 2: Putting co-defendants on the witness stand is always a massive
48:46
Speaker 2: gamble for a prosecutor. Because a defense attorney will inevitably
48:50
Speaker 2: and often successfully paint them as self-serving liars. The defense
48:53
Speaker 2: will argue, these kids are just pointing the finger at
48:56
Speaker 2: the adult in the room to save their own skin
48:58
Speaker 2: and get a lighter sentence.
49:00
Speaker 1: And that is precisely the tactic Bryce's defense team employs.
49:03
Speaker 1: They don't even bother calling a single witness of their
49:06
Speaker 1: own to testify on Bryce's behalf. Wow. Instead, they focus
49:10
Speaker 1: all their energy on aggressively, relentlessly cross-examining the teenagers. The
49:15
Speaker 1: defense attorney stands in front of the jury and essentially says,
49:18
Speaker 1: look at these kids. They just sat up there and
49:21
Speaker 1: freely admitted to stabbing their own friends over 40 times.
49:24
Speaker 1: They admitted to hauling the bodies to an alley and
49:26
Speaker 1: setting them on fire. They admitted to stealing the victim's shoes.
49:30
Speaker 2: Right, painting them as the real monsters.
49:32
Speaker 1: Exactly. They are the actual killers and they are just
49:34
Speaker 1: using Bryce Rose as a convenient scapegoat. And they hammered
49:38
Speaker 1: home one specific point. Bryce's fingerprints were never found on
49:41
Speaker 1: the murder weapons, and his DNA was not found on
49:45
Speaker 1: the burned bodies in the alley.
49:46
Speaker 2: It is a classic defense strategy. Attack the circumstantial nature
49:50
Speaker 2: of the evidence. But the jury had a monumental task.
49:55
Speaker 2: They had to weigh that lack of direct physical evidence,
49:58
Speaker 2: like a fingerprint on a knife handle, against the overwhelming
50:01
Speaker 2: mountain of circumstantial evidence.
50:03
Speaker 1: And the blue star evidence.
50:04
Speaker 2: Right. They had to look at the glowing blue star
50:07
Speaker 2: photos from Bryce's condo, the blood-soaked pillows pulled from the
50:10
Speaker 2: exact dumpster Bryce's car was seen at, and the chilling,
50:14
Speaker 2: deeply corroborated consistency of the teenager's testimonies detailing Bryce's role
50:19
Speaker 2: as the puppet master.
50:21
Speaker 1: And thankfully, the jury saw right through the defense's smoke
50:24
Speaker 1: and mirrors. They recognized the grooming, the manipulation, and the
50:28
Speaker 1: forced complicity for exactly what it was. Despite the exhausting
50:31
Speaker 1: seven years of delays, the endless legal tricks, and the
50:34
Speaker 1: courtroom theatrics, Once the jury finally got the case, it
50:37
Speaker 1: took them less than five hours of deliberation to return
50:40
Speaker 1: with a verdict.
50:40
Speaker 2: Less than five hours.
50:41
Speaker 1: Less than five hours. They found Bryce Rhodes guilty on
50:44
Speaker 1: three counts of murder.
50:46
Speaker 2: And because the death penalty had been taken off the
50:48
Speaker 2: table during the pretrial phase, the judge handed down the
50:52
Speaker 2: absolute maximum penalty allowable by law. Life in prison without
50:58
Speaker 2: the possibility of parole. He will never take another breath
51:02
Speaker 2: as a free man.
51:03
Speaker 1: In the aftermath of the verdict, during the sentencing phase,
51:06
Speaker 1: the families of the victims finally, after seven long years,
51:10
Speaker 1: had their chance to stand up in court and speak.
51:12
Speaker 1: The victim impact statements are incredibly difficult to listen to.
51:16
Speaker 2: I can only imagine.
51:17
Speaker 1: You hear the deep, lingering generational pain of a family
51:20
Speaker 1: that was forced to wait almost a decade for a
51:22
Speaker 1: semblance of justice. You hear a mother talking about her boys,
51:27
Speaker 1: kids who love playing football in the yard, kids who
51:30
Speaker 1: wanted to grow up and make music. Entire futures, entire
51:33
Speaker 1: lives completely snuffed out by a man they had mistakenly
51:36
Speaker 1: looked up to as a mentor.
51:38
Speaker 2: One of the veteran investigators who worked this case for
51:40
Speaker 2: years reflected on it after the trial concluded, and his
51:43
Speaker 2: words were profound and deeply unsettling.
51:46
Speaker 1: What did he say?
51:47
Speaker 2: He said, I've dealt with all kinds of criminals in
51:49
Speaker 2: my career. I've seen bad people do bad things, but
51:53
Speaker 2: evil exists, and I have seen evil. This case highlights
51:56
Speaker 2: not just the tragic, senseless loss of Christopher Jones and
51:59
Speaker 2: the two young brothers. But it also exposes the permanent,
52:03
Speaker 2: irreversible scarring of the teen accomplices. Anwan and Jacori were
52:07
Speaker 2: children who were manipulated, terrified, and forced into committing unspeakable atrocities.
52:13
Speaker 2: Their lives, their psyches, are forever ruined simply because they
52:17
Speaker 2: wandered too close to the gravitational pull of Bryce Rhodes.
52:21
Speaker 1: Which leaves us with a lingering, provocative thought to mull
52:24
Speaker 1: over as we close this file. We have seen exactly
52:27
Speaker 1: how quickly, how efficiently, and how mercilessly a predator like
52:31
Speaker 1: Bryce Rhodes can identify and exploit the structural void left
52:34
Speaker 1: by an absent family or a struggling community. He saw
52:38
Speaker 1: vulnerable kids desperately looking for guidance, looking for a father figure,
52:41
Speaker 1: and he weaponized their need for belonging against them. When
52:45
Speaker 1: we look around our own communities, our own neighborhoods, we
52:47
Speaker 1: have to ask ourselves a very uncomfortable question. How many
52:50
Speaker 1: vulnerable kids are out there right now silently waiting for
52:53
Speaker 1: a mentor to show them the way? And what happens
52:55
Speaker 1: to the fabric of a society when the wrong person
52:57
Speaker 1: answers that call first?
52:59
Speaker 2: It is a chilling, urgent reality that every community needs
53:03
Speaker 2: to confront.
53:03
Speaker 1: We started this deep dive by talking about the clean,
53:06
Speaker 1: comforting precision of a medical x-ray. How we desperately want
53:10
Speaker 1: to see the broken bones of a tragedy in stark,
53:13
Speaker 1: easily understandable black and white. Right.
53:15
Speaker 2: We want that clarity.
53:16
Speaker 1: But this case proves that the anatomy of violence is
53:19
Speaker 1: rarely that clean. When a predator infects a community, the
53:22
Speaker 1: damage doesn't just shatter a single bone. It radiates outward,
53:26
Speaker 1: corrupting everything it touches, leaving behind a murky, devastating landscape
53:31
Speaker 1: of trauma that takes years to even begin to understand.
53:34
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into
53:36
Speaker 1: the shadows. Stay curious, stay vigilant, and we'll see you
53:39
Speaker 1: next time.