Latest / True Crime Reactions / SERIAL KILLER: Todd Kohlhepp | Case Reaction & Analysis

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SERIAL KILLER: Todd Kohlhepp | Case Reaction & Analysis · True Crime Reactions

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know, you open up your app and you're just
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: scrolling through the directory looking for something to listen.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: To, right, just like doing the daily scroll.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and you see this piece of audio and the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: algorithmic metadata tags it with this very specific, very reassuring label.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: It just says clean.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, clean, which usually means you know, safer work
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: save for the kids in the car.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Right, So you hit play. But the moment the audio
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: actually starts, you aren't met with like family friendly banter
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: at all. You are immediately plunged into the story of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a man who systematically lured and tortured multiple people on
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: his property.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really jarring transition.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: It's wild. You're hearing about literally the worst things a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: human being can do to another human being, and yet
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the digital infrastructure of the platform just considers this a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: clean piece of content, which is such.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: A massive contradiction.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It really is like, how do those two realities even
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: exist in the same digital space? And honestly, that contradiction
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and is exactly what we are going to tear apart
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: today in this deep dive.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: It's a fascinating paradox really, and I think it gets
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: to the very heart of how we process information today
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: because you know, we usually consume these stories by focusing
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: entirely on the narrative itself.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Sure, like the timeline of the crimes, the victims, the
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: police investigation exactly.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: But if you take a step back and look at
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the container holding that story, like the actual media structure,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: you start to see a completely different picture.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I like to think of it like standing in
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: front of a massive, elaborate haunted house attraction. Oh I
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: like that analogy, right, Like normally when we talk about
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: true crime, we are walking through that house as a consumer.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: We're letting ourselves get terrified by the jump scares. You know,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: we're looking at the monsters. We're just experiencing the visceral.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Horror of it all. You're just in the experience.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: But today we are unrolling the blueprints. We are looking
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: at the architectural schematics to understand exactly how that fear
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: is packaged, marketed, and district to literally millions of people simultaneously.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: And to do that, we are looking at a very
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: specific snapshot in time. We have the official directory listing,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: the show notes, and the global distribution data for a
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: forty one minute deep dive that was released on August six,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: twenty eighteen.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, so a few years back.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was produced by a network called Audio
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Chuck for a show called Crime Junkie, which is hosted
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: by Ashley Flowers and Britt Prawot. And the subject matter
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: they are covering is the horrific reality of a serial
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: killer named Todd Colehep.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So, for everyone listening, you know, whether you are a
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: dedicated consumer of this kind of media or just someone
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: curious about how modern storytelling works, we are going to
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: map out the massive gap and honestly, the incredibly slick
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: bridge between a grim physical reality and this community driven
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: digital phenomena.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Right, because our mission here is to figure out how
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: creators take the absolute darkest impulses of humanity and re
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: engineer them, re.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Engineer them into like an intimate, globally consumed fandom exactly.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: And we have to start with the horrific core of
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the story because without that core tragedy, none of this
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: surrounding media apparatus even exists.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: No, it doesn't. It's the engine for the whole thing.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Right, And the source text we're analyzing from these show notes,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: it doesn't mince words, but it is highly calculated in
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: its delivery. Also, well, it gives us a very specific
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: summary of Colhep's crimes. It explicitly states we are dealing
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: with multiple murders. But it doesn't just give a body count,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: you know. It describes his modus operenda in a way
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: that's designed to capture maximum attention right out of the gate.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have the text right here. It reads, this
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: man lured literally countless people to his property, only to
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: systematically torture and murder them.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that phrasing is incredibly intense.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: It is, and I want to break down that specific
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: phrasing because it feels very, very intentional. Let's look at
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the word systematically.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, that word does a lot of heavy lifting.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: It really does. When you hear this someone systematically tortured
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and murdered victims, it completely shifts your mental image of
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the offender. Right. We aren't talking about a crime of
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: sudden passion or like a chaotic string of disorganized violence.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. Systematic implies a deeply disturbing level
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  Speaker 2: of organization.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Right, it implies a process.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly When you use that word, you are signaling to
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: the audience that this offender treated violence like an industrial operation.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: A system has rules, it has a routine, it has
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: this terrifyingly premeditated structure to it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, it paints the picture of a predator who
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: didn't just snap one day, but who acted as the
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: architect of his own dark reality on this specific, geographically
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: contained piece of property.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: The psychological weight of that word is just massive. It
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: tells the listener that the threat wasn't random, it was
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: a sustained, calculated environment of terror.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: It really makes the reality of what happened on that
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: property feel so much colder. But and I have a
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: real issue with the other half of that description, which part,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the part where the text says he lord literally countless
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: people to his property to push on that.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I was wondering if you'd catch that.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, from an investigative standpoint, law enforcement agencies count
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: they look for forensic evidence, missing persons, reports, tangible data.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Right, they deal in hard facts.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they might say dozens or an unknown number, but
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: they don't say literally countless. Do we think this is
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: meant to be taken as a factual statement or is
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: this the show flexing in a motive storytelling muscle to
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: grip the audience.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: That is exactly where you see the friction between factual
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: reporting and narrative entertainment. You are entirely correct. Investigators do
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: not deal in the countless. They operate on.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Evidence, right, So why use that phrase?
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Because when the show notes use the phrase literally countless,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: they are leveraging a dramatic hook. It is a rhetorical device.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: They're using it to emphasize the sheer, unknown scale of
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: his terror.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: But doesn't that blur the line in a way that's
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: slightly misleading? If I read literally countless, my brain immediately
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: goes to hundreds, if not thousands of victims.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely amplifies the perceived scale.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: It feels like they are using hyperbole to make a
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: real world tragedy sound like a horror movie premise.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: It does push the boundary of objective reality. I agree,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: But we have to look at what it accomplishes psychologically
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: for the listener.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, what does it accomplish?
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: It creates a void of information. It's like, think about
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: looking out at the ocean at night. You don't know
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: how deep it is or what's swimming beneath.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: The surface, right, and that's terrifying.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly, that unknown is far more terrifying than a pool
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: where you can clearly see the bottom and measure the
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: exact depth. By saying literally countless, the architects of this
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: story are telling the audience that the horror here is
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: bigger than their comprehension.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: They are doing this right in the short text designed
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: to get you to click play.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, they need to establish the stakes immediately.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, I see the narrative utility there. They need to
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: hook you in. But the thing that completely baffles me
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: is the constraint they're working.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Within, the run time constraint.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, they set up this sprawling, incomprehensible horror, a man
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: running a systematic operation of torture and murder with literally
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: countless potential victims, And then the metadata shows us that
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the runtime for this audio file is exactly forty one minutes.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: That constraint is the defining feature of modern audio storytelling.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Honestly, forty one minutes. You barely get through the drive
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: through and back home in forty one minutes.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: It's very short for such a heavy topic.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: How do you take a saga of unimaginable human suffering,
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  Speaker 1: complex criminal psychology, the victims, backstories, and a massive law
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: enforcement investigation and compress it into less than three quarters
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  Speaker 1: of an hour.
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  Speaker 2: It's tough.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: It feels physically impossible without losing the gravity of what
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: actually happened.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Well, it requires a ruthless process of narrative distillation. The
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: creators of this media are not acting as court stenographers.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Right, They aren't just reading transcripts exactly.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: They cannot give you every single day of the investigation,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: the endless paperwork, or all those dead end leads that
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: took months to resolve.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Did you lose the audience?
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Right? So to fit this into a forty one minute window,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: they have to mold raw chaotic reality into a tight,
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: digestible structure. Usually that means a traditional three act narrative
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: arc like.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: A movie set up, escalation, and resolution bingo.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: They have to strip away the minutia and focus entirely
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: on the emotional highlights, the lowest lows, and the pivotal
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: turning points of the coal Hub case.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate streamlining of horror. They are filtering out
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: the boring, tedious realities of police work and serving up
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: a concentrated shot of adrenaline.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Adrenaline timed perfectly for a standard morning commute.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, But my question is what does that compression
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: do to our understanding of the violence.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: It fundamentally changes the nature of the violence. Oh so,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: when tragedy is streamlined for consumption like that, it becomes digestible.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: It becomes something you can safely interact with while doing
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: the dishes, folding laundry, or you know, driving to work.
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  Speaker 1: So it softens the blow.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, the forty one minute format essentially acts as a
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: containment vessel.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: A containment vessel, I like that. It's like putting a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: heavy lid on a boiling pot.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. The
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: structure inherently tells the listener, look, the subject matter is terrifying,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: the actions of Todd coule Hepper deeply disturbing. But I
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: promise you it will all be wrapped up and over
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: in less than an hour.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Right, and psychological order will be restored.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It provides a safety net that reality simply does
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: not offer. In reality, the trauma of Colhep's victims doesn't
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: end in forty one minutes. The legal battles drag on
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: for years. The grief is permanent, but the.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Media product offers a clean, time stamped resolution. You literally
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: see the progress bar getting closer to the end.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Right. But and this is where it gets really interesting.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: The creators, Ashley Flowers and brit Prawlwat are incredibly savvy.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, they definitely are, because just as.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: They offer you that neat forty one minute resolution for
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: the main story of what happened on that property, they
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: immediately pulled a rugout from under you in the very
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: same show notes.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, I saw that they pivot from the known resolved
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: horrors to an unresolved.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Mystery, right, and this leads us to how they expand
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: the narrative beyond the confines of a single audio file.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: The transition in the text is so seamless. Let's look
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: at the exact wording, because right after describing the systemic
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: torture and murder, the source text says to find out
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: more about one of his possible victims, check out our
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: bonus episode about the disappearance of Tammy Kingery in our
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: fan club m H.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: And then it provides a direct link crime Junkie dot
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: appleberary detailing how to join.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: This is just a masterclass in media monetization, isn't it.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: It's brilliant media architecture. They have established a core product,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: the forty one minute exploration of Colehup's known proven crimes,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: which is free. Yes, that core narrative is available for free,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: is supported by advertisements. We know that because the notes
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: later mentioned an add free benefit for club members.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Right. But the deeper lore, you know, the spectative investigation
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: into a possible victim named Tammy Kingrey is gated. It
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: sits entirely behind a paywall on a proprietary platform.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: We are looking at a direct intersection between the narration
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: of a criminal investigation and a tiered subscription business model.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: So the timeline we know for sure the facts of
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Colhep's operation is for the general public. But if you
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: want to follow the threads of possibilities.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: You want to know about Tammy Kingery, a real woman
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: who actually disappeared, right.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: And who might be connected to this horrific reality, you
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: have to upgrade. You have to become a paying supporter.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: The unresolved fate of a real human being is positioned
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: as premium content.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I have to stop here because this is where the
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: mechanics of this industry start to feel incredibly uncomfortable to me.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: It's definitely a gray area.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: We are talking about the commodification of a missing woman,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: using the disappearance of Tammy Kingery as a carrot to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: drive subscription revenue, positioning her story as an exclusive bonus
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: feature to get people to enter their credit card information.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: It feels transactional.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: It feels inherently transactional. It feels like leveraging tragedy for
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: a business metric.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I completely understand why you see it that way, and honestly,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: it is a major point of tension in the analysis
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: of this entire media format.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: So how do you justify it or how do they
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: justify it?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Well, if we look at the reality of independent digital publishing,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: producing high quality, heavily researched audio requires significant capital, hosting servers,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: conducting research, paying a production team. None of that is free.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: No, I get that. Mainstream news networks have massive corporate
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: backing to fund their investigations. Independent networks like audio Chuck
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: have to rely on their audience.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Sure, keeping the lights on costs money. But why gate
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the unresolved mystery? Why not just gate the main story?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Because the unresolved mystery is the ultimate hook for a
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: dedicated audience. I see, the main story is the top
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: of the funnel. It brings in the massive casual listener base,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: but the deeply invested listener, the one who wants to
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: turn over every single stone. They're the ones willing to
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: financially support the deep dive into a tangential, unresolved case
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: like Tammy Kingery's.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: So the super fans pay for the extra digging.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Right, And you could argue that without the subscription model,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: the research time dedicated to connecting Kingery to Coulhep might
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: never have been funded at all.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, that's a different way to look at it.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the paywall isn't necessarily just a barrier to the
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: truth in the architecture of modern media. It's actually the
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: mechanism that funds the search for it.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I see the economic reality of it. You can't produce
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: content out of thin air. But even if I accept
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the business model, even if I say, okay, they need
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to get paid, the terminology they use is what really
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: throws me off.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: You mean the phrase they use for the subscription.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, they don't call it a premium subscriber toer or
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: a Patreon or like a journalism support fund. They call
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: it a fan club.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that specific phrase is vital to understanding how the
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: audience interacts with the material.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: When I hear fan club, I think of pop culture.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I think of Taylor Swift, or a massively popular sports
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: franchise or a boy band.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Right Eugina fan club because you idolize.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Someone exactly, Yeah, because you want exclusive merchandise, early access
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to concert tickets, and to feel like you belong to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: a special, exclusive group of devotees. To take that exact
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: term and apply it to a community that gathers to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: dissect the actions of a serial killer who systematically tortured people.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: It's jarring.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: It's more than jarring. It feels like a profound shift
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: in how we process dark history. It frames the consumption
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of crime not as information gathering, but as a fandom.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: It implies that the listener is not just a consumer
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: of facts. You are a fan of the delivery mechanism itself.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: You are a fan of the show, a fan of
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: the hosts, a fan of the emotional experience they provide
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: while discussing these horrors.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: It's about the hosts as much as the case.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Completely. By joining the fan club, you get the ad
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: free experience, and you get the exclusive Tammy Kingery bonus content.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: You basically get to go deeper into the hu a
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: house than the general public is allowed to.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Go, which shifts the dynamic from passive listening to active
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: identity based participation.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: It does it builds a community around the content, which.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Is a brilliant way to build a sustainable business. Ye.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: You aren't just selling audio files. You are selling belonging. Yes.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: And to understand how they generate that sense of belonging
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: so effectively, we really have to look past the content
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: itself and examine the architects of the story. We have
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: to look at how Ashley Flowers and Britt Praywat break
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: down the traditional broadcasting wall.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Because the show notes give us a very clear map
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: of their engagement strategy. They list a massive, interconnected ecosystem
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: of social platforms.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're telling the listener exactly where to find them Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: They provide handles for the show, handles for the audio
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Chuck Network, and personal handles for the hosts themselves, which.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Is standard for a lot of media today. You know,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: you expect a show to have an Instagram account, But
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: then you keep reading the source material and there is
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: one sentence that completely breaks the mold.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: It's the text number, isn't it Yes.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Right there in the open directory, accessible to anyone who
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: clicks on the deep dive. It says, text Ashley at
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: three one seven seven three three seven four eighty five
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: updates and more.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: That single line of text fundamentally changes the relationship between
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: the broadcaster and the audience.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: It completely shatters the illusion of distance.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's an actual ten digit phone number with
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: an Indiana area code. Think about the history of broadcast journalism.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: The anchor sat behind a desk, read the news with
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: absolute objective distance, signed off, and disappeared until the next evening.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Right you didn't know them, You certainly.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Couldn't reach them. The idea of Walter Cronkite putting his
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: personal cell phone number at the bottom of the screen
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and saying, shoot me a text to chat about this murder,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: that is fundamentally incompatible with traditional media.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: It is because traditional media relied on authority through separation.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: The anchor was the expert and you were just the
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: passive receiver exactly. But what Ashley Flowers and Britt pray
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Watt are doing here is establishing a signature storytelling style
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: built on the absolute opposite premise. They are building authority
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: through unprecedented access and assumed intimacy.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Assumed intimacy, that's a great way to phrase it.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this approach frames the hosts not as distant, unapproachable
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: journalists in a glass studio, but as your highly informed,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: true crime obsessed peers.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: It's a leveling of the playing field. It signals to
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the audience, Hey, there is no hierarchy here. We're all
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: just people fascinated by the dark side of human nature,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and we're in this together.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: And that fosters a highly potent parasocial relationship.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Let's unpack that term because it gets thrown around a
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: lot online. Bear social relationship is essentially a one sided
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: psychological bond, right, correct. It's when a media consumer feels
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a false sense of intimacy or friendship with a media persona,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: even though the persona has absolutely no idea who the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: individual consumer actually is.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: But what is happening here is an evolution of that concept.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: By offering a text number, they are creating a mechanism
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: for two way communication, or at the very least the
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: highly engineered illusion of it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: So it feels two sided, even if it's mostly automated
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: or scaled.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, the listener isn't just downloading a static audio file.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: They're entering a dialogue. When a listener texts that three
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: to seven mainteen number, they are hoping for a reply.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: They're hoping for a behind the scenes update that makes
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: them feel like a true insider to the investigation.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I keep thinking about how isolating listening to audio usually is.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Like you have your headphones on. You might be walking
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the dog alone or sitting in traffic. It's a solitary act.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: It's very isolated.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: But this phone number acts like a tether. It's like
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you're not just listening to a scary story in the dark.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: The storyteller is passing you a flashlight, handing you their phone,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and saying, let's figure this out together. Text me your theory.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: They have taken a solitary medium and turned it into
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: a deeply communal, interactive experience. They have engineered intimacy.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: At scale, intimacy at scale. Wow.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: And when you understand that engineer at intimacy, the success
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: of the fan club we debated earlier makes complete sense.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, because the emotional investment drives the financial investment.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly if a listener genuinely feels like Ashley and Britt
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: are their friends if they're texting with them, following their
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: personal tiktoks, engaging with their behind the scenes updates. Then
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: paying for a fan club membership doesn't feel like a
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: coal transaction with a corporation.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: It feels like supporting your friends right.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: It feels like chipping in for gas money on a
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: shared road trip. The parasocial bond completely removes the friction
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: of the paywall that.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Phrase intimacy at scale. It's honestly kind of haunting when
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: you look at the actual distribution data provided in our source.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Material, because of how massive it is.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, because the intimacy feels so local. It feels like
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: two friends sitting on a couch in Indiana talking about
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a guy who committed crimes on a property in South Carolina.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But the scale, the scale is truly hard to wrap
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: your head around.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: The global footprint of this single forty one minute file
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: is staggering, it really is.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: This stands in wild contrast to where this audio is
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: actually being broadcast. The technology of RSS distribution allows this
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: highly localized American narrative to instantaneously permeate the.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Globe right, RSS feeds just push it everywhere at once.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: The list of countries provided in the source is massive.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: This story about Todd colhep is available in markets spanning Africa,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the Middle East, Asia, Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and North America.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: It's everywhere.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: It lists specific availability in places like Botswana, Burkina Fasso,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It lists Azerbaijan, Bahrain,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: and Yemen. You can listen to this in Mongolia, Nepal, Iceland, Belarus, Surname,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and Belize.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And it isn't just passively available in English either. The
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: source notes multiple translated.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Versions, right they translated.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there are specific listings pointing to Spanish for Mexico, Arabic, Russian,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Simplified Chinese, French, Korean, Portuguese for Brazil, Vietamese, and Traditional
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Chinese for Taiwan.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: That's nuts. Let's talk about the mechanics of how this happens,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: because I think a lot of people just assume it's
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: magic when audio Chuck hits publish on August six, twenty eighteen.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: What actually occurs.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: So the audio file is uploaded to a hosting server,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: which generates an RSS feed, A really simple syndication feed Oka.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: That feed is essentially a string of code that directory
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: platforms all over the world constantly monitor the second the
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: feed updates. Platforms in Tokyo, Paris, and Johannesburg instantly pulled
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: the new data and they make the forty one minute
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: file available to their local users immediately. It is frictionless,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: borderless distribution.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Which creates a massive juxtaposition. You have the hyperlocal physical
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: reality of Colhep's crimes. He lured people to a specific
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: geographical piece of dirt in South Carolina. The tragedy was
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: physically contained, yes, but the story of that tragedy has
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: a digital footprint that respects zero borders. And my immediate question.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Is why does it translate so well?
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, why does a listener in Mongolia or Yemen care
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: about a localized crime in the United States? The cultural
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: contexts are entirely different, the legal systems are totally different.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Why is there a global market for a forty one
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: minute story about an American serial killer?
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: To understand that, we have to look at the psychology
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: of why humans consume storytelling regarding danger. It points to
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: a theory often discussed in evolutionary psychology called threat simulation theory.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Threat simulation theory, okay, what is that?
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: The idea is that human beings are hardwired to pay
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: attention to stories about predators and survival because historically, understanding
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: how a predator operates helped you avoid becoming prey.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, So it's an evolutionary defense mechanism. Our brains
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: want to know how the monster operates so we can
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: spot it in our own environment.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Precisely, while the specific, localized details of Colhop's property are
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: foreign to someone in Iceland or Botswana, the underlying themes
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: are universally resonant.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: The fear of being hunted exactly.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: The fear of a predator who systematically hunts others is
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: not just an American fear. It is a primal human fear.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Cross cultural fascination with danger, survival, and the extreme psychological
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: edges of human behavior ensures that a story like this
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: translates anywhere.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: So it is the ultimate evolutionary campfire store.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: But there is one detail in this global listing that
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: completely threw me for a loop. We talked about this
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the very beginning of the Deep Dive, and we really
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: need to dig into the mechanics of it now the rating. Yes,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Right in the middle of the metadata governing this massive
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: global syndication, there is a rating, and it says rating clean.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: The clean rating is perhaps the most surreal piece of
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: data in the entire blueprint.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: It makes absolutely no logical sense. We are talking about
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a show that explicitly states it is covering multiple murders
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and a man who systematically tortured countless people.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the darkest stuff imaginable.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: We just established that this is a story about the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: terrifying capabilities of human being. How on earth does a
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: digital directory label this audio file as clean for mass consumption?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: It highlights a major blind spot in how digital infrastructure
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: categorizes media. When an algorithm scans an RSS feed or
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: audio metadata for a rating, it is not running a
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: philosophical analysis of the thematic content, right.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: It doesn't know as systematic torture actually means exactly.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: It doesn't understand the concept. It is looking for highly specific,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: quantifiable markers, almost exclusively explicit profanity like f bombs or
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: explicit sexual language.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: So the rating is entirely linguistic, not thematic exactly.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: You can describe the most horrific violent acts imaginable, but
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: as long as you do not use profanity while describing them.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: The algorithmic gatekeepers of the platform consider the content clean.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: That's wild, which tells us so much about the signature
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: storytellings style of Ashley Flowers and brit pro it. To
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: maintain that rating while discussing colhep, they have to be
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: using a very carefully calibrated vocabulary.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Very calibrated. They are likely using clinical, procedural or respectful
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: language to describe the violence, right.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: They are avoiding gratuitous explicit gore and definitely avoiding swearing.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: And that calculated vocabulary serves a massive dual purpose. First,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: it takes the content palatable for high level advertising networks
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: that might balk at an explicit.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Rating, oh, because advertisers want brand safety exactly.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: And second, it allows the audio to pass through international
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: censorship filters and algorithmic safety checks on global platforms without
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: any friction.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: And I have to ask this, doesn't that fundamentally alter
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the reality of the crime. I mean, packaging an incredibly dark, localized,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: chaotic tragedy into a slick, clean rated audio file doesn't
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: that sanitize it? If you strip away the raw, ugly
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: explicit language that naturally arounds violence. Are you domesticating the horror?
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: You are, honestly yes, by making it linguistically clean, by
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: compressing it into a neat forty one minute package, by
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: gating the unresolved mysteries behind a fan club, and.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: By delivering it all with that friendly, parasocial intimacy of
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: a text message.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, all of that combined means the creators are fundamentally
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: transforming the tragedy. They are removing the sharp, jagged edges
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: of reality so that the story can slide frictionlessly across the.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Globe, so it's easier to swallow. Right.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: It allows an audience in Tokyo or Paris or Buenos
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Aires to consume the story of Todd Colehep without feeling
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: overly traumatized or alienated by the experience. They make the unbearable.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Bearable, and that really brings the blueprint full circle. We
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: started by looking at the architectural stematics of how fear
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: is manufactured and distributed today.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: We looked at the foundation.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we started with the grim physical reality of Todd Colehep,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: a man who's systematically lured and murdered victims. We saw
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: how that overwhelming horror is mathmatically distilled into exactly forty
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: one minutes, and.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: We saw how the unresolved threads like the disappearance of
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Tammy Kingery are pulled out and used as the premium
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: currency of a gated fan club right.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: And we saw how the hosts use direct access like
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: a personal phone number to build an incredibly tight parasocial
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: bond with the audience, making that fan club feel like
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: a community rather than a corporation.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge part of its success.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: And finally, we saw how that intimate, sanitized, clean narrative
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: is launched into the digital ether, bouncing off servers to
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: land in the headphones of listeners in virtually every country
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: on Earth. It is a stunning, deeply complex feat of
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: media architecture.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: It really proves that modern true crime is no longer
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: just about the recounting of a crime. It is about
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: the massive, sophisticated ecosystem of connection, commerce, and storytelling that
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: we build around the darkness.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: It really is, and that leaves us with a lot
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to consider as you, the listener, go forward and continue
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: to engage with media, whether it's this deep dive or
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: any other piece of content on your phone. I want
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: you to keep this blueprint in your mind.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Keep looking at the scaffolding exactly.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I want to leave you with a lingering question to
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: ponder on your own. When the darkest impulses of humanity
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: become this accessible, this community driven, and this globally gamified
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: with fan clubs and bonus mysteries, are we truly seeking
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: justice and understanding for those countless people lured to their deaths?
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Or have we simply found a highly efficient way to
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: use their ultimate tragedies as a bonding exercise in a
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: global digital campfire