Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Shadow of the Student: The Lea Porter Case

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Shadow of the Student: The Lea Porter Case · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine the wind howling through a high altitude mountain pass
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: in central Colorado. Oh, yeah. It's the kind of thin
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: air up there that, you know, it leaves a dull
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: burn in the back of your lungs if you aren't
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: totally acclimated to it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: It's a harsh environment.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And out there on those dusty winding trails, which
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: are miles and miles away from the paved grid of Denver,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: is a mother. Her name is Renee Jackson.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: And she is trudging through the dirt and the scrub brush.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Her eyes are just scanning every single ravine, looking at
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: every patch of disturbed earth.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Doing the unthinkable, really.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she is walking alongside trained search dogs, doing a
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: job that she feels the universe has just brutally forced
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: upon her. She is looking for her 19-year-old daughter.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It is, it's the absolute nightmare scenario for any parent.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, when you visualize that scene, The sheer physical
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: exhaustion of a mountain search is daunting enough. Right. But
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: the psychological toll is what truly breaks a person down.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: You're dealing with this ambiguous loss.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Ambiguous loss.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the human brain is a meaning-making machine, you know. Yeah.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: It absolutely despises a vacuum of information.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: It needs an answer.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When a loved one vanishes without a trace, that
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: void becomes this crushing weight that most of us can
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: barely comprehend, let alone function under.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And the documents we are looking at today for this
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: deep dive, it's an investigative report from ABC News. They
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: chronicle exactly how a mother ended up on that mountain.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the ABC News reporting is incredibly detailed.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Because you usually expect missing persons cases to unfold in, like,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: sterile police precincts with detectives moving pushpins on a corkboard.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Right, very procedural.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: But here, the investigation is happening on the worn-out boots
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of a desperate mother who simply refuses to wait for
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the bureaucratic wheels of the system to turn.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: She took it into her own hands.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: She totally did. So today, our mission on this deep
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: dive is to explore the tragic and profoundly twisted disappearance
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: of Lee Porter in June of 2014.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: A really heavy case. It is.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: It's a timeline that forces us to look at the
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: perilous intersection of extreme vulnerability— The dark chemical pull of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: addiction and a predator who is just hiding in plain sight.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: And hiding behind a very specific, deeply insidious mask, too.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: The sources we are working from, they provide this condensed
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: but intensely revealing look at the anatomy of an investigation.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: We see all the false leads, the agonizing dead ends.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So many dead ends.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Right. And a truly shocking twist involving a suspect. who
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: quite literally attempted to use his formal college curriculum to
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: get away with murder.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Because to understand how Leah Porter vanished,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: we first have to understand the two very different worlds
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: she was trying to navigate at the exact same time.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: The contrast is huge.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: We have to start with where she came from. So
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: she grew up in a place called Cotopaxi, Colorado.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Tiny place.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Very tiny. When we talk about small towns, we usually
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: picture like a quaint main street and a couple of stoplights.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But Cotopaxi has a population of fewer than 50 people.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Fifty.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Fifty. They have a century-old general store, a post office,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and just miles of rugged isolation.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: You know, the sociological impact of growing up in an
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: environment that small, I mean, it cannot be overstated.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Well, it shapes a person's entire worldview and their baseline
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: for trust. In a community of 50 people, anonymity simply
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: does not exist.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. Everyone knows everything.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Everyone knows your family, your business, your history, your
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: daily routines. For a teenager who is craving independence, that
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: environment can feel incredibly restricted.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Almost suffocating, I'd imagine.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, suffocating. But paradoxically, it also provides a very tight,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: impenetrable safety net.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Because if you stumble in a town of 50 people,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: someone is there to catch you before you hit the ground.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: But Leo wasn't the type to just blend into the
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: mountain scenery and accept a quiet life.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: The reporting paints this picture of a girl who is
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: super vibrant and highly social... Her family, especially her older
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: brother Max, described her as a joker.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: They were very close.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they fought like typical siblings, but were essentially best friends,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: speaking almost every single day. Right. She hung out with
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the artsy crowd at Cotopaxi High. She was deeply into
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: electronic music. And her mother, Renee, lovingly described her as
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: a massive selfie hound.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: She was always taking pictures.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Constantly. She was documenting her life all the time. Digitally speaking,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: she was living out loud.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: And that creates a really fascinating juxtaposition.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Well, you have a teenager from a geographically isolated, microscopic
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: town who is utilizing a smartphone and social media platforms
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to project her life outward to a much broader, digitized,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: and largely unknown world.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Right, trying to reach beyond the mountains.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And when someone with that outgoing, highly documented personality...
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: decides to physically migrate away from that safety net toward
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: a major urban center like Denver, well, the vulnerability just skyrockets.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Because they don't know what they're walking into.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, they are stepping out of a predictable fishbowl and
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: diving into a turbulent ocean. They very often lack the
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: street smarts necessary to navigate the darker, more predatory currents
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: of city life.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: And if you look at the timeline provided in the investigation,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: those dark currents pulled her under terrifyingly fast.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: They really did.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Her family thought she was up in Denver studying to
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: become a massage therapist.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: That was the official story.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Right. The picture her digital life painted, all the smiling selfies,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the fun artsy vibe, was this meticulously constructed facade. It
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: was covering up a very different reality on the ground.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: A very dark reality.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She was keeping massive life-altering secrets from her mother
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and her brother. First off, she had secretly dropped out
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of her massage therapy college.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge red flag on its own.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Huge. Huge. And second, this teenager had moved in with
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: a 38-year-old tattoo artist named Jessie Mine.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, that 19-year age gap is just a blaring siren.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: It's massive. It is.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: You have a 19-year-old girl and a 38-year-old man. Developmentally, experientially, financially,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: there is an inherent massive power imbalance in that dynamic.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: A teenager seeking independence is highly susceptible to the influence
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: of an older partner who appears established or corrupt. you know, worldly. Right.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: He seems like he knows how the world works.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And according to the accounts of her close friend,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Mallory Nixon, it was this much older man who introduced
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Leah to hard drugs.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Specifically heroin.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: And the escalation was really frightening. Mallory recounted this absolutely
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking moment to the reporters. They were driving up to
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Denver for an electronic music concert and Leah just confessed
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: to her out of nowhere.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Just brought it up in the car.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She admitted she had tried heroin for the first time.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: And the terrifying part was her immediate realization of the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: grip it already had on her. She told Mallory point
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: blank that she was already hooked.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: We have to delve into the neurobiology of what is
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: actually happening there because it really speaks to the insidious,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: terrifying speed of heroin addiction.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Please do, because I think a lot of people don't
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: get how fast it happens. Right.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Heroin doesn't just make you feel good. It fundamentally rewires
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: the brain's reward and survival centers almost instantly. Wow. Instantly.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Basically, yeah. When someone uses heroin... It crosses the blood-brain
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: barrier rapidly and binds to these things called mu-opioid receptors.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: This triggers a massive unnatural flood of dopamine. It is
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: way beyond what the brain is designed to experience naturally.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: So the brain just gets overwhelmed.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And the brain responds by down-regulating its own dopamine production.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Meaning it stops making its own feel-good chemicals.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Right. For a 19-year-old who is already untethered from her
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: educational path, Isolated from her family's daily physical presence and
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: entrenched in this heavily imbalanced relationship, that chemical surge becomes
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the primary anchor in her life.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: That's so sad.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: It is. The drug hijacks the survival instinct. The brain
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: literally starts to believe it needs heroin as much as
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: it needs food or water.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: You know, hearing all this is like she is running
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: a high-end restaurant.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: A restaurant. Yeah, think about it. If you look at
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: her social media or talk to her family... You are
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: seeing the front of the house. The lighting is perfect.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: The music is playing. The presentation is flawless. Everyone out
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: there thinks things are going great.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I see where you're going with this.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: But in the back of the house, the kitchen is
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: completely engulfed in flames. The alarms are blaring. And she
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: is just desperately trying to keep the smoke from drifting
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: out into the dining room.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: That is a tragically accurate analogy.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, think about the sheer mechanics of maintaining that lie.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: How does a teenager completely compartmentalize a severe heroin addiction
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: from a deeply connected family life, especially when she is
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: speaking to her brother every single day?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: The sheer mental bandwidth required is exhausting. Compartmentalization for an
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: addict becomes a full-time, round-the-clock job.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Just to keep up the act. Right.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: It's driven by profound shame and the fierce biological imperative
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: to protect access to the drug. When she answered the
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: phone for her brother or her mother... She was essentially
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: clocking in for a shift.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Putting on the uniform.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She reverted to the role they expected her to play,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: the joking sister, the loving daughter. She curated the tone
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: of her voice with the exact same precision she used
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: to curate a selfie.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: But operating in high-adrenaline survival mode while managing the physiological
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: rollercoaster of opioid use is entirely unsustainable.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: It really is. Maintaining that high-end restaurant facade takes a
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: massive amount of energy. You can't keep a kitchen fire
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: hidden forever.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: No, you can't.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: And for Leah, the smoke started pouring into the dining
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: room in early June of 2014 when a severe physiological
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: crisis forced her hand.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Right. The timeline gets very tight here. Yes.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: And despite... the addiction, the reporting makes it clear she
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: was actively fighting to get her life back. She wasn't
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: just surrendering to the drug.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Which highlights the immense tragedy of the timing. The three-day
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: window before her disappearance is the crucial piece of the
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: puzzle for understanding her exact state of mind. and her
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: extreme physical vulnerability.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So her friend Mallory saw her down in Pueblo the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: day before she vanished. Leah was actively trying to kick
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the habit. She was actually attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: She was putting in the work.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: She was. Mallory noted to investigators that Leah had been
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: off heroin for exactly three days, and she described her
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: friend as being, quote, super sick.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: We really need to decode what super sick actually entails
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: in the context of opioid withdrawal.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Because it's not just a cold.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: No. The general public often equates it to a bad flu,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: but it is so much more violent than that.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: How bad does it get?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Well, at the 72-hour mark, which is exactly where Leah was,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: an addict is hitting the absolute peak of acute physical withdrawal.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: The peak? The absolute peak. Because the brain has stopped
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: producing its own baseline chemicals to manage pain and stress,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: the sudden absence of the opioid causes a massive rebound
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: effect in an area of the brain called the locus coeruleus.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, and what does that do to the body?
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Bone-crushing aches. We're talking about intense cold flashes, profuse sweating,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: involuntary spasms in the legs.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Wait, is that where the phrase kicking the habit comes from?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. That's exactly where it comes from. And we're
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: also talking about relentless vomiting and diarrhea. And layered on
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: top of all this physical agony is a level of
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: psychological terror, anxiety, and craving that just defies description.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: It sounds like actual torture.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: It is physiological torture. Right. Her entire nervous system was
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: screaming for relief and she was fighting a monumental minute
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: by minute battle against her own neurochemistry just to stay clean.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It's arguably the hardest physical and mental challenge a human
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: being can endure. And she is attempting it at 19
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: years old.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: But right in the middle of this physiological hell, a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: massive catalyst hits.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: The breakup. Yes.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Jessie Mine, the 38-year-old boyfriend who introduced her to the
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: drug in the first place, breaks up with her.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Talk about terrible timing.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Right. According to his statements to the police, he decided
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: he needed to move back across the country to his
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: parents' house in Maryland to try and get clean himself.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So he just leaves her?
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: He packs up and leaves, and this sick, struggling 19-year-old
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: girl is instantly rendered homeless.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: It creates a perfect, devastating storm of vulnerability. Look at
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: all the compounding factors here.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, lay them out.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: She is enduring peak acute physiological withdrawal. Her romantic relationship,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: as toxic as it was, has just been completely severed.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Her primary housing situation has evaporated overnight. And she is
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: geographically displaced from her childhood safety net back in Cotopaxi.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: She has absolutely nothing.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Nothing. The psychological toll of withdrawal is already characterized by
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: profound despair and a sense of impending doom. Dropping sudden
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: homelessness and abandonment into that equation... leaves her with virtually
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: zero defenses.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: So she packs whatever belongings she has into her car.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: She starts driving toward Denver, and out of sheer desperation,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: she takes to social media.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Reaching out to the digital world again.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Exactly. She starts posting updates along the drive, essentially begging
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: her network for a lifeline. She's asking if anyone has
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a couch she can surf on in the city.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: And that digital broadcast of distress is the pivotal moment
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: in this case.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Why do you say that?
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Because in her mind, she is simply utilizing her usual
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: method of communication to reach out to her community for help.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: But to anyone watching those feeds with predatory intent, she
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: isn't just asking for a place to sleep.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: What are they seeing?
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: She is broadcasting a high-definition signal of extreme vulnerability.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, think about the reality of that situation for
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: a moment. She wasn't just casually checking apartment listings.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, not at all.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Her social media pleas were a beacon of... She was wounded,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: physically sick, emotionally devastated, completely untethered from any safe shelter.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And she was putting all of that information out there
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: on the Internet for literally anyone to see.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Anyone.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And then absolute silence.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: And for a girl who documented every mundane detail of
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: her life, who spoke to her brother daily, who was
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: just frantically seeking shelter online, a sudden cessation of digital
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: activity is the loudest alarm bell imaginable.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Max knew it in his bones almost immediately.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: He felt it.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: He really did. He described the agony of calling and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: calling and calling his sister's phone for days with it
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: just ringing into the void. The digital silence was just
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: deafening to him.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: It must have been terrifying.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: The panic quickly metastasized into the family, realizing she was
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: truly gone. And that is where the dynamic of this
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: investigation shifts entirely. We enter the phase of a mother's crusade.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Because when formal systems, like filing a missing persons report
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: with the police department, are initiated, there are protocols.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, rules they have to follow. Right.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: There's often a mandated waiting period, jurisdictional hurdles, this whole
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: bureaucratic process that demands patience from the family. But a
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: mother's instinct does not understand, nor does it respect, bureaucracy.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Renee Jackson flat out refused to accept the waiting game.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Good for her.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: She told reporters, I can't live with that. not knowing
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: was simply not an option. So her grief metabolizes into
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: hyper-focused action.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: What does she do?
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: She starts consulting psychics. She is poring over and memorizing
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: police records. She is dipping into her own pockets to
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: pay the travel expenses for volunteers to come out and
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: help her physically comb through the dusty, winding mountain trails
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: of central Colorado.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: The psychology behind her response is both fascinating and heartbreaking.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the psychics part especially stands out.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Well, When faced with an absolute void of information regarding
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: a child's safety, the human brain demands action to regain
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: any semblance of control over a totally uncontrollable situation.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: So the psychics give her a sense of control.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Consulting psychics is frequently dismissed or even mocked by
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: formal law enforcement, but it is an incredibly common recourse
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: for desperate families.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Why? Because a psychic offers a narrative, any narrative,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: even a tragic one, to fill the agonizing silence. It
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: gives the brain something concrete to focus on.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And meanwhile, her act of memorizing police records shows her
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: analytical side operating in overdrive, attempting to synthesize data faster
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: than the detectives assigned to the case.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And both Renee and Max have a primary target in
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: mind right out of the gate.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure they did.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: They walk into the police station and point a giant
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: flashing neon finger directly at the 38-year-old ex-boyfriend, Jesse Mines.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Which, from an investigative standpoint, is entirely logical.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: The boyfriend. Statistically speaking, in cases involving missing women, law
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: enforcement always looks at the romantic partner first.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: It's usually them, right?
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Usually, yes. When you add in the significant age gap,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: the history of introducing the victim to intravenous drugs, and
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the highly volatile recent breakup that resulted in her homelessness,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, he is the textbook prime suspect.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So the police agree, and they bring Jesse Mein in
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: for questioning. The interrogation details here are very revealing.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Mein claims they had this highly emotional breakup in a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: motel parking lot near Denver. He says they cried, they
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: said their goodbyes, and he headed east toward Maryland while
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: she stayed behind in Denver to crash with friends.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, so he puts himself out of state.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Right. And he admits to the detectives that it was
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: weird she stopped texting him immediately, especially knowing how glued
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: she was to her phone. Well, yeah. But he insists
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: he didn't actually panic until Max called him. He quoted
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Max's phone call to the police saying Max demanded, yo dude,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: where's my sister?
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: The raw phrasing of yo dude, where's my sister strips
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: away all societal pleasantries.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: It's direct.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Very direct. It is a confrontation. And mine's reaction, claiming
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: that this specific phone call was the exact moment he
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: realized something terrible had happened, had to be heavily scrutinized
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: by the investigators in that room.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Because they're looking for lies?
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They are trained to look for micro-expressions and inconsistencies.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: They had to determine if he was feigning ignorance to
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: cover his tracks, or if he was genuinely, pathetically unaware
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: of her fate.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: But ultimately, after pulling the records and verifying his statements,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the police clear him.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Wow. Cleared completely.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Completely. They determine he has an airtight alibi and that
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: he is not a suspect in her physical disappearance.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: That must have crushed the family.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, put yourself in Renee's shoes for a second. You
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: know this older guy ruined your teenage daughter's life. You
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: are completely certain he is the catalyst for why she
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: is missing in the first place.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Because he left her there.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And the police come back and calmly say, sorry.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: His alibi checks out. He's free to go. The frustration
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: must be blinding. I mean, how do investigators manage the
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: disconnect between someone who is clearly a bad actor in
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a victim's life and someone who is actually guilty.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Of a crime? It is one of the most agonizing
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: concepts for a victim's family to accept. And it causes
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: massive friction between families and law enforcement.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I can see why.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Because from Renee's perspective, this 38-year-old man introduced a teenager
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: to heroin, got her physically dependent, and then cowardly abandoned
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: her in a motel parking lot while she was going
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: through acute withdrawal.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: He basically threw her to the wolves.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: He did. He rendered her completely vulnerable to predators.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Morally.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Ethically and philosophically, he bears a massive amount of responsibility
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: for putting her in harm's way. Right.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: If he hadn't left her stranded, sick, and alone in Denver,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't have been desperately broadcasting her location on social
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: media looking for a couch.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Precisely. But the criminal justice system does not prosecute moral failings.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: It prosecutes violations of the penal code.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It's about the law, not feelings.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Right. Law enforcement has a very narrow, highly specific mandate.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Did this specific individual commit the physical act of kidnapping
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: or murder?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: And in this case, the answer was no.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Right, because an airtight alibi, such as tollbooth records, cell
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: tower pings, or surveillance footage, proving he was physically driving
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: through Kansas or Missouri on his way to Maryland when
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: she vanished, means the laws of physics dictate he cannot
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: be the perpetrator of the disappearance.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: He literally couldn't have been there.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The police have to surgically separate moral negligence from
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: criminal guilt. They have to clear the muddy water created
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: by the ex-boyfriend to find the actual killer lurking underneath.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: So your prime suspect is cleared. The police hit a
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: dead end. How do you even begin to channel that
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: frantic energy when the only door you had just slams
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: in your face?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: It's a terrifying moment in an investigation.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: It really is. But for Renee Jackson, the answer was data.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: She doesn't wait for the detectives to find a new lead.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: She pivots.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: What did she do next?
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: She somehow gets a hold of Leah's cell phone records.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: She sits down at a table and she starts methodically
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: calling every single number on that call log.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Wow. Doing the police's job for them.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Literally doing it herself, not relying on a detective with
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: a badge to do it. And as she is dialing,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: one specific phone number keeps popping up over and over
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: again in the crucial days leading up to the disappearance.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Whose number was it?
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: It belongs to a guy named Christopher Wade.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Which is a name the family had never even heard before.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Never. He wasn't in their orbit. So who is Christopher Wade?
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Let's look at his background because on paper, it is
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: incredibly jarring.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, lay it out.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: He is 23 years old. He actually went to high
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: school with Leah back in that tiny town of Cotopaxi,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: though he was a few years older.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: So they shared that small town connection. Yeah.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And he was a good student. He was heavily involved
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: in the choir and the drama club. After graduating high school,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: he joined the Army, serving for two years as a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: helicopter mechanic.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, very structured background.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He gets honorably discharged, comes back home to Colorado,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and enrolls in college. His major, criminal justice. He is
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: actively studying to become a police officer.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Wow. If you were building a psychological profile, Christopher Wade
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: presents as the absolute anti-Jesse mind.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Totally the opposite.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: He is close to Leah's age, removing the glaring power
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: imbalance of an older man. He has a military background,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: which implies discipline, structure, and service.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: He seems like a good guy. Right.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: He is involved in the arts, suggesting emotional depth. And
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: he is actively pursuing a career in law enforcement, which
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: projects a desire to protect and serve.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So he looks great on paper.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: To a desperate mother looking for answers, this resume presents
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: the ultimate veneer of safety, authority, and respectability.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And he leverages every single ounce of that veneer perfectly
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: when Renee finally gets him on the phone. Wade tells
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: this terrified mother that he and Leah had reconnected, and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: he was acting as her, quote, accountability partner.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. What is truly fascinating, deeply disturbing here, is
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: his specific weaponization of language.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Well, the term accountability partner is deeply rooted in the
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: culture of recovery and 12-step programs.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Like the N.A. meetings Leah was going to.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly like those N.A. meetings. By using that specific phrase,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: he implies a formalized, supportive, almost clinical role, dedicated entirely
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: to helping her maintain her sobriety. It immediately frames him
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: as a protector.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Man, that's dark. He tells Renee that Leah came over
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to his apartment. They hung out for a bit, but
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: after a few hours, she left abruptly without any explanation whatsoever,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and he hadn't seen or heard from her since.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Setting up his alibi.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And he even drops the bomb to Renee that
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Leah was using hard drugs. Renee told reporters this phone
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: call with Wade was the very first time she learned
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: about the heroin addiction.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: That must have been a massive shock.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Huge. Huge. But Wade is expertly playing the role of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the concerned, honest friend who was just trying to help
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: a troubled girl, but ultimately couldn't stop her from leaving.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Consider the psychological manipulation at play in that phone call.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: By proactively revealing the secret of the drug use to
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: the mother, Wade accomplishes two vital things.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Which are?
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: First, he establishes himself as a truth teller. He gives
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Renee a piece of high value information that she didn't possess,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: instantly gaining her trust and positioning himself as an ally.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Right, because he told her the hard truth.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And second, and much more sinister, he subtly shifts
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: the blame for Leah's disappearance onto her own addiction.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, that is twisted.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: It is. He is planting the seed that the erratic,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: unpredictable behavior of a heroin addict is the reason she vanished.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: He is effectively directing the investigative spotlight away from himself
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: and onto the chaotic nature of the victim's disease.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: And he leans into this helpful persona hard. When Renee
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: brings his name to the police, Wade doesn't lawyer.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Up or hide.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: He talks to the officers willingly.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Acting like he has nothing to hide.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Completely. He tells them he saw Leah's pleas for a
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: couch on Facebook and, being a good guy, just offered
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to help her move her stuff. And then he takes
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: it a step further.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: What does he do?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: He actively joins the public search effort. He is posting
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: heartfelt pleas on his own social media pages, begging for
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: information to find her. right alongside her family's missing person posters.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: We see this terrifying trope repeatedly in homicide investigations. The
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: perpetrator deliberately embedding themselves in the search efforts and the
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: media circus surrounding the victim.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: But why do they do it? I mean, is it
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: just a sick thrill, or is there an actual strategic
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: advantage to playing the hero while knowing you are the villain?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: It is almost always a complex, potent mix of both
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: strategy and pathology.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Strategically, embedding yourself in the search keeps you intimately connected
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: to the real-time flow of information. You know exactly what
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: the police know. You know what theories the family suspects.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: You're on the inside.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Yes. You know exactly which ravines the search parties are
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: checking on Tuesday and which ones they are saving for Wednesday.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: It allows you to monitor the threat level to yourself
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: and adapt your story accordingly.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: And the pathological side?
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Psychologically, it is about absolute control and narcissism. It feeds
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: a dark desire to play the puppet master. They get
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: a perverse thrill from comforting the grieving mother, knowing they
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: are the architect of her grief.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: That is just evil. It is.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Wade was framing himself as a savior to Renee, masking
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: his predation with the empathetic language of recovery.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Westminster Police Detective Matt Calhoun noted this exact behavior. He
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: said Wade put it out there that he really wanted
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: to help, that he was deeply concerned for Leah's well-being.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Playing the part.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: He played the part of the good citizen perfectly, as
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: long as he was on the internet or on the phone.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: But Wade's carefully constructed facade, this whole accountability partner routine,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: hits a massive brick wall the moment seasoned detectives step
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: off the internet and into his actual physical world.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Because while you can easily curate a digital persona and
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: memorize a script, the physical environment in which a suspect
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: lives almost always betrays the psychological reality they are desperately
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: trying to hide.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. The police ask for permission to search his two-bedroom
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: apartment in Westminster, and he agrees.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: He just lets them in.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: He just lets them in. And the scene inside is jarring.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: It is a squalid, chaotic mess.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Really? Yeah.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Detective Calhoun said it was physically difficult to even be
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: in the apartment because the stench of garbage was so overpowering. Wow.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: There were video game cases scattered everywhere, empty soda bottles,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: rotting leftover takeout containers, piles of dirty clothes, and unwashed
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: dishes completely covering the floor.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: You know, the physical state of that apartment stands in stark,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: immediate contrast to the disciplined image of an Army veteran
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: and a future police officer.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: It totally shatters the illusion.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: It indicates a chaotic, highly disorganized lifestyle, perhaps hinting at
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: underlying mental health issues or severe apathy. But from a
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: purely investigative standpoint, a messy apartment isn't a crime. Right.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: You can't arrest someone for being a slob.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Detectives don't arrest people for being messy. What they
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: are trained to look for in an environment like that
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: are anomalies within the chaos.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: And they find a massive, glaring anomaly right in his bedroom.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: What did they find?
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: In the middle of this filthy, cluttered room is a
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: twin mattress sitting directly on the floor. But unlike the
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: rest of the garbage-strewn apartment, the bed is completely stripped bare.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: There are no sheets. There are no blankets. There are
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: no pillowcases on the pillows. Just a bare, naked mattress
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: surrounded by weeks of accumulated trash.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: That is the ultimate red flag.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Because it's too clean, right?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Yes. When an environment is uniformly chaotic and filthy, a
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: sudden isolated area of hyper-cleanliness or removal is highly suspicious.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Why in an apartment overflowing with dirty laundry and rotting
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: food is the bedding completely missing?
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: It doesn't fit the pattern.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. To an investigator walking into a missing person's case,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: a stripped bed immediately suggests the frantic disposal of biological evidence.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: It suggests that blood, bodily fluids, or something directly tying
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the victim to that specific location was on those sheets,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: and the suspect had removed them to sanitize the scene.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: It escalates very quickly from there. They secure his computer
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and check his search history, finding he's been frequenting extreme
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: bondage websites.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, the huge red flag.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Then, amidst the clutter, they find a duffel bag
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: stuffed full of women's underwear.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: In a single guy's apartment.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Right. But it's all size 14. Lee Porter was incredibly petite.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Her mother noticed she weighed barely 98. pounds.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: So they didn't belong to her. No.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: And then the final nail in the coffin. Right next
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: to the bare mattress on the floor, they find a knife.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: A knife?
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, a knife with bleach spots on the blade.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Oh boy. The physical evidence is compounding rapidly here, creating
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: a terrifying narrative. You have evidence of potential sexual deviance
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: with the bondage search history. You have a collection of
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: items that suggest deep-seated fetishes or, more worryingly, trophies from
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: previous unknown victims with the oversized underwear.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: That's a scary thought.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: And you have a weapon that has been chemically altered,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: which screams of a desperate cleanup attempt. Let's talk about
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: the science of that bleach for a moment because it
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: is vital.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, why is bleach so important here?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: When a criminal uses household bleach sodium hypochlorite, They aren't
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: just trying to wash away the red stain of blood.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Bleach is highly oxidative.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: What does that mean for evidence?
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: It attacks the cellular membrane of biological material, bursting the
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: cell open. Once inside, it literally attacks the hydrogen bonds
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: that hold the DNA double helix together, unzipping and degrading
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: the genetic material so that a forensic lab can no
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: longer extract a usable profile.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Wow. It destroys the DNA completely. Yes.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Finding a bleached weapon is a profound indicator of consciousness
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: of guilt.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: So Detective Calhoun doesn't wait. He confronts Wade about this
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: stuff right there in the messy bedroom. And Wader's excuses
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: are utterly, laughably absurd.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: When asked about the duffel bag of size 14 women's underwear,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: he jumps up real quick, gets super defensive, and says, no, no,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: those are mine. I wear them because they're more comfortable.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: He claimed they were his.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: He claimed he wears size 14 women's underwear for comfort.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: and the bleached knife sitting by the bare bed. He
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: claims he cut his hand a week and a half
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: earlier and used bleach on the knife to clean it.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Analyzing the psychology of these specific responses is crucial to
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: understanding an interrogation. Wade is backed into a corner, and
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: his cognitive load is completely maxed out.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: He's panicking.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: He is. Lying requires immense brain power. You have to
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: invent a scenario, ensure it fits the known facts, and
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: suppress the truth simultaneously. He is trying to generate innocent
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: explanations on the fly for incredibly damning evidence.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Like the underwear excuse.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Right. Claiming the oversized women's underwear is for his own
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: personal comfort is a desperate attempt to neutralize the implication
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: that they belong to victims. It's a psychological defense mechanism.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: He is choosing immense social embarrassment over a potential murder charge.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Better to look weird than look like a killer.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the knife excuse is similarly slowsy. because it
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: defies basic human behavior. People do not use caustic bleach
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: to sanitize a knife after a minor cut. They wash
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: it with dish soap or maybe rubbing alcohol.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Not bleach.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: No, as we just discussed, bleach is universally recognized as
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: an agent of biological destruction.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: You know, it reminds me of a cartoon character frantically
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: trying to plug leaks in a massive dam with pieces
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: of chewing gum.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: That's a great image.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: The excuses are just so flimsy, so ridiculously inadequate for
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the pressure of the situation. that they actually draw far
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: more attention to his guilt than if he had just
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: invoked his right to remain silent and asked for a lawyer.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: That analogy is perfect. He is plugging holes with gum
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: while the dam is actively collapsing on top of him.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: And experienced investigators recognize that specific flavor of panic.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: They can smell blood in the water.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely. The stripped bed and the bleached knife escalate
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: the situation far beyond a friendly, voluntary walkthrough of an apartment.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: The detectives stop asking nicely amidst the garbage. They ask
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: him to come down to the station for a formal interview.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: They bring him into the box.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: And at the station, the environment changes from his territory
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: to police territory, and suddenly Wade's story changes too.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Of course it does.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: He completely abandons the she left abruptly narrative that he
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: fed to Renee. Now, he claims that while they were
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: hanging out playing video games, Leah came on to him.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Ah, changing the dynamics.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he says she leaned in and kissed him, he
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: kissed her back, and it led to consensual sex in
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: his bedroom.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: This is a classic minimization technique, and it shows he's
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: trying to adapt to the evidence.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Because he knows what they saw.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When he realizes the police have searched his bedroom
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: and likely found trace evidence, because he assumes they will
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: find DNA or hair despite the missing sheets, he has
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: to introduce a narrative that explains her physical presence on
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: that mattress in a nonviolent, legally permissible way.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: So he invents consensual sex.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Claiming consensual sex is the absolute go-to maneuver for suspects
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: in these situations because it provides an innocent explanation for
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: the transfer of DNA.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: And as for the script bed, he tells the detectives
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: that when Renee, Leah's mother, called his phone frantically looking
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: for her daughter, he suddenly panicked about the sexual encounter
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: and just threw his sheets in the trash.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Which, if you think about it for more than three seconds,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: makes absolutely no logical sense.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: None at all.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: If you had consensual sex with a former high school
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: friend and her mother calls looking for her, you don't
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: strip your bed and throw your sheets in a dumpster.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: You might feel socially awkward. You might lie and say
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: she isn't there. But you do not destroy your own property.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: The detectives know this. They know the story is a
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: frantic fabrication designed solely to accommodate the physical evidence they
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: have already discovered.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: So the detectives are completely done playing along with the
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: chewing gum excuses. Detective Mike? Lynch takes over the room
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: and he shifts the tone of the interrogation dramatically.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: He turns it up.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: He told reporters they, quote, started turning the heat up.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: He bypasses all the lies about video games, comfortable underwear
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and panicked laundry sessions. He leans in, locks eyes with
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Wade and asks point blank, where is the body at?
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Is that body out there with the cell phone? Did
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: you kill Leah Porter? Wow.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Very direct.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: And under that direct crushing pressure. Wade finally breaks. He
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: confesses to the murder.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: This is a textbook execution of advanced interrogation strategy, heavily
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: influenced by methods like the Reed technique.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: The Reed technique.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Detective Lynch abandoned fact-finding, open-ended questions. He didn't ask,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: what happened? Or, did you see her? He moved entirely
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: into presumptive questioning.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Which means assuming guilt.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Yes. Notice the phrasing. He didn't ask if Wade knew
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: where she was. He asked where the body was. By
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: presenting the suspect's guilt as a foregone, undeniable conclusion, Lynch
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: removed Wade's ability to hide behind the timeline or the
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: consensual sex story.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: He just trapped him.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: He trapped him in a mental corner. The immense psychological
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: weight of that direct accusation, combined with Wade's own mental
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: exhaustion from maintaining multiple conflicting lies over several days, caused
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: the cognitive dam to finally break.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: But here is where this case gets profoundly, chillingly interesting.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: The twist.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Yes. The confession is just the beginning of the twist.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Because after Wade is arrested and the news breaks, one
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: of his college professors, a man named Robert Wells, comes
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: forward to the media with a revelation that turns this
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: entire story on its head.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Wade wasn't just a criminal justice major taking general education classes.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Professor Wells reveals that in his specific curriculum, Wade was
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: actively taught interview and interrogation tactics. He was taught report writing.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: He was taught crime scene management, forensics, and I quote
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: the professor directly here, how to clean up a crime scene.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: He literally took a class on it.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: He was taught the exact specific challenges police face in
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: acquiring and preserving evidence.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: The irony is absolutely staggering. You have a perpetrator who
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: was sitting in a college classroom taking detailed notes on
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: the exact methodologies the detectives were using to corner him.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Knowing exactly how it works.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: He was formally educated on how biological evidence transfers between
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: suspect and victim. He knew the chemical properties of bleach
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: and He understood how investigators are trained to look for anomalies,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: like a stripped bed, in a physical environment.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: But see, I have to push back on this because
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: it drives me absolutely crazy when reading this file.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: That part.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: If he was literally taking college-level courses on crime scene
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: management and forensic countermeasures, why did he do such a spectacularly,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: embarrassingly terrible job at it?
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: That is the million-dollar question.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Leaving a bleached weapon sitting out in plain sight, right
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: next to a completely stripped mattress in an otherwise filthy apartment,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: isn't a masterclass in forensics, it a giant neon arrow
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: pointing directly to his guilt.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Was it just pure, unadulterated arrogance? Did he genuinely think
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: he was smarter than the veteran cops? Or does all
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: that textbook theory just completely disintegrate when the very real
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: panic of having actually committed a brutal murder sets in?
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: It is a potent combination of both, but heavily, heavily
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: weighted toward the biological reality.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Of So his body just betrayed him.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Yes. Arrogance certainly played a role in the beginning. It
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: likely gave him the false confidence to embed himself in
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: the search, to talk to the mother, and to agree
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: to the apartment walkthrough, believing he could outsmart them.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: He thought he had it handled.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: But the sloppy, chaotic execution of the cleanup speaks to
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: the profound difference between academic theory and the violent, adrenaline-fueled
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: reality of committing a homicide.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: It is one thing to calmly answer a multiple choice
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: question about the oxidative properties of bleach on a Tuesday
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: morning in a lecture hall.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: It's another thing entirely to try and meticulously sanitize a
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: gruesome murder scene while your victim's family is hunting for
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: her and your phone is ringing.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly the point. When a human being commits an act
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: of extreme violence, the amygdala, the brain's threat detection center,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: completely hijacks the system.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: The fight or flight response.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Right. The sympathetic nervous system goes into severe overdrive, initiating
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: a massive fight or flight response. The brain is flooded
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: with cortisol and adrenaline. When that happens, the prefrontal cortex,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: the area responsible for logical reasoning, sequential planning, and recalling
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: academic information, is severely impaired.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: So he literally couldn't think straight.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Cognitive bandwidth narrows drastically. Wade likely fixated on the most
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: obvious glaring sources of evidence, the blood-soaked sheets and the
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: murder weapon.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Get rid of the blood!
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: He removed the sheets and poured bleach on the knife,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: but in his panicked, biologically compromised state, he entirely failed
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: to recognize that the conspicuous absence of the sheets and
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: the highly suspicious presence of the bleach were just as
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: incriminating as the blood itself.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Because he couldn't see the big picture anymore?
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Academic theory requires a calm, regulated mind to execute properly.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: And a murderer desperately trying to cover his tracks is
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: the furthest thing from calm.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: It just goes to show that a formal textbook education
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system couldn't save him from his
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: own basic human error, his biologically panicked sloppiness, and most importantly,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: a mother's relentless, unyielding pursuit of the truth.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Renee Jackson's fierce intuition and relentless drive were the true
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: engine of this case's resolution.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: She broke the case.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: She did. She bypassed the formal delays of the system,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: found the single, glaring anomaly in the phone records, and
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: forced the investigation directly to the killer's doorstep before he
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: had time to fully dispose of the evidence or perfect
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: his alibi.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: As we look at the totality of this case, I
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: want you to reflect on the immense tragedy and the
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: collision of worlds we've explored today.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: It's a lot to take in.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: You have a vulnerable 19-year-old woman fighting for her life
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: against her own neurochemistry to do the hardest thing imaginable,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: kicking a severe heroin addiction. You have a mother whose raw,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: visceral instincts refuse to accept a bureaucratic void of information.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: pushing her to climb mountains and pull phone records.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: By force of nature.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: And you have a predator whose immense arrogance and heavy
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: reliance on the wholesome accountability partner facade were ultimately his
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: total undoing. It is a stark, devastating reminder to always
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: look past the surface, past the helpful routine, to the
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: reality operating underneath.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: And it leaves us with a deeply provocative question regarding
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: the culture we live in today.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Well, we exist in an era utterly saturated with true
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: crime media and forensic documentaries, deep dives, and easily accessible
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: criminal justice education. We consume massive amounts of information detailing
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: exactly how crimes are committed and how they are ultimately
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: solved by law enforcement.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: It's true. Everyone who watches a few procedural dramas thinks
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: they're a certified armchair detective ready to solve a cold case.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Precisely. But if a formally trained, tuition-paying criminal justice student
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: like Christopher Wade failed so spectacularly to cover his own
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: tracks in the real world, it raises a crucial point
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: for all of us to ponder.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Does it actually help them?
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: That's the question. Does our societal obsession with learning how
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: to catch a killer actually make criminals any smarter or
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: more capable? Or does it simply give them a deeply
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: false sense of confidence, a dangerous blinding arrogance that causes
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: them to overplay their hand, underestimate the chaos of reality,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: and ultimately provides the very breadcrumbs that lead to their
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: own capture.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: That is a heavy thought to mull over the next
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: time you are binge watching a forensic procedural or listening
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: to an interrogation breakdown. Because out in the real world,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: out on those windy, dusty mountain trails of Colorado, it
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: wasn't a textbook or a lecture hall that broke this case.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: No, it wasn't.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: It was a mother who simply wouldn't stop walking, wouldn't
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: stop dialing, and wouldn't stop fighting until she found the
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: truth about her daughter. Thank you for joining us on
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: this deep dive.