Latest / Crime Night / The secret indictment in the Ramsey case

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The secret indictment in the Ramsey case · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine a kidnapper breaking into a home in the dead
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of night. They have a hostage. They're in completely hostile territory.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And every single passing second just increases their risk of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: being caught.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Right. The adrenaline would be through the roof.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But instead of fleeing into the dark, this intruder,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: they pull up a chair at the kitchen counter. They
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: rummage around for a pen and a pad of paper.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Which is just baffling.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Right. And then, while the family allegedly sleeps upstairs... They
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: spend the next 20 minutes drafting a rambling two and
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a half page movie script of a ransom note. And
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: when they're finally done, they put the pen and the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: notepad neatly back exactly where they found them.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: It completely defies standard criminal logic. I mean, it goes
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: against everything we know about offender behavior. And yet that
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: is exactly what we are asked to believe happened on
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: the morning of December 26th, 1996. Yeah.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: And one of the most heavily scrutinized cases in American history.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Deep Dive, everyone. I am your host
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: and true crime writer, and sitting across from me is
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: our resident real-life criminal investigator. We are so glad you're
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: here with us.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. We are ready to jump right in.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Now, if you are listening to this, you have undoubtedly
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: seen the pageant photos. You have probably glanced at the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: supermarket tabloid headlines while waiting in line at the grocery store,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: and you have heard a dozen wild theories shouted across
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: your television screen over the years.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, jeez. The media circus around this has been relentless.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: It really has. But today, our mission is to cut
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: through decades of that noise. We are looking at a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: massive comprehensive source today, a really detailed true crime transcript
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: built on case files, police reports, and raw interviews.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: We really want to put you inside the timeline today.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: To grasp this case, we have to strip away the
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: sensationalism and look at the actual physical evidence, understand the
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: forensic failures, and examine how the investigation arrived at a
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: stalemate that has lasted nearly 30 years.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: So to set the stage for you, looking at this
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: case is like sitting down to put together a 10,000-piece
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: jigsaw puzzle, right? You have the time, you're focused, you
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: start flipping the pieces over.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: But nothing connects.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You realize someone didn't just scramble one puzzle. They
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: dumped the pieces of three completely different puzzles into the
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: exact same box and threw away the lid. I mean,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: no matter how you arrange it, some of those pieces
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: are just never, ever going to fit.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect way to describe it.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you. So let's just start with the very first pieces.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Walk us through that morning.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we have to transport ourselves to Boulder, Colorado.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It is a freezing, quiet morning the day after Christmas.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So December 26th. Right.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: And the family lives in this sprawling, multi-story, Tudor-style home.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is massive. We are talking upward of 6,000
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: square feet. It's a complete maze of 15 different rooms, hallways,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: and staircases.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Just a massive footprint.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And at 5.52 a.m., the silence is totally shattered.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: The mother dials 911. She is frantic, and she tells
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: the dispatcher that her six-year-old daughter is gone.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, man.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And she says that she has found a ransom note
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: on the back spiral staircase.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the police arrive shortly after, and this is
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: where that bizarre note comes into play, right? Because I
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: am trying to wrap my head around this. If I
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: am a responding officer... What am I actually looking at
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: when I see this note?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Well, when Officer French arrives just minutes later, he is
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: handed essentially a handwritten essay, and the details of this
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: note immediately dictate the entire trajectory of the case.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: House.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: First, as you mentioned earlier, investigators determine it was written
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: inside the house.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Which is wild.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: It really is. The paper was from a notepad found
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: in the home. The pen was from a cup right
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: there on the counter. And the author even left behind
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: a practice draft.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Wait, a practice draft, like a rough draft for a
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: ransom note. Yeah.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: A single page starting with Mr. and Mrs. R before
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: they apparently abandoned it, crumpled it up and started over
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: on a fresh page.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I just had to stop you there because from a
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: behavioral standpoint, I am so hung up on this detail.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is like a bank robber pausing during
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: a heist to fill out a long form loan application
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: at the teller window.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: That is a great analogy.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Who has the nerve or the time? to sit in
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the home of the people they are robbing and write
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: an essay.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: It is highly anomalous. No one does that. And the
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: content of the note is just as strange. It claims
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: to be from a, quote, small foreign faction.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: A foreign faction operating in Boulder, Colorado.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Right. And it demands a highly specific ransom amount, exactly $ 118, 000.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: No, that number always stuck out to me. That is
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: not a random round number like $ 100, 000 or a million.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: No, it is not random at all. That was the
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: precise down-to-the-penny amount of the father's corporate bonus from his company,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: which was paid out earlier that year.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Wow, so someone had to know his financial records.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Furthermore, the note is peppered with this weird corporate
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: language and dramatic phrases that analysts later recognized as, quote,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: lifted almost verbatim from movies.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Movie quotes. Like which ones?
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Movies like Ransom and Speed.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: You are kidding me. A kidnapper is quoting Keanu Reeves movies.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: I am completely serious. And finally, it is signed with
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: an acronym that has never been definitively decoded. SBTC victory.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: OK, so someone breaks in. They know the exact bonus amount.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: They quote Hollywood movies and they write a novel on
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the family's own stationery. Did they ever prove who actually
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: wrote it?
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: They did not. Handwriting experts analyzed it extensively. Obviously, they
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: could not definitively exclude the mother as the writer because But,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: and this is important, it was never proven in a
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: court of law that she wrote it.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it's a giant question mark?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: A massive one. But here's the critical part, the reason
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: why this note is the linchpin of the tragedy.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm listening.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Because this massive note existed, the Boulder Police Department treated
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: the initial call strictly as an off-site kidnapping.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Ah, I see.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: They operated under the assumption that the child had been
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: taken from the premises.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: So the note is the domino that knocks everything else down.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: If they think she's already gone, they aren't searching the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: house like it's a murder scene.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Precisely. That single assumption led to absolutely catastrophic procedural mistakes.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Because it was viewed as a kidnapping, the police did
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: not secure the perimeter of this massive house.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Wait, at all?
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Well, they taped off the child's bedroom, but the rest
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: of the 6,000 square feet was left completely unsecured.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Meaning anyone could just walk in.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, and they did. Within a short time, family friends,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: victim advocates, the family priest, they all arrived to offer support.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, no.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: People were freely roaming the house. They were using the bathrooms.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: They were wiping down kitchen counters, hugging the parents.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: They were wiping down the counters. They were destroying crime
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: scene evidence.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Meanwhile, Officer French had done a preliminary sweep of
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: the home looking for points of entry. He went down
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: to the basement, and he came across a wooden door
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: secured with a wooden latch.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: And he didn't open it. Why would you skip a
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: door during a search?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Well, he assumed it was just a closet or a
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: room that a child wouldn't wander into on their own,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: given that it was latched from the outside.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: But he's looking for a kidnapper.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Right, but he was looking for a kidnapper's exit route.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: So he skipped the basement wine cellar.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the house is full of people. The police
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: are waiting for a ransom call that never comes.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: What happens next?
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: By 1.0 p.m., the atmosphere in the house is incredibly tense.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Detective Linda Arndt is the only detective left on site.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: She notices the father pacing, looking really restless.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Which is understandable. His daughter is missing.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Of course. So she suggests he take a friend and
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: search the house from top to bottom just to see
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: if anything is missing.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: So he takes his friend and they go straight down
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: to the basement. He goes directly to that latched door,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: opens the wine cellar. And that is where he finds
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: the victim's body.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Oh my God. And this is where the contamination of
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the scene reaches its absolute peak, right?
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is. When he finds her, he immediately picks
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: up her body. He rips a piece of duct tape
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: off her mouth.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: He moved her.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: He carried her rigid body upstairs and laid her on
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: the floor of the hallway. And then when the mother
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: sees her daughter, she throws herself on top of the body, weeping.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Blankets are thrown over her by friends.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Just a total forensic nightmare. Completely.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Completely. By the time the coroner arrives, the primary crime scene,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: both the basement and the body itself, has been hopelessly trampled.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Look, I hear a lot of criticism directed at the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: police and the parents for this specific moment, but I
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: have to express some pushback here. Go ahead. If you
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: are a parent and you finally open a door and
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: find your child in a dark basement, your brain isn't
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: going to smoothly transition into investigator mode.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: That's very true.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Your instinct isn't to say, oh, I must preserve a
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: forensic perimeter. Yeah. Your instinct is to grab your baby.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I find it really hard to look at those specific
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: actions in the basement and definitively call it calculated malice
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: rather than just pure blinding human panic.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: That is an incredibly important perspective. It highlights the empathy
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: required when looking at real human trauma. However, from an
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: investigative standpoint, the intent behind the actions doesn't actually change
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: the outcome. Right.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: The damage to the evidence is done either way. Exactly.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Whether it was malice, blind panic, or just police incompetence,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: the result is the same. The contamination created a permanent,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: impenetrable fog over the physical evidence.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Because there's no way to know what was there originally.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Right. Because her body was moved, because she was held,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: because the scene was flooded with people, investigators could never
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: be entirely sure which fibers or trace elements were part
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: of the crime and which were just artifacts of the discovery.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: And this made the autopsy findings a total nightmare to interpret.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that autopsy, because the physical evidence
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: is where this case stops being a straightforward mystery and
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: becomes something entirely inexplicable. What did they actually find?
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: So the autopsy revealed a dual cause of death. The
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: victim suffered a massive blunt force trauma to her head,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: which resulted in an eight inch skull fracture.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: An eight inch. fracture. That takes incredible force.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: It does. But she was also asphyxiated. She was strangled
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: with a white cord tied around a broken wooden paintbrush,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: which was used as a garrote.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: A garrote. That is so brutal.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Very brutal. And the paintbrush, importantly, belonged to the mother's
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: art supplies from inside the house.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So we have a weapon made from materials inside the home,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: just like the ransom note. But there are also these
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: really strange anomalies I have heard about from the source material.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Can you explain the clothing she was found in?
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: This is where things get very, very complicated. When she
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: was found, she was wearing size 12 underwear.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Wait, size 12? But she was six years old?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Right. A six-year-old girl would normally wear a size 6.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: The size 12 was massive on her. The underwear and
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: the long johns worn over them were heavily saturated with urine.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: But investigators reportedly never found a matching urine stain anywhere
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: in the house.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: So why is the size 12 underwear significant? What does
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that tell investigators?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: It suggests the scene may have been staged or that
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: someone hastily dressed her in the dark. If a child
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: wets the bed, they leave a stain on the sheets.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Right. The mattress would be wet.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So the absence of a stain combined with oversized
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: underwear she wouldn't normally wear led some investigators to theorize
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: that a bedwetting accident occurred. Someone cleaned it up. and
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: then put her in the wrong clothes in a panic.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: That makes a chilling kind of sense.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Alongside this, there was a Barbie nightgown found bunched up
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: near her body in the basement, which she hadn't been
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: wearing to bed. Furthermore, the autopsy found evidence of chronic
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: vaginal trauma injuries that had occurred roughly 7 to 10
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: days prior to her death.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Meaning there was a history of abuse leading up to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: that night.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, though it has never been definitively proven who was
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: responsible for that prior trauma.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: God, it is just so heavy. And we can't talk
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: about the physical evidence without talking about the pineapple. This
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: is one of those details that always sticks out to
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: people who look into this case.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. During the autopsy, the coroner found remnants of
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: undigested pineapple in her stomach.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Which means she ate it right before she died.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It indicates she had eaten it shortly before she died. Now,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: when police processed the house, they found a bowl of
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: pineapple and milk sitting on the dining room table.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: OK, so that matches.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: It matches. And it had the mother and the nine-year-old
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: brother's fingerprints on it.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: But the parents claim she was asleep the whole time, right?
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Their official statements claim that the victim was sound
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: asleep when they returned from a Christmas party that night.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: They said the father carried her up to bed and
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: she never woke up.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So the pineapple completely destroys that narrative.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: The undigested pineapple shatters that timeline. It places her awake
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: downstairs in the dining room at some point during the night.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: You know, hearing all of this laid out, the evidence
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: really acts like a Rorschach test. What do you mean? Well,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: it reflects whatever theory you already believe. If you were
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: listening to this and you think the family covered it up,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the evidence is right there, right? The paintbrush from the house,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the notepad from the house, the pineapple on the table,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the oversized underwear covering up an accident.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: That is very true.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: But if you believe an intruder committed this crime, you
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: see a completely different picture. You see a brutal, sadistic
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: head wound, horrific sexual trauma, and those stun gun marks
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: some investigators thought they saw on her skin.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: That is a brilliant way to frame it. The evidence
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: is totally contradictory. And because it was so contradictory and
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the crime scene was so heavily compromised, it created a
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: massive investigative vacuum.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: And nature abhors a vacuum.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In the absence of undeniable facts, toxic interagency politics
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: and a ravenous media frenzy rushed in to fill the void.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: The media frenzy was just apocalyptic. Within days of the murder,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: before sitting down for formal separate police interviews, the family
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: hired high-powered corporate and criminal defense attorneys.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: They lawyered up immediately. Right.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: They stopped cooperating directly with the initial police inquiries and instead,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: on New Year's Day, They went on CNN for a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: highly choreographed national television interview.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: And that decision to bypass the police and go directly
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: to CNN completely fractured the relationship between the family and
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: law enforcement.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I can imagine the police were furious.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: They were. The Boulder Police Department, looking at the inside evidence,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: quickly zeroed in on the parents as their primary suspects.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: But the police ran into a brick wall, and that
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: wall was the Boulder District Attorney's office.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Now, this is the part of the story from our
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: source material that always confuses me. If the police think
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: they have the suspects, why didn't they just make an arrest?
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Because the police and the district attorney were essentially at
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: war with each other. Why? The Boulder PD firmly believed
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: the parents were guilty. The DA's office, however, seemed to
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: constantly block the police. They refused to sign search warrants.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: They even shared police evidence with the family's defense team
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: in the spirit of, quote, cooperation. Wow.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Sharing evidence with the defense before trial.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Yes. And they continually told the police the case was unprosecutable.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: It got so incredibly toxic that the lead detective, Steve Thomas,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: publicly resigned in disgust.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: He wrote a letter, didn't he?
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: He did. He wrote a scathing resignation letter accusing the
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: DA's office of crippling the investigation.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Honestly, it sounds like a toxic corporate merger. Where two
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: departments hate each other so much they would rather sink
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the entire company than let the other side win.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: That is exactly what it was like. But wait, didn't
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: the case eventually go to a grand jury? I remember
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: hearing growing up that the grand jury cleared the family.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: That is what the public was led to believe for
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: 14 years, but it was a carefully constructed illusion. A cover-up. Essentially.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: In 1999, DA Alex Hunter convened a grand jury. After
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: months of testimony, Hunter stood before the media and stated
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that he and his team did not have sufficient evidence
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: to warrant filing charges.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Wait, so she told the cameras there wasn't enough evidence,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: but what did the actual jury of citizens say?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: That was a secret until 2013 when a lawsuit forced
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the unsealing of four pages of those grand jury documents.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: And what was in them?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: A massive bombshell. The documents revealed that the grand jury
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: did in fact vote to indict both parents.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: You are joking. They voted to indict them.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: They did. They voted a true bill for accessory to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a crime and child abuse resulting in death.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Let me make sure I understand this legal terminology. What
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: exactly is a true bill and how does a district
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: attorney just ignore it? Good question. A true bill is
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: simply the grand jury's formal written decision. It is the
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: jury saying, yes, we have looked at the evidence and
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: we believe there is probable cause to criminally charge these individuals.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: OK, so they found probable cause.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Yes. But a grand jury does not have the power
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: to actually prosecute. They only recommend the district attorney has
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: ultimate prosecutorial discretion.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: So Alex Hunter looked at the jury's true bill. decided
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: he couldn't win the case in a trial beyond a
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: reasonable doubt and just refused to sign it. And because
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: grand jury proceedings are strictly confidential, he buried their decision.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: That is staggering. The secrecy of the legal system was
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: essentially weaponized to mislead the public. So the police are
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: blocked by the DA. The inside job theory is legally
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: dead in the water. What happens to the investigation?
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Well, it forces investigators to pivot. Blamped from pursuing the family,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: they have to turn outward. And this is where we
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: see the rise of the intruder theory. Right.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Championed heavily by investigator Lou Smith.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Smith pointed to a broken window in the basement
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: wine cellar, a window the father admitted he had broken
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: months earlier when he locked himself out.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Ah, so there was an entry point.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. Smith theorized how an intruder could have slipped through
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: that broken window, waited in the dark for the family
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: to go to sleep, and committed the crime.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: And for a long time, that was just a theory,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: just speculation. But then science seemed to finally catch up
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and validate it, right?
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: It did. The focus shifted entirely to the one supposedly
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: objective piece of evidence left the DNA.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the DNA findings.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: In 2003, advanced testing of the blood spots found in
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: the victim's oversized underwear revealed a mixed DNA profile. They
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: isolated the DNA of an unknown male. It was a
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: strong enough profile to be uploaded into CODIS, the National
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: DNA Database.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And they found more later, didn't they? Something called touch DNA.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: How is that different from the blood spots?
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, they did. In 2008, an independent lab used touch
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: DNA technology on her long johns. Touch DNA doesn't rely
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: on bodily fluids like blood or saliva.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: So what does it use?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: It relies on microscopic skin cells left behind when someone
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: simply handles an item. They swabbed the sides of the waistband,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: the exact areas where an attacker would have grabbed the
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: clothing to pull it down.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: And they found trace male DNA that was consistent with
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: the unknown profile in the underwear. It was such a
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: monumental finding that DA Mary Lacey wrote a formal public
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: letter of apology to the father, stating that the DNA
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: cleared the family completely.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: So we have an unknown male profile in a national database.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: But the source material for this deep dive brings up
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a recent update that is genuinely terrifying. Can you explain
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: what just happened with the Colorado lab system?
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is huge. In late 2023, an internal investigation
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: revealed that a star analyst at the Colorado Bureau of
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Investigations lab, a woman named Missy Woods, had been caught
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: manipulating DNA data for years.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Manipulating data, like faking results.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: She was intentionally altering or omitting test results in official
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: criminal justice records. And the terrifying part, she worked at
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: that lab from 1994 to 2008.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: The exact window of this investigation. If you are listening
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to this, you have to realize the absolute gravity of that.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, we have treated DNA as the ultimate infallible
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: truth in the justice system. It is the bedrock science.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: But if the lab work was manipulated or if the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: protocols were compromised, what do we do? Does this entire
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: house of cards just collapse?
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: It poses an existential threat to the integrity of the case. Now,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: the family has stated they were told she didn't work
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: specifically on this case, and the private labs involved strongly
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: maintain their results are accurate.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But the shadow of doubt is enormous.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Huge. If the DNA testing was flawed, we are trapped
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: right back in 1996 with a contaminated crime scene and
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: a bizarre ransom note. However, if the DNA is real
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: and unmanipulated, then the stakes are incredibly clear.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Right, because that unknown male profile is just sitting in
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the CODIS database and hasn't had a single hit in
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: over 20 years.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Meaning whoever left it hasn't been arrested for another felony.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: So what is the next step? How do you catch
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: a ghost in a database?
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: The only path forward in that scenario is advanced genealogical
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: DNA testing.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, like what they used to catch the Golden State Killer.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly like that. Genealogical testing doesn't rely on the killer
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: being in a police database. It takes the unknown DNA
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: and uploads it to public ancestry and family tree databases.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: So if a distant cousin took a 23andMe test, they
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: could find a link.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. By finding distant cousins or relatives who have voluntarily
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: submitted their DNA for family research, Investigators can build a
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: family tree backward, eventually triangulating exactly who the suspect is.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: That is incredible technology.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: And the father is currently fighting fiercely for independent agencies
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: to take the remaining DNA evidence and run these genealogical profiles.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: He is also pushing for the Victims Families Rights Act
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: at the state level.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: What does that act do?
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: It would allow families to demand federal reviews of stalled
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: cold cases, taking it out of local jurisdictions if they
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: are deadlocked.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: It is a deeply frustrating reality for anyone trying to
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: understand this story. I mean, decades later, you are left
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: looking at a botched crime scene, political infighting that buried
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a grand jury, and a single unidentified profile in a machine.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: It is deeply frustrating. But as we wrap up, I
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: want you to consider one final thought that builds on
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: everything we have discussed today.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Lay it on us.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: For almost 30 years, this case has been framed to
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: the public as a rigid binary. People demand that it
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: was either an inside job, a family cover-up to protect
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: someone in the house, or it was a completely random
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: sadistic intruder who crept in through a basement window.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, yes. It is always framed as an either-or scenario.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: But what if that binary is the exact trap keeping
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the puzzle from being solved?
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Wait, what do you mean?
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: What if our obsession with picking a side has blinded
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: everyone to a hybrid reality? Think about the evidence we've
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: unpacked today. What if the intruder wasn't a random stranger,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: but someone intimately familiar with the household? Oh, wow. Someone
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: who knew the labyrinthian layout of the 6,000 square foot home.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Someone who knew exactly where the mother kept her notepad
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: and paintbrushes. And who knew the exact, down to the
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: penny amount, of the father's $ 118, 000 bonus.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: A crime that combines the intimate inside knowledge of the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: family's life with the outside unidentified DNA of an intruder.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It suggests that the puzzle pieces never fit. because
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: we have been trying to force them into two separate
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: boxes all along.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: That is a chilling thought to end on, but it
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: makes so much sense.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: And until someone can finally match that DNA through genetic genealogy,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: or someone finally breaks their silence, we are all just
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: staring at a jigsaw puzzle without a lid, waiting for
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: the picture to finally become clear.