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The Riparian Mystery: The Life and Death of Alyssa Olson · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to really try and imagine the suffocating
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: heat of Gilbert, Arizona, like late June heat.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, that is relentless. It is literally hard to breathe.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's the kind of heat that just presses down
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: on your chest the second you step outside. So it
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: is the night of June 9th, 2016. Right. And I
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: want you to picture standing at the edge of the riparian.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This is this massive 110-acre nature preserve. It's filled with
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: winding hiking trails, really dense brush, and these dark, completely
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: still ponds.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Sounds incredibly eerie at night.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: It is pitch black. And running through this landscape are
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: two desperate parents, Barbara and Ed.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're screaming themselves hoarse. They have flashlights just cutting
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: these erratic beams through the dark. And they're calling out
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: for their 30-year-old daughter, Alyssa.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: It is a deeply visceral scene to step into. I mean,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the absolute dread of the unknown in a sprawling, unlit
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: park at night is terrifying.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: And as investigators who have spent years analyzing criminal case files,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: you know, we see how these moments of initial panic
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: often hold the rawest truths of a case.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the things you notice right away.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And we are taking a deep dive today into
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: a baffling 10-year-old mystery that local authorities tried very, very
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: hard to quietly sweep under the rug.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: They really did. I look at the official handling of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: this case like a magician's sleight of hand.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good way to put it.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Right, like forcing you to pick a specific card from
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a deck. The police pushed this very deliberate narrative to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the media. to force the public's attention in one specific direction.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: And that was purely to distract from the unsettling, unexplained
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: evidence hiding in the shadows. 100%.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But before we get to that evidence, we need
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: to understand who was wandering that park. So can you
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: walk me through who Alyssa Roman Olson was leading up
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: to that night? Because, I mean, she wasn't living a
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: typical 30-year-old's life, was she?
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Not at all. Her background is actually the critical foundation
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: of this entire mystery. So Alyssa was one of 12 children.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Wow, 12?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And she was the only biological daughter in her family.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: By all accounts, she was naturally introverted, fiercely nurturing, like
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: she loved to babysit and spent the vast majority of
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: her free time quietly journaling or just listening to music.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, so very quiet, very family oriented.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Right. But her life took a radical turn in her
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: late 20s. She experienced this profound, extreme spiritual awakening.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: What does a radical awakening actually look like in practice
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: for her? I mean, are we just talking about going
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to church a few extra days a week?
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Far more extreme than that, she gave up almost all
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: her material belongings.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? Like everything?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Pretty much. She began relying entirely on her faith to
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: dictate the smallest details of her life. What she ate,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: what she wore, who she spoke to.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: That is intense.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: It is. And this intense evangelical devotion led her to
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: the International House of Prayer in 2012. And that is
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: where she met a man named Braden.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they bond over this shared extreme devotion.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the relationship moved at just a breakneck pace.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Within months, they took a road trip, came back, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Alyssa basically announced to her family that Jesus had explicitly
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: told her to marry Brayden.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Wow, just like that.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Just like that. And from there, they adopted a completely
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: nomadic lifestyle. They didn't have a house. They didn't have
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: steady jobs.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So how were they surviving?
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: They couch surfed across the country. They were preaching and
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: surviving on donations. Plus some occasional financial help from her parents.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: That is such a vulnerable way to live.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: It really is. And they were so intertwined that they
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: didn't even have separate digital identities.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Wait, what do you mean?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: They shared a single cell phone. And they used the
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: exact same social media accounts.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. That level of enmeshment is intense. You don't
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: even have your own phone.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Right. But clearly something disrupts that nomadic life and brings
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: her back to that nature preserve in Arizona.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the disruption was actually physical. So in January of 2016...
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Alyssa suffered a severe ectopic pregnancy.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Oh God, that is so dangerous.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: It is a life-threatening condition. It resulted in massive blood
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: loss for her. The physical trauma was so severe that
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: she was basically forced to return to her parents' home
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: in Gilbert just to recover.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: And did Braden come with her?
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: He came with her at first, yeah. But by April
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of 2016, they actually separated.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Wait, I want to clarify something here because this challenge
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: is a major investigative assumption we usually make. Did they
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: separate because of the trauma of losing the pregnancy or
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: because the marriage turned toxic?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Neither, actually, which is wild. The separation was driven by
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the very thing that brought them together, which was their
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: religious standards.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Interesting. How so?
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Well, Brayden admitted to Alyssa's family that he was struggling.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: He wanted worldly things, you know, a steady job, a
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: house to live in.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Which goes against that strict nomadic lifestyle.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Right. But more problematically for their relationship, he was battling
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: desires that Alyssa considered grave sins. He wanted to drink alcohol.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And he was really struggling with watching pornography.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: OK, so major fundamental differences in how they wanted to live.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Because he felt he couldn't live up to her
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: impossibly strict religious standards, he moved to Washington state to
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: live with family friends, the Phillips family.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: This is where I have to push back against the
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: typical true crime instinct, you know. Usually when a husband
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: and wife separate right before a disappearance... We immediately look
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: at the husband.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, always. It's step one.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Right. But if Brayden moved to Washington and they weren't
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: having this bitter, screaming divorce. I mean, I read they're
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: still talking on the phone for hours every day with
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: no talk of a permanent split.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were very much still in contact.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: So does the classic the husband did it trope even
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: make sense here?
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: It's a vital question. And it's why this psychological environment
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: is so unique. This separation completely lacks the typical markers
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of escalating domestic hostility.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Right. There were no custody battles.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: No financial assets to divide because they owned literally nothing.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: And seemingly no explosive anger.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: But in criminal psychology, an absence of traditional conflict doesn't
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: automatically mean an absence of danger. Sometimes a quiet obsession
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: is far more volatile than a loud argument.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: That is a terrifying point. But that unique, tension-free separation...
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: seemed to be working for them, at least until a
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: sweltering Thursday morning shattered that peace.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: So walk me through the timeline of June 9th. What happened?
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Well, since moving back in with her parents, Alyssa had
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: established this unbreakable daily routine. Okay. Every single morning, she
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: woke up, got coffee, and took her dad's blue-dosh caravan
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: to the public library. And right behind that library is
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the riparian preserve.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: The one we talked about earlier.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Exactly. From 7 a.m. until noon, like clockwork, She sat
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: out in the preserve to journal and read her Bible.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: So she is a creature of absolute habit, which means
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: if she breaks that habit, something is immediately wrong.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Precisely. So on June 9, noon comes and goes, and
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: she does not return home. Her parents try calling that
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: shared cell phone, but it goes straight to voicemail.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: That had to be terrifying for them.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: By 7.00 p.m., their concern turns into outright panic. And
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: by 10.00 p.m., Barbara and Ed drive to the library themselves.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And that brings us right back to the scene we
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: asked you to imagine at the start of this deep dive.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They find the Dodge Caravan sitting in the south
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: parking lot. It's locked. Nothing looks out of place inside.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: But Alyssa is nowhere to be found.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: So what do they do?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: They call her sister Michelle, who rushes over in her pajamas,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: completely terrified that her sister has been abducted. They start
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: tearing through the dark preserve, which leads to the police
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: finally being called.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: But a massive search doesn't actually get underway until the
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: next morning, June 10th, right? Right.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: But the police do manage to ping herself on that night.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: The data shows the phone was turned off at exactly
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: 10 to 0 a.m. on June 9th.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Hold on. So if she arrived at 7 in the
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: morning and the phone goes dead at $ 10, that completely
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: shrinks the timeline.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: It does. The clock essentially stopped for just three hours
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: into her morning routine.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: It narrows the window significantly. So the next day, authorities
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: bring in helicopters equipped with thermal imaging.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Did they find anything from the air?
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Yes. At 2.42 p.m., they spot her body hidden by
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: some really dense brush. But the crime scene they discover
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: is a complete forensic paradox. She is entirely naked, but
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: there are no clothes anywhere near her. Her journal is missing.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Her keys are missing. The cell phone is missing.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, a naked body in the brush with missing items
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: screams homicide. But how exactly did she die?
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: She was found floating face down in one of the
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: preserve's ponds, but the water depth is where the entire
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: narrative just fractures. The water next to her left ankle
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: was five and a half inches deep. Next to her
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: right ankle, it was less than an inch.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Wait, stop. Five inches deep. You're telling me a healthy
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: 30-year-old adult woman drowned in a puddle that wouldn't even
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: cover her shins?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: It defies logic, which is why we have to look
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: at the mechanics of the autopsy. The medical examiner found
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: absolutely no water in her lungs.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Can you explain the forensic mechanism there for us? Because
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: if you die in the water, shouldn't there be fluid?
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when a person is alive and drowning, their body
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: naturally gasps for air, which draws water deep into the lungs.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Right, that makes sense.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: The presence of water... and often microscopic diatoms from the pond,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: is a key indicator of drowning. If a body is
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: found submerged, but the lungs are completely dry, the forensic
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: conclusion is almost always that respiration stopped before the body
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: entered the water.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: So she was likely dead before she was placed in
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that puddle.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: You know, I look at this crime scene like a
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: badly staged theater set. Imagine walking into a play where
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: the backdrop is a desert, but all the actors are
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: wearing snowshoes.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Right, the props just don't match the environment.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Exactly. A naked woman with dry lungs in five inches
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: of water is a prop that does not fit the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: stage of a simple drowning.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy, especially when you look at
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: the other prop. scattered around the scene.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: What else did they find?
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Investigators found random clothing stuffed into a dumpster at the
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: library and under some nearby bushes. But DNA testing proved
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: none of it belonged to Alyssa.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: That is so weird. Just random clothes.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Random clothes. And they found a full, unused latex glove
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: dropped on a dirt path near the pond.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: A latex glove in a nature preserve. Yeah.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: And the mud. I read about the mud in the
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: autopsy report, and this just blew my mind. Yes.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Explain the mud, because that detail is so important. To
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a lead person, mud on a foot in a park
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: sounds completely normal.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: It comes down to the mechanics of movement. The medical
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: examiner noted mud caked specifically onto her toes and the
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: balls of her feet, but not her heels.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, so why does that matter?
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: If you voluntarily walk into a muddy pond, your entire footprint, heel,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: the arch, the sole, sinks into the mud.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Right, you're bearing weight on the whole foot.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But if you are unconscious or deceased, and someone
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: grabs you by the arms to drag you face down
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: toward the water, the tops of your feet and your
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: toes drag across the earth.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. That paints a horrific picture.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: It does. That friction explains the specific location of the mud,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: as well as the post-mortem abrasions found along her right side.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: So someone dragged her.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: And right next to where she's found in the mud,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: there was a set of bare footprints alongside a set
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: of prints showing a shoe tread.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's recap this. We have drag marks, a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: latex glove, dry lungs, a missing phone, and unknown footprints.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: The puzzle pieces clearly form a picture of an attacker.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: So why did the police tell the media something completely different?
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Because of a psychological trap called confirmation bias. Instead of
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: putting out a public warning about a potential killer in
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: a public park, the authorities fed the media a narrative
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: designed to soothe the community.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: They just wanted people to calm down.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Right. They told reporters about a woman who was depressed,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: who had vague health problems, and had recently separated from
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: her husband.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: They heavily implied it was a tragic suicide, didn't they?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: They absolutely did. They said things like, No foul play involved.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: No threat to the public.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: But her family knew that wasn't true. Based on her
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: extreme religious dogma, she believed suicide was a fundamental, unforgivable sin.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: She would never do that.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: The family was adamant that she was recovering and actually
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: looking forward to the future. But when they tried to
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: speak up and correct this hurtful narrative in the press,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the police explicitly gagged them.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: You're kidding. They silenced the family.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: They told the family that everything was confidential and that
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: talking to the media could, quote unquote, compromise the investigation.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: So the family stays silent, trusting the system. But the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: system was already failing them. Once the police anchored onto
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: that suicide narrative to keep the community calm, confirmation bias
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: completely took over. Yep.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Every piece of contradictory evidence, the glove, the footprints, just
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: became an annoyance to file away rather than an actual
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: clue to investigate.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And nowhere is that cover-up more obvious than in the
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: physical case file.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the autopsy. It ruled the cause and
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: manner of death as undetermined. Her toxicology was totally clean.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: No lethal signs of trauma.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, but when you look at the physical case file
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: obtained later, the redactions are massive and highly suspicious.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, they are glaring. There is a section detailing a
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: sexual assault kit performed during the autopsy.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: It states the DNA profile matched Alyssa's. But the entire
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: scientific lab report immediately following that sentence is blacked out.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Completely redacted.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Completely.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: And the redactions just keep going into these bizarre anatomical areas,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: like the results of her fingernail clippings.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Redacted.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: The notes describing the anatomy of her neck and her
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: nervous system. Redacted. Why would police hide the condition of
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: her neck?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Because of what those areas reveal mechanically. The neck houses
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: the hyoid bone. which very often fractures during manual strangulation.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, that is a huge red flag.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: It is. And the nervous system includes the brainstem and
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: cervical spine. If you genuinely perceive a woman peacefully laid
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: down in a puddle and passed away of natural causes
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: or suicide, the state of her cervical spine is irrelevant.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: You don't need to hide it.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You only redact those specific anatomical areas when you
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: are concealing evidence of a snap neck or severe trauma
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: during an active homicide investigation.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: OK, so let's look at the police's situation. They have
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: a community that thinks it's a suicide and an autopsy
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: file full of blacked out secrets indicating a murder.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: They need a clean resolution.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Desperately. And when authorities are desperate for an answer that
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: doesn't involve a random killer stalking a public park, They
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: turned their sights on the absolute easiest target.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: The estranged husband.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Yes. Now, Brayden certainly provided them with plenty of deeply
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: disturbing behavior to scrutinize.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: He really did. Even though his physical alibi was, on
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: paper at least, rock solid.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Right. He was staying in Toledo, Washington with the Phillips family. Yeah.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Wendy Phillips confirmed she physically saw him every single day
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: that week.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: But his behavior leading up to her death is just
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a massive collection of red flags. Remember, he moved in
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: with the Phillips family because he'd gotten into a religious
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: argument with his own mother back in Arizona and stormed out. Right.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And didn't he tell people he had determined his mother
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: was literally Satan?
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Yes. And the emotional detachment he showed when Alyssa went
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: missing is chilling. When the Phillips family woke him up
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night to listen to the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: frantic voicemails from Alyssa's parents saying she was missing, he
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: showed zero emotion. Nothing. He listened, handed the phone back,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: said thank you, and simply went back to sleep.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: That is not a normal reaction.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: And the next morning, he nonchalantly suggested she was probably
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: just on a spiritual journey. Or at the zoo.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: At the zoo. Overnight. That's completely absurd.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I know. But that apathy vanished the second his mother
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: drove over to tell him they found Alyssa's body. He
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: immediately started wailing and claimed that her death was prophesied.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Prophesied.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: That's weird.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: He gets weirder. Before he flies back to Arizona to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: speak with police... He does something highly suspicious. He completely
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: wipes the tablet and phone he'd been borrowing from the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Phillips family.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: He erased them.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Erased everything. He even deletes his Xbox Live account.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: I have to challenge this, though, just playing devil's advocate.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: We know he was struggling with watching pornography, which Alyssa
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: and her family viewed as a grave sin.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: If he's living with a fiercely religious family, couldn't wiping
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: his electronics just be him frantically hiding his browser history
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: rather than, you know, covering up a cross-country murder plot?
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: That is a very fair alternative theory. A recent Xbox
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: account doesn't automatically equate to hiring a hitman. I'll give
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: you that. Right. But that benefit of the doubt evaporates
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: when you look at his police interrogations. During his interview
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: with detectives, Braden proceeds to draw an exact, highly detailed
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: map of the crime scene.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Wait, how detailed?
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: He maps out where the benches were, the bathrooms, and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the exact pond where she was found.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: How can possibly know that if he was in Washington?
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Well, he claimed he saw an hourglass figure on a
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: local news helicopter broadcast while watching TV.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Did he really?
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, police initially thought he was lying because they
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: couldn't find any news footage showing her body. But a
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: reporter later confirmed that local stations will immediately scrub their
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: broadcast archives if they realize they've accidentally aired a dead body.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, so it is highly likely he actually did see
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: the aerial footage on the news.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Yes. Okay, so the map might be explained by the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: news broadcast, but his explanation for how she died cannot
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: be explained away.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: What did he tell them?
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Brayden looks at the detectives and claims that the Lord
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: told him Alyssa was attacked by Satan and that a
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: literal demon threw her into the water. A demon! And
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: he doesn't just stop at demons. According to the interrogation transcripts,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: he starts asking the detectives incredibly weird, specific questions about
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: her body.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Like what?
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: He asks if there was any mangling, strangling, or bruises.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: And when the detective refuses to answer, Braden actually giggles.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Giggling while asking about strangulation is deeply unsettling, especially when
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: you recall those heavy redactions in the autopsy report regarding
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: the condition of Alyssa's neck.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The pieces start looking like they fit, but the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: interrogation gets even darker. When pressed by detectives, Brayden casually
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: tells this terrifying story about a time they were living
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: in California.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: What happened in California?
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Alyssa was trying to aggressively rebuke the demons she believed
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: were inside of him. She wouldn't stop, so he grabbed
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: a knife and threatened her with it to make her
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: be quiet.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: He is sitting in a police station, practically handing them
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: a history of domestic violence.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Handing it to them on a silver platter. And then
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the detective tests him with a hypothetical question. They ask,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: if a person, not a demon, did this to Alyssa...
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: What should the punishment be?
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: You would expect any grieving husband to demand absolute justice.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Right. But Braden explicitly states he doesn't want the death penalty.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: He doesn't even want jail time.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Are you serious?
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: He says he wants the killer to find the Lord, change,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and receive mercy.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: It is a staggering response.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: The detective pushes back hard. He says, if this were
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: my wife, I'd want the person put to death. And
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Braden just sighs and repeats that he doesn't want the
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: killer to be in trouble. Wow.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: This leaves us with an incredibly difficult question to untangle.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, is Braden a criminal mastermind? Are we supposed
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: to believe this guy who is surviving on couch surfing
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: and donations somehow hired a professional hitman to murder his
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: wife while he sat in Washington watching his alibi tick by?
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: It's hard to believe.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Or is he just a deeply troubled, erratic, grieving husband
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: who simply cracked under the intense pressure of a police
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: interrogation and retreated into extreme religious delusion?
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And that question highlights the absolute tragedy of this entire investigation.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: The police fell victim to their own tunneled vision.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: They really did. They focused solely on forcing the narrative
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: into one of two very neat boxes. Box A, it
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: was a suicide brought on by depression, which kept the
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: public calm.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Or box B, the weird, estranged husband somehow orchestrated it
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: By trying to force the complex, contradictory evidence to fit
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: these two assumptions, they essentially abandon the actual physical investigation.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: They left the case to languish in this undetermined purgatory.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: And that is exactly where this story freezes. We are
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: left in the eerie standstill of 2016. Braden eventually walked
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: away entirely free.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: His wiped electronics are presumably still sitting in a police
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: evidence locker somewhere just gathering dust. Yep.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: And Alyssa's family remains completely silenced, sidelined by a police
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: department that seemed to take one look at the couple's unconventional,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: extreme religious lifestyle and simply write them off as lunatics
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: who weren't worth the investigative resources.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: But when you pull back from the official narrative and
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: you remove Brayden from the equation entirely, terrifying alternative leads
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: begin to emerge from the shadows of those heavily redacted files.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: There is so much more there. There are uninvestigated whispers
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: of a family stalker.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: There is an ex-boyfriend who was never fully cleared. And
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: perhaps most chillingly, there are Alyssa's deep unquestioning ties to
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: a highly controversial cult-like religious movement that operates by its
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: own set of dangerous rules.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: The magician's trick relies entirely on you never looking behind
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the curtain to see how the illusion works. But once
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: you realize the police forced a narrative to hide their
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: own investigative failures, You can't unsee what's hiding in those
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: redacted files.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: You really can't.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: It leaves you with a haunting question to mull over
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: long after we finish today. In the messy, real world
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: of criminal investigations, what is actually more dangerous? A cold-blooded
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: killer who knows exactly how to cover their tracks or
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: an authority figure who decides that a victim's unconventional lifestyle
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: makes them unworthy of the truth?
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: It's a question that completely changes how you view the
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: integrity of the entire justice system.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: It really does. Keep looking behind the curtain. Keep questioning
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the official narrative. And we'll see you on the next
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: deep dive.