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MISSING: Misty Copsey | Case Reaction & Analysis · True Crime Reactions

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want to get to try and imagine something
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: for a second. If you were to sit down and
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: try to design the absolute perfect environment for a crime
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: to go completely unsolved for a quarter of a century,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't pick a dark, abandoned alleyway or something, right.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: No, that's what people usually think of, but it's not
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: actually ideal.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: For a perpetrator exactly. You wouldn't pick a secluded cabin
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: in the woods either, Like if you really wanted to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: create an investigative black hole, you would pick a place
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: filled with glaring neon lights, the smell of cotton candy,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: deafening mechanical noise, and literally tens of thousands of potential witnesses.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It seems entirely counterintuitive, doesn't it. I mean, our brains
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: are hardwired to equate crowds and bright lights with safety.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, safety in numbers, right exactly.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: But from a purely forensic standpoint, or an investigative one,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: a crowded event like a fair ground is just a
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: complete nightmare of sensory overload. There were just too many transient.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Variables, and that contradiction is really the beating heart of
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: today's deep dive. We are looking at a case that
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: perfectly illustrates how an environment designed for you know, community
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: fun can instantly become a predator's perfect camouflage.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: It's terrifying when you actually break it down.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It really is. So today we're talking about the tragic
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: disappearance of teenager Misty Copsy. This case was the focus
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: of a really widely circulated May twenty eighteen broadcast of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the true crime show Crime Junkie, which is hosted by
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Ashley Flowers and Britt Prewatt. The broadcast is titled Missing
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Misty Copsy.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: And we should probably be clear with you, the listener,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: right upfront about what our actual mission is today, because
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: we aren't just going to walk you through a simple
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: timeline of a cold case.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Right because by the time that Crime Junkie broadcast aired
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, this mystery had been agonizingly unresolved for
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: almost twenty six years.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty six years is a massive gap. So what
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: we want to do instead is dissect the incredibly bizarre,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: almost surreal mechanisms that it kept this case in the
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: dark for so long.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Because the facts we have from this source material, they
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: don't just tell a sad story, They highlight the absolute
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: limits of our justice system.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: They really do.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: We are going to explore what it actually means when
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: physical evidence is found tied to a potential serial killer,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: and we're going to dig into the fascinating and frankly
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: infuriating psychology of a rogue private citizen who decided they
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: just knew better than the police.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: That part of the story is just wild. The active
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: sabotage of an investigation.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. And finally, we're going to look at how
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: on Earth hosts like Flowers in Prewat managed to compress
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: twenty six years of chaos, tainted evidence, and dead ends
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: into a really highly structured, forty four minute audio narrative.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: It is a massive, massive undertaking to tell a story
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: of this scale responsibly.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: You know, totally. So let's just jump right into the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: deep end here. The inciting incident, as laid out in
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the Crime Junkie broadcast, takes us back to September of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two. Right, we are in puyel Up, Washington.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Misty Copsey, who's a young teenager, goes to the local
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: fair with her best friend and uh.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: She just never comes home, just vanishes.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, by the time this was covered in twenty eighteen.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: You have a twenty six year gap of literally nothing
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: but questions. But I really want to start with that setting,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the puyol Up Fair.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: The setting is everything in this case.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Because you might be listening to this thinking like how
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: does a kid just vanish in a sea of people?
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: But when you actually break down what a fair is,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: it's terrifying. I kept thinking about it like a pop
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: up city.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: A pop up city. I like that, that's an excellent framework.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Expand on that a bit, like what makes it a
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: city rather than just an event?
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Well, think about the infrastructure. Right. A fair literally appears
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: out of nowhere in an empty field or a massive
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: parking lot. For a week or two, it brings in
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: its own power grid, its own sanitation, its own microeconomy.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the logistics alone are staggering.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: But the defining feature is the population it draws, this massive,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: entirely transient crowd of complete strangers. You've got the people
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: running the rides, the food vendors, the maintenance crews who
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: just travel from state to state, right.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: The carnival workers and contractors.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Plus you have tens of thousands of attendees pouring in
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: from neighboring towns. It is quite literally a city of strangers.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And then a few days later it's packed onto trucks
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and it just ceases to exist. It leaves nothing but
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: flattened grass.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: That flat and grass visual is crucial because it speaks
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: to the physical reality of the crime scene. I mean,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: a traditional city has permanence. You know, if a crime
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: happens on a normal city street, detectives can canvass the
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: permanent residence. They can check local business records, pull municipal
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: security footage, talk to the mail carrier who walks that
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: exact route every single day.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Because the environment has a memory.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly, the environment has a memory, but a fair ground
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: has zero environmental memory.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: It's like an investigative dry erase board. You just wipe
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: it clean.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It really is. And when you are looking at a
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: twenty six year old case, the degradation of evidence is
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: just a known option. But when the crime originates at
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: a pop up event like this, the degradation doesn't take
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: twenty six years, No, it takes like forty eight hours.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: By the time a missing person's report is filed, escalated,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: and a real canvas is organized, the suspect pool has
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: literally scattered to the wind.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, that makes sense.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: The guy running the ferris wheel might be three states away,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the family who park next to the victim might be
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: back in another country.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So it's not even a needle in a haystack at
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: that point. It's a needle in a haystack where a
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: giant fan is actively blowing the hay across the continent.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Precisely, And that brings us to a really vital detail
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: noted in the source material regarding vulnerability. Oh right, The
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: broadcast makes a point to emphasize that Missy was a
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: young teenager and that she was there with her best friend.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I caught that too, and I actually want to push
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: you on it a little bit. Why does the show
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: specifically highlight the best friend? I mean, if someone goes missing,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: they go missing, right, Does it really matter if they
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: walked in with someone else earlier.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: In the It matters immensely, especially from a behavioral profiling perspective.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: We often have this cultural myth of stranger danger.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Right the guy in the white van exactly.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: We picture a predator stalking alone victim down a dark,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: isolated road for miles, but a fair ground changes the
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: predatory math entirely. If a teenager is tethered to a companion,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: they are effectively part of a defensive unit. Okay, I
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: say they are insulated from opportunistic crime.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Right because there's safety in numbers, even if it's just
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: two of.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Them exactly, which means the disappearance likely wasn't a prolonged
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: stalking event. It frames the crime as an incredibly rapid
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: opportunistic strike.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: That is so scary to think about.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: In a dense crowd, a predator doesn't need a dark alley,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: They just need a momentary diversion. The best friend turns
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to buy a drink, they get separated by a sudden
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: surge of people moving toward a ride, or maybe someone.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Drop something just a split second.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: That window of vulnerability might only be ten seconds long.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: That is deeply, deeply unsettling. You're basically saying the crowd
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: itself is the weapon.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Well, the crowd is the camouflage. The density of people,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: which we culturally code is this protective barrier is actually
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: what allows the perpetrator to act and immediately blend back
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: into the chaotic churn of the environment. If you grab
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: someone on an empty street, anyone looking out a window
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: sees you. But if you coerce someone away in a
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: shoulder to shoulder crowd of thousands of moving bodies, you
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: are virtually invisible.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, So put yourself in the shoes of a detective
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: in the fall of nineteen ninety two, you have a
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: missing teenager. Your crime scene has literally driven out of
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: town on a fleet of semi trucks. Right, your witness
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: pool was comprised of distracted people looking at bright lights,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and they are now scattered all across the Pacific Northwest.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: You have absolutely nothing, and this just goes on for decades.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Think about the cognitive decay over twenty six years.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: We definitely have to talk about that twenty six year
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: gap because it fundamentally alters what an investigation even is.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: How so well. People often think of memory like a
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: video recording stored on a hard drive, like you just
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: pull up the file from nineteen ninety two and hit play.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: But cognitive science has proven that memory's entirely reconstructive.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Wait reconstructive like meaning we build it from scratch every time.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes, at a synaptic level, every single time you
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: recall a memory, you bring it out of long term storage,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: you view it through the lens of your current emotional
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: state and whatever new information you've learned since then, and
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: then you resave it. You're kidding, no, you actually overwrite
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: the original file in your brain.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: So if you ask someone in twenty eighteen what they
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: saw at the pueel At Fair in nineteen ninety two,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: they aren't giving you the nineteen ninety two memory at all.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: They are giving you a memory that has been essentially
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: photocopied and resaved thousands of times.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: And severely degraded in the process. This is exactly why
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: cold cases are so monumentally difficult. If a detective interview
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: is a fair goer twenty six years later, that person
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: might genuinely believe they saw someone matging a suspect's description, right.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: But perhaps they just saw that suspect's face on a
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: news broadcast in nineteen ninety eight and their brain subconsciously
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: stitched that face into their memory of the fair in
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That is wild.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: They aren't lying. Their brain has simply mutated the.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Data that makes the idea of eyewitness testimony after a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: quarter of a century feel almost entirely useless, which I
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: guess makes the next phase of the source material so
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: critical because out of all that psychological fog, all that
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: flattened grass and mutated memory, the investigation actually lands on
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: something real, something physical.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: The transition from an abstract disappearance to a concrete, forensic reality.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. According to the Crime Junkie broadcast, investigators eventually find
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: themselves dealing with what is described as a handful of
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: suspicious suspects. But the absolute bombshell of the broadcast is
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the discovery of a solitary piece of physical evidence, the genes,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a pair of genes, and the source material explicitly notes
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: these genes were found out a site that could be
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: linked to a serial killer.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: We really need to pause and just unpack the sheer
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: gravity of finding those genes.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, please do.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: In a decades long missing person's case, the absence of
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: evidence creates a vacuum that fills with this agonizing hope.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Families hold onto theories that the person ran away, or
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: maybe they got amnesia or started a new life somewhere.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: As long as there's no body, exactly.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: As unlikely as it is without a body, The human
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: brain clings to possibility.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: But clothing changes the math.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Entirely violently, so the moment you find of victim's clothing
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: discarded in an isolated area, the paradigm shifts immediately from
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: missing person to homicide investigation.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Because people don't just leave their genes in the woods, right.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Genes do not simply fall off. It implies physical removal, coercion,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: and almost certainly violence. It grounds this abstract mystery in
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: a very dark, very physical reality.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, but I want to challenge this a bit because
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: this is the exact moment where my true crime brain
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: starts flashing warning lights. Finding the genes is huge, but
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: finding them at a site linked to a serial killer.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I know. The immediate instinct is to say, well, case close,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: we found the guy.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Right, that's the jump people make.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: But does finding a pair of genes at a known
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: killer's site actually close the loop? Or does it just
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: create a brand new, infinitely more complicated problem, Like how
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: do we know it's not just a cruel coincidence of geography.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: That is an incredibly astute question, and it is the
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: exact nightmare detective's face when dealing with circumstantial evidence.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Because it's not DNA R right to answer it.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: We have to look at the mechanics of what a
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: dump site actually is in the context of violent crime.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, because it's not usually just a random dish on
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the side of the road.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Is it rarely? Serial predators and violent offenders generally engage
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: in a process called geographic profiling. They don't just act randomly.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: They scout and utilize specific geographically isolated areas, like where
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: often heavily wooded areas, place is difficult to access, or
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: near bodies of water. These sites serve a distinct operational utility.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: The offender feels highly confident they will not be observed there,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: and they believe the elements will rapidly degrade any forensic evidence.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: They're essentially curating a space for impunity exactly.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: So, when investigators find an item like Misty's genes at
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: one of these sites, it completely changes the behavioral profile
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: of the unknown subject.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Meaning what exactly?
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Meaning this was no longer just some argument that escalated
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: among teenagers. It suggests the calculated, methodical work of a
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: predator who possesses an intimate knowledge of the local geography
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: and evidence disposal techniques.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: But to my point about coincidence, I mean, if it's
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: such a perfect secluded spot, couldn't two different predators use
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: it independently, like two people discovering the same great fishing hole.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and this is exactly why defense attorneys exist. Finding
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: the genes there is highly suggestive circumstantial evidence, but it
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: is not definitive proof of who put them there. Right,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: like you said, it's not DNA on a suspect's hands.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: If a site is perfectly secluded, it is entirely possible
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: that a separate local offender, completely unaffiliated with the serial killer,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: knew about that same stretch of woods and utilized it.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: So it's like finding a needle, but realizing the needle
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: points to five different compass directions all at once. It
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: tells you something terrible happen, but it doesn't give you
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: a name, which.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Is exactly why the phrase could be linked is used
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: in the source material. It's a hypothesis, it's not a conviction.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: And this ambiguity perfectly explains the other major detail you mentioned,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: law enforcement having a handful of suspicious suspects.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that, because when I first read
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: handful of suspects, I thought, great, they have leads. But
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: based on what you're saying, having a handful of suspects
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and a cold case actually sounds like a disaster.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: It is an absolute procedural paralysis. You as a listener
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: might think options are good, but in homicide investigations, you
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: don't want a multiple choice test. You want a single,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: undeniable answer.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Why is having five suspects worse than having one? Though?
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Couldn't you just interview them all narrow it down?
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Because of the diffusion of resources, A police department does
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: not have infinite time or an infinite budget. When you
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: have a handful of highly suspicious individuals, it means your
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: evidence is fragmented and incomplete.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, give me an example, slap it out.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Hypothetically, Suspect A might be the serial killer whose territory
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: includes that dump site, but you have no proof he
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: was at the Puyallip Fair at that specific night. Right.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Suspect B is a local with a history of violence
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: who was seen at the fair, but you can't tie
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: to the location where the genes were found. And then
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Suspect C has no alibi but no physical link to
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: anything I see.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: So you can't clear any of them, but you can't
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: arrest any of them either.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly, to build a case that a district attorney will
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: actually take to trial, you need a cohesive narrative backed
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: by undeniable proof. If you arrest suspect A, a competent
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: defense attorney will simply point at suspects B, C, and
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: D and say, look at all this reasonable doubt.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: The police themselves thought these other guys did it.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Yes. Having too many viable suspects creates a massive traffic
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: jam in the pursuit of justice. You are stuck in
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: an intersection, and if you dedicate all your resources to
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: driving down the wrong road, the real killer just gets
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: further away.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's summarize the state of play here. You
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: have a twenty six year old case. You started with
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the logistical nightmare of a pop up city that instantly dissolved.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Decades go by, memories mutate into uselessness. You finally get
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a terrifying physical clue the genes, but they are found
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: in a geographically ambiguous dumb site that points to a
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: serial killer. And you have a handful of suspects that
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: just split the police department's focus into a million different directions.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: It's completely overwhelming.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: The official investigation is essentially frozen in amber at this point.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: It is the very definition of a stalled cold case.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: But this is where human nature takes over, I think,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: because when an official investigation stalls, especially one involving a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: missing teenager and whispers of a serial killer, it creates
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: a massive vacuum, and you know, nature abhorsvack.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Into that void steps the public, and sometimes they step
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: in with absolutely disastrous effects.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're pivoting now to one of the most volatile
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: and fascinating elements mentioned in the crime Junkie source material,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: the rogue private citizen.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: The exact phrasing in the source is so critical here
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: it talks about a rogue private citizen whose efforts to
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: try to solve the case have become an obsession that
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: might actually be distracting from the real investigation.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: That phrasing is very deliberate.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: This isn't just a footnote in the story. It's a
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: massive complication.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: It is a phenomenon that has always existed, but has
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: been hyper accelerated by the Internet and the true crime boon.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: We're seeing. The terminology here is not accidental, rogue obsession.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Distracting, right, those are heavy words.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: They paint a very specific behavioral profile of an individual
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: operating completely outside the legal framework. They're driven by psychological
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: compulsion than a quest for actual court admissible justice.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I really want to break this down because I know
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: a lot of people listening to this probably consume a
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: lot of true crime, and we often hear these amazing
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: stories where a web sleuth notices a background detail in
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: a photo, or a community tip line cracks a cold case. Sure,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: absolutely so, the public can be helpful. Where is the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: line between a helpful citizen and a rogue one?
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: The line is the chain of command and the rules
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: of evidence. Civic engagement is vital. If a citizen remembers
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: a license plate or finds a piece of evidence and
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: immediately calls the police, they are an asset.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: They're helping the system work right.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: But a rogue citizen doesn't want to assist the investigation.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: They want to be the investigation. They cross the threshold
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: from observation into unregulated action.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: It makes me think of like a house fire. A
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: helpful citizen calls nine to one one and maybe clears
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the driveway for the fire truck to get. In good analogy,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a rogue citizen is someone who grabs a garden hose,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: sprints into the burning building, and starts physically wrestling the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: real fire fighters for control of the main hose because
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: they're convinced they know which room dispray first. Yes, the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: intention might originally be noble, right, they want to put
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: out the fire, they want to find Misty Copsy, But
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the actual real world outcome is actively destructive to the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: professionals trying to do their jobs.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: That is a phenomenal analogy, and we can translate that
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: directly into legal mechanics. Let's talk about the garden hose
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: in this scenario. Let's talk about the chain of custody.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Please, because I hear that term on TV all the time,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: but I don't think most people know how fragile it
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: actually is. In practice.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Chain of custody is the chronological documentation or paper trail
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: that records the sequence of custody, control, transfer, analysis, and
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: disposition of physical or electronic evidence.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it's tracking the item.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: In simple terms, to use evidence in court, the police
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: must prove exactly who held it, where it was stored,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: and that it was never tampered with from the second
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: was found until the very day of the trial.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: So it's an unbroken line of accountability.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, Now, imagine our rogue citizen fueled by obsession, goes
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: tramping through the woods near that serial killer dumb site.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Let's say they actually find something. Maybe it's a piece
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: of jewelry or a weapon. Oh man, instead of calling
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: the police and securing the perimeter, they pick it up.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Maybe they take it home to take pictures of it
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: for a message board online.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Oh no, that just ruins it, right exactly.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: The chain of custody is instantly irreparably shattered. The defense
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: attorney won't even have to work hard at the trial.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: They will just stand up in court and say, your honor,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: this evidence was in the trunk of an unauthorized, obsessed
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: civilian's car for three days. Wow. It could have been planted,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: it could have been contaminated. It is entirely inadmissible, and
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: the judge will agree. The rogue citizen could literally find
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: the murder weapon and ensure the killer walks free because
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: they lack the discipline to follow the law.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: That is sickening to think about. They could destroy the
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: exact justice they claim they are fighting for, but the
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: source material also they were distracting from the real investigation.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: How does an amateur distract a whole police department?
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: In two major ways. Really, Yeah, spooking suspects and draining resources.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Remember that handful of suspicious suspects we discussed earlier. Yeah,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: police monitor suspects covertly to gather evidence, but an obsessed
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: rogue citizen doesn't do covert. They might show up at
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: a suspect's workplace with a camera. They might harass the
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: suspects family on social media, trying.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: To play the hero and force a confession out of them.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Precisely, and what happens. The suspect immediately hires a lawyer,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: stops communicating, destroys any evidence they might still have, or
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: simply flees the jurisdiction. The police lose the element of
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: surprise entirely.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: That's incredibly damaging.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, when a rogue citizen starts loudly promoting fabricated theories
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: or generating false tips, the police are often legally or
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: politically obligated to run those leads down to definitively rule
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: them out.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Wait, really, even if the cops know the tip is
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: coming from a total crackpot, they still have to investigate it.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Often, yes, because if they don't and the case goes
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: to trial, the defense will claim the police ignored viable leads.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: So you have actual trained homicide detectives spending precious budget
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: and hundreds of man hours disproving a civilian's paranoid fantasy
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: instead of actively investigating the genes found at the dumb site.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: The obsession of the rogue citizen literally acts as a
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: smoke screen protecting the actual perpetrator.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: It is just staggering arrogance when you think about it,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: which makes me wonder about the psychology here. I know
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: we aren't diagnosing anyone specifically, but why does someone wake
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: up one day and decide their weekend hobby makes them
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: more qualified than detectives who have worked a case for
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: twenty six years.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: It's a complex intersection of psychology and modern media consumption. Fundamentally,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: it often stems from a desperate need for control. We
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: live in a world where a teenager can vanish from
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: a brightly lit fairground and never be seen again. Right,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: that is a terrifying chaotic reality. Some individuals inserting themselves
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: into the investigation is a coping definism. If they can
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: solve the puzzle, they can impose order on a chaotic universe.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: It makes them feel safe, so.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: It's like a defensive mechanism disguised as vigilantism.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, very much so. But we also have to acknowledge
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: the darker side of it, which is the hero complex
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: fueled by true crime media. What do you mean by that, Well,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: in the narrative this person constructs, the police are either
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: incompetent bunglers or corrupt conspirators, and they the rogue citizen,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: are the lone, brilliant maverick who is going to crack
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: the cold case and save the day. Ah is an
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: intensely narcissistic framework. They take a tragedy that belongs entirely
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: to Misty Copsy and her family, and they center themselves
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: as the main character.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: It stops being about finding a lost girl and entirely
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: about feeding the amateur detectives ego exactly, and that brings
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: us to a massive, glaring contrast that I think is
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the most fascinating part of this entire deep dive. You
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: have this rogue citizen who represents the chaotic, unregulated, wildly
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: undisciplined consumption of true crime. They take the raw facts
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and just spin out of control, doing active damage. And
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: on the other side, on the other side, you have
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Ashley Flowers and Britproot. You have the Crime Junkie platform.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: They are looking at the exact same set of chaotic facts,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the same twenty six year old messi history, but they
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: handle it with ruthless, structured discipline.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: It's a completely different approach.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: This leads us to the metal level of the source material,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the medium itself. How do professional storytellers actually engineer a
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: broadcast like this.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: It's a vital transition to make here, because the architecture
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: of the storytelling dictates how millions of people understand the
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: reality of the case.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the metadata we have for this Prime
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Junkie broadcast. We have a highly specific run time exactly
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: forty four minutes, we have a content rating of clean,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: and we have a distribution footprint that is genuinely staggering.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: It is massive.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the source data shows this show was distributed ac
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: ross Apple Podcasts to literally hundreds of regions Africa, the
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Middle East, India, Asia, Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the US
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and Canada.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: The centralization of attention there is just profound. You are
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: taking a highly localized tragedy from Puel Up, Washington and
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: exporting it to the entire globe right.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And I really want you, the listener, to pause and
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: think about the sheer mechanical difficulty of that kind of
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: investigative storytelling. Imagine sitting at an editing desk. Right. You
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: have twenty six years of police files, interviews, dead ends
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: and rumors. You have the pop up city of the fairground.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: You have the geographic profiling of the serial killer dump
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: site where the genes were found.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: It's a mountain of information.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: You have a handful of suspects pulling the narrative in
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: five different directions. You have a rogue citizen actively trying
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: to hijack the story, and you have to compress all
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of that into a forty four minute audio file that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: makes sense to someone listening in Tokyo, Nairobi, or London.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: The editing process required to achieve that must be an
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: exercise in extreme intellectual ruthlessness. If to cut so much.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: It has to be every single minute has to earn
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: its place. But the detail that really sticks out to
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: me is that clean rating. This is a deliberate, fascinating choice,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: it really is. We are talking about a case involving
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the disappearance of a teen, implied violent foul play and
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a suspected serial killer that is inherently dark, violent, terrifying material.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Choosing to format that as clean requires a high wire
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: balancing act.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: It does. A clean rating in the true crime genre
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: acts as both a narrative constraint and a really powerful
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: tool for accessibility. From a mechanical standpoint, it means the
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: creators must convey the absolute gravity and horror of Misty's
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: disappearance without ever relying on explicit language, gratuitous gore, or
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: sensationalized violence.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: You can't just use shock value to keep the audience hooked, exactly.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: It forces the storytellers to rely on a much more
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: sophisticated set of tools, sustense, empathy, factual analysis, and psychological intrigue.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: When you strip away the blood and the profanity, the
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: focus naturally remains on the procedural elements and the human cost.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: It demands an intellectual and emotional engagement from the listener
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: rather than just a visceral, disgusted reaction.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: But here's the massive question I have about the architecture
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: of a show like this. As consumers of stories, we're
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: conditioned to expect a th react structure. We want a beginning,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a middle, and a satisfying end. We want the bad
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: guy in handcuffs. But how do Flowers and pro WoT
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: deliver a compelling forty four minute experience without an ending?
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: How do they build a narrative arc without disrespecting the
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: stark reality that Misty Copsey's family has no final answers.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: It requires a fundamental shift in what the climax of
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: the story actually is. When you lack a definitive real
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: world resolution, no trial, no conviction, no recovered remains the
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: narrative tension cannot be built on the pursuit of a
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: known fugitive.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what is it built on?
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Instead? The mystery itself becomes the star of the show.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Explain how that works mechanically for the listener.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: The climax becomes the intellectual unspooling of the complexities. The
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: aha moments aren't catching the killer, they're the audience realizing
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: how the pieces fit together or why they don't. And
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: this is where the dynamic between two hosts like Flowers
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: and Proat becomes functionally critical to the audio structure.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: How so, isn't it just two people reading a script
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: back and forth? Not?
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: If it's done well, audio storytelling relies heavily on pacing
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: and tone. In this dual host format, one host typically
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: serves as the primary narrator, laying out the factual timeline
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: with authority. They explain the fair in nineteen ninety two,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: the discovery of the genes. The other host acts as
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: the audience surrogate. They ask the questions we are naturally thinking.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: They express the shock or confusion that arises from the
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: bizarre detail.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Wait, wait, why couldn't they just arrest the suspect if
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: they found the.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Genes precisely, and by having the narrator explain the mechanics
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: of circumstantial evidence to the surrogate, they are actually explaining
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: it to the listener without sounding like a dry textbook.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: That conversational rhythm guides a listener safely through very dark
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: psychological territory. It provides momentum when the actual police investigation
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: has none.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: So they are actively manufacturing narrative momentum out of a
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: stalled case.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: They are, but perhaps their most important function is acting
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: as a filter. Think back to our rogue private citizen.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: In the real world, that individual is creating chaos, polluting
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: the timeline, and confusing everyone.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: It's just a mess.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: But in the structured environment of a deep dive like this,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Flowers and Prewat take on the responsibility of sorting that
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: noise for the listener.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: They act as the disciplined investigators of the narrative.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, beautifully put, they can present the existence of the
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: rogue citizen not as a valid alternate theory to be believed,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: but as a meta commentary on the dangers of obsession.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: They frame the facts. They can textual life why having
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: a handful of suspects is a problem rather than a solution,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: And they explain the significance of the serial killer link
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: without endorsing unproven speculation. The organize the unorganizable.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: It's so structure.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: They provide absolute clarity in forty four minutes, where the
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: real world case has suffered from twenty six years of
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: total confusion.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense. They are constructing a quan well
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: lit path through a very dark, very messy forest. They
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: don't pretend the forest isn't dangerous, but they hold the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: flashlight so you, the listener, don't trip over the roots.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: That's exactly it.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And the fact that this forty four minute guided tour
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: resonates across hundreds of countries speaks to how universally human
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: this fascination is. A disappearance in Washington State grips someone
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: in Latin America because the fear of a loved one vanishing,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the horror of a predator using our safe spaces against
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: us is a universal human anxiety.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: It is the democratization of awareness. By packaging this story
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: this way, they ensure Misty Coppsey's name is spoken globally,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: keeping the pressure on the case long after the initial
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: local media cycle has died.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's bring this deep dive full circle and really
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: cement the insights we've unpacked today regarding the source material.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: If there's one thing you take away from this conversation,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: it's that real world justice is infinitely more complicated than
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: a forty four minute runtime implies, Yet that runtime is
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: essential for keeping the memory alive.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: We started by exploring the terrifying paradox of the pleal
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: up fair, how a brightly lit pop up city of
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: innocent fun instantly dissolved into the ultimate chaotic camouflage for
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: an opportunistic predator.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: We examine the profound shift that occurs when an abstract
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: missing persons case collides with physical reality. The discovery of
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Misty's genes didn't solve the case. It introduced the complex
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: criminology of serial killer dump sites and the paralyzing reality
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: of managing a handful of disparate suspects with purely circumstantial evidence.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: And then we dug into the legal and psychological disaster
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: of the rogue private citizen. We saw exactly how an
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: unregulated obsession can shatter the chain of custody, spook suspects,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and actively force law enforcement to waste precious resources on
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: fabricated theories, all in service of an amateur's ego.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: And finally, we analyze the structural brilliance of the crime
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Junkie broadcast itself. We explored how professional storytellers use editing,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: a clean content constraint, and the dynamic of an audience
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: surrogate to curate twenty six years of sprawling chaos into
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: a disciplined, globally accessible narrative arc that honors the mystery
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: without requiring a neat resolution.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: It is a truly remarkable journey from a physical disappearance
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two to a global digital broadcast in
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. It highlights the absolute darkest elements of human
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: predatory behavior, but also the incredibly complex ways we consume, process,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: and attempt to organize those tragedies.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: As a society, it forces us to confront how we
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: interact with the darker realities of our world.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Which leaves us with one final provocative thought. We spent
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: a significant amount of time today dissecting the actions of
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the rogue citizen, that individual whose uncontrolled obsession crossed a
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: massive ethical line and actively distracted from the real investigation.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: We can easily point at them and say they went
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: too far, but it begs a much larger, more uncomfortable
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: question for all of us as consumers. If a single
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: rogue citizen's obsession can derail a very real, very physical investigation,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: what is our collective responsibility as the everyday consumers fueling
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the true crime ecosystem.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: That's the real question.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: When you plug in your headphones, pull up a show,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and listen to these agonizing real world tragedies purely for
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: your own engagement during a morning commute, where exactly is
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the line between bearing witness to Misty Copsey's memory and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: simply becoming a passive spectator at the world's darkest Fairground.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: It's something you might want to think about the next
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: time you press play. Until next time