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How Serial Killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng Met · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So usually when we talk about a massive, a really
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: complex criminal enterprise or just any kind of organized conspiracy,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: there's this built-in expectation of precision.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Right, like clockwork.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly, like clockwork. You imagine this cinematic mastermind, you know,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: operating in the shadows, orchestrating every single detail with just
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: flawless execution.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Making sure every loose end is tied up.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and every contingency planned for. We almost want to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: believe that to bring down a highly organized lethal operation,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: it requires like a massive FBI sting or wiretaps or
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: a brilliant detective obsessively piecing together a puzzle over decades.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: It implies a certain level of untouchable genius, right? That
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: expectation is oddly comforting to us. We like to believe
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: that it takes extraordinary, almost superhuman effort to dismantle extraordinary evil.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: But then... You know, you look at the subject of
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: today's deep dive, you look at Leonard Lake and Charles Ng,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and that whole cinematic illusion just shatters into a million pieces.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: It really does. It completely falls apart.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Because we are looking at a saga of unimaginable, organized horror.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, a literal house of nightmares in the woods.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: And it was brought crashing down by a suburban hardware
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: store run.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It is the absolute definition of mundane mistakes unraveling a monster.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: What you have here is the sheer, mind-boggling scale of contrast.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, the contrast is wild.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: You have two individuals who managed to construct a highly organized,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: sustained campaign of kidnapping, torture, and murder, entirely hidden from society.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And yet, in their day-to-day interactions with the outside world,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: they were incredibly, almost comically sloppy.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So today, we are taking you right into the heart
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of a story that is going to frustrate you just
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: as much as it terrifies you. We're looking at the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: source materials detailing the crimes. this highly improbable partnership, and
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the absurd downfall of Lake Inang.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: But we aren't just here to recite a grim timeline.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: No, not at all.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's unpack this. We want to understand the mechanics here.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: How did two completely separate paths of dysfunction intersect to
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: create a catastrophic partnership?
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And how does an enterprise of this terrifying magnitude get
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: undone by the most petty slip-ups imaginable?
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: So to understand how this deadly partnership functioned, we really
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: have to break down their distinct backgrounds first.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: We need to see how fundamentally different their breeds of
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: criminality were before they ever crossed paths. Because on paper,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: these two men had absolutely no business being in the
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: same room together.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Let alone forming a lethal partnership. Right. Let's start with Trollsning,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: because his trajectory leading up to this is just chaotic.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: He was essentially bouncing around the globe, leaving this relentless
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: trail of trouble wherever he went.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, starting all the way back in Hong Kong.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Right. He originally grew up in Hong Kong. And even
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: early on, he was described as a deeply troubled youth
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: with a severe compulsion for shoplifting.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Which is an important detail. Already you see this petty
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: criminal streak. It's not about stealing to eat.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: It's a behavioral glitch.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a compulsion. Then at 18 years old, he
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: leaves Hong Kong and moves to Belmont, California. And his
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: stated purpose was to study at the College of Notre Dame.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: But, I mean... Academia was never really the goal, was it?
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: No, or at least it wasn't something he could sustain.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Almost immediately upon arriving in the United States, he finds
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: himself in trouble with the law. He gets involved in
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: a hit-and-run accident.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Which is such a specific type of crime when you
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: think about it. It's not premeditated at all.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: It's purely about evasion. Right.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: You hit a pedestrian or another car, the panic sets in,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and instead of taking a breath and facing the consequences,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the immediate impulse is just to floor the gas pedal
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and flee.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: It's a very reactive state of mind.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: And his solution to avoiding the police looking for him
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: after this hit and run, he enlists in the United
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: States Marine Corps.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: It is a drastic yet classic avoidance tactic. I mean,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: in that era, the communication between local police departments and
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: military recruiters wasn't what it is today.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: There was no instant database to check.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So Eng essentially uses the military as a shield
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: from civilian law enforcement. He buries himself in a massive
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: federal bureaucracy to outrun a local traffic warrant.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: That is just wild to me.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: But of course, the rigid structure and discipline of the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: military do absolutely nothing to reform him. In 1980, while
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: stationed at Kaneo Bay in Hawaii, he gets convicted of
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: stealing heavy military weapons.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Wait, heavy weapons?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: We're talking machine guns, grenade launchers. And he's also charged
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: with desertion. That lands him in the military prison at
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Leavenworth for 18 months.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Let me stop you there because the escalation is just,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: it's wild. He goes from shoplifting trinkets in Hong Kong
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: to fleeing a car accident in California to stealing literal
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: grenade launchers from the United States government.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: It's a massive leap.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: He's highly mobile and entirely reactive. It's like he's an
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: unguided missile. He just bounces from environment to environment, never
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: putting down roots anywhere.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: He causes a blast radius and then just tries to
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: outrun the shockwave.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: That is the perfect way to put it.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: That hyper-mobile, chaotic energy defines his psychological profile. Eng is
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: a predator of opportunity. He's driven by immediate, uninhibited impulses
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: and a total disregard for consequences.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Right up until the exact moment he has to run
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: from them.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Precisely. He lacks the patience or the cognitive structure to
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: build anything long-term. He just takes what he wants in
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: the moment, whether it's an item from a store shelf
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: or a military armory.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Now, you contrast that chaotic, unguided missile with Leonard Lake.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And Lake is 15 years older than Eng. And his
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: brand of darkness feels entirely different.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: It's very different. It is deeply rooted and terrifyingly patient.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: When you look at Lake's early life, he displayed a
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: cruel nature very early on, specifically killing small animals.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Right. And we aren't talking about a kid just acting out.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: No, we're talking about a foundational lack of empathy and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: a pronounced desire to exert lethal control over vulnerable creatures.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: The progression from animal cruelty to violence against humans is
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: a well-documented pathway in behavioral analysis. It's often referred to
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: as part of the McDonald triad.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: It signifies a profound lack of an internal mechanism for empathy, right?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If Eng was chaotic and mobile, Lake was rooted, premeditated,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: and deeply sadistic. Long before Eng ever entered the picture,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Lake had already crossed the ultimate line.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And this is where Lake's story gets incredibly dark, before
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the partnership even begins. Prior to meeting Eng, Lake had
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: already murdered his own younger brother, Donald.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: His own brother.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: And a friend of his named Charles Gunner. And he
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: didn't just kill them and go on the run. He
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: committed these murders and then just kept living at a
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: cabin he was renting from his wife's family.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: He just stayed put.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I keep trying to wrap my head around that. How
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: do you murder your own flesh and blood and a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: friend and then just show up to family dinners?
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: It takes a very specific kind of person to do that.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: The level of deception required to pull that off, to
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: maintain those family ties without drawing massive suspicion, is staggering
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It speaks to a chilling level of compartmentalization and manipulation.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Psychopaths often possess this ability to mimic normal human affectations.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So he was just faking being a normal guy.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Completely. Lake wasn't running away from his crimes, like Eng
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: did with his hit-and-run. Lake committed murder within his own
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: familial and social circles, erased those individuals. And then stayed put.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: He just embedded himself deeper into that very environment.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yes. He absorbed their resources. In the case of Charles Gunner,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Lake actually stole his identity and lived under his name
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: for a time.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: And he used the overarching cultural anxieties of the time
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to perfectly cover his tracks. Lake was heavily leaning into
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the possibility of a nuclear war.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: The Cold War paranoia.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Right. So he tells his wife's family... his neighbors, everyone
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: around this remote property in Willsieville, California, that he is
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: moving out there to build a survival bunker.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: This is a critical detail in understanding his methodology. Lake
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: weaponized paranoia. You have to remember the context of the
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: early 1980s.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: The Cold War was still very cold.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Nuclear anxiety was a highly recognized normalized phenomenon. Survivalist
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: and prepper subcultures were growing.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't weird for someone to want a bunker.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Not at all. By claiming to build a nuclear fallout shelter,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Lake provided a completely socially digestible excuse for isolation. It
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: justified why he was moving Earth, why he was hoarding
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: massive amounts of supplies.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Why he was pouring all that concrete. Right.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: And why he was fortifying a subterranean structure with heavy
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: locks and cinder blocks.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: But the bunker was a complete facade. I mean, it
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: had absolutely nothing to do with the Russians or nuclear fallout.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Nothing whatsoever.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Lake... was a severe sexual deviant. And this massive reinforced
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: bunker was actually being built to fulfill his dark, violent
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: sexual fantasies. He was constructing a literal torture dungeon under
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the guise of civil defense.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: He had cinderblock rooms, hidden compartments, restraints.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: And this requires immense planning. You know, he had to
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: figure out the plumbing, the ventilation, the soundproofing.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: It requires a methodical, patient mind. So you have these
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: two distinct men. Lake, the older, methodical, deeply sadistic architect,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: who has built a physical infrastructure for horror.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: And Ng, the younger, impulsive, chaotic thief who is constantly
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: running from his own shadow.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the bizarre, highly improbable way these
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: two lives collided.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you were writing a script, you'd probably have
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: them meet in prison, or through some, I don't know,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: underground criminal syndicate.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: That would make sense. structurally.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: But no, Lake placed a classified ad in a gaming magazine.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: A role-playing and tabletop gaming magazine.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Which in the early 1980s was a very niche, specific subculture.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: And the intention behind this ad wasn't to find a
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: buddy to play games with on a Friday night. Lake
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: placed it specifically to find someone to kill.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: He was casting a net. He wanted someone isolated, maybe
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: someone lacking strong social ties, who would come out to
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: a remote location. And Charles Oong, who was out of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: military prison and drifting around the area, happens to pick
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: up this exact magazine.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: He reads this exact ad and replies to it.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: The dark irony of this moment is staggering. You have
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: an older, premeditated predator casting a line into the water.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: fully intending to pull up a vulnerable piece of prey.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: But instead of pulling up a victim, he accidentally hooks
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: a willing, highly volatile, violent accomplice.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. I just can't get
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: over the randomness of it. A mundane, hobbyist publication. People
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: are flipping through it, looking for used game boards or strategies.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And that exact piece of newsprint becomes the nexus point
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: for a historic crime spree.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, it's terrifying.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: If Na hadn't picked up that specific issue, or if
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: he had skipped the classifieds, or if Lake had placed
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: it in a different magazine, it's the ultimate terrifying butterfly effect.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: It truly is. And we have to analyze the dynamic
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: that formed immediately upon their meeting. There is a 15-year
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: age gap between them.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Right. Lake is much older.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Lake is older. He has property. He has a fortified bunker.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: And he has already successfully committed murder... and gotten away
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: with it. Nong is in his early 20s, a drifter,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: a thief, freshly out of a turbulent background and a
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: military failure.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So Lake was in a position of power.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. When Lake looked at him, he didn't see a
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: victim anymore. He almost certainly saw a protege. He saw
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: someone whose chaotic, uninhibited inclination toward crime and violence could
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: be channeled, refined, and utilized.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: They hit it off because they fundamentally shared that penchant
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: for violence. And once Ng moves in with Lake at
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: that Willsieville cabin in 1984, the chaotic violence of the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: younger man merges flawlessly with the premeditated infrastructure of the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: older man.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: And the results are just catastrophic.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: It was the absolute worst possible combination of traits.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: It was the absolute worst possible combination of traits.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Because Lake had the setup, but Ng had the energy. Yes.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Lake had the isolated environment. the structural planning, and the
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: overarching vision. But he perhaps lacked the raw, unbounded physical
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: aggression to scale up his operations on his own.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And Eng provided that aggressive, unbounded energy. Eng became the muscle,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the enforcer, the chaotic element that allowed Lake's darkest fantasies
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: to become a high-volume reality.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: So between 1984 and 1985, at this remote cabin in
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: the Sierra Nevada foothills, they kidnapped, raped, tortured... and killed
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: up to 25 people.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Men, women, and even children. It's just horrific. Eng would
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: later brag to a cellmate about the specific methods they used,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: mentioning the use of pliers, power drills, and soldering irons
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: to torture his victims.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: And they didn't just commit these acts in the dark.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: They documented them meticulously.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Right. They filmed their horrific actions, creating actual snuff films.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: And Lake kept incredibly detailed handwritten diaries of everything they did.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: This raises a critical question about the psychology of their documentation.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Why do criminals, especially serial offenders who rely entirely on
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: secrecy to continue operating, risk creating hard physical evidence of
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: their crimes?
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: It seems so counterintuitive.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Filming yourself committing a felony is objectively irrational if your
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: primary goal is self-preservation.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Right. You would think the number one rule of getting
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: away with murder is don't leave a paper trail, let
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: alone a literal videotape.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But for sadistic offenders like Lake and Eng, the
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: crimes are fundamentally about power, control, and total domination over
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: another human being.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: The physical act of murder itself is fleeting.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: It ends.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: By creating videotapes and writing extensive diaries, they are creating
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: a mechanism to relive that power indefinitely. It allows them
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: to consume the victimization over and over again whenever they want.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: So to them, these tapes aren't evidence of a crime. No.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: They are trophies of their godhood. The documentation was just
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: as important to their psychological payoff as the acts themselves.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: But I keep getting stuck on the logistical nightmare of
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: what they were doing out there. Up to 25 people.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: And to get rid of the evidence, Lake and Eng
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: disposed of the victims' bodies by dissolving them in chemicals,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: burying fragments around the property.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: The scale of it is hard to comprehend.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Just think about what that actually entails. We aren't talking
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: about a quiet, invisible crime. Dissolving human bodies requires massive,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: industrial amounts of hazardous chemicals. Lye, acids.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: It requires 55-gallon drums, constant monitoring, and ventilation because the
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: fumes would be toxic and overwhelming.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Add to that the extreme noise of what they were
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: doing inside the bunker, using power drills and tools on
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: human beings. How does an operation of this magnitude, producing
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: that much noise, horrific smells, and requiring that much steady
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: chemical supply, stay hidden for over a year?
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: It really highlights the extreme isolation of that Sierra Nevada property.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Willisville is rural, but properties are large, heavily wooded, and
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: separated by significant distance.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: But still, neighbors must notice something.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: It also highlights the specific blind spots in rural community
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: observation during that era. People out in the mountains often
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: move there specifically to be left alone.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Right. They want their privacy.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: And they respect each other's privacy to an extreme, sometimes
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: fatal degree.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So if a neighbor hears heavy machinery or smells something
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: awful burning, they just look the other way.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes. If someone claims they are a survivalist building
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: a bunker, which inherently involves heavy machinery, digging, noise, and
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: strange chemical smells, neighbors might just write them off as
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: an eccentric, paranoid prepper and keep their distance.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Lake's Cold War cover story was incredibly effective at creating
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a social force field around the property. It gave everyone
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: a mundane excuse to ignore the red flags.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Which makes their ultimate downfall so incredibly jarring.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. You have this massive, hidden empire of terror
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: in the mountains, shielded by a bunker cover story, totally
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: undiscovered by neighbors or law enforcement, and it doesn't come
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: down because a victim managed to escape and run to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the highway.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: It doesn't come down because a brilliant detective tracked a
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: bulk chemical purchase or pieced together a map of missing persons. No.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: It comes down on June 2nd, 1985, in a mundane,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: brightly lit suburban hardware store in South San Francisco.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: All because of Charles Ning's oldest, most persistent habit.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Shoplifting. I mean, Ning is wandering around a hardware store
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and he decides to steal a vice.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: A $ 75 vice.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: And not just any tool. This is a tool he
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: actively used back at the bunker to torture his victims.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: But he gets spotted by the store employees.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: And this is where the psychology gets fascinating.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Now, let's just pause and think about this for a second.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: A normal person in this situation, especially a person who
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: knows there are bodies buried in their backyard, would probably
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: drop the vice, push past the employee, and run for
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: their life, right?
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Fleeing is what Ning does best.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He fled a hit-and-run. He fled the Marines. But instead,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: what does he do? He calls Leonard Lake to come
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: to the hardware store and pay for the vice.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: The absurd juxtaposition here is almost hard to process. These
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: are men who successfully planned, executed, and hid dozens of murders.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: They managed complex logistics to dissolve human remains and evade detection.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Yet they were completely undone by stealing a basic, inexpensive
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: piece of hardware.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: It's like a master bank robber getting taken down for
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: jaywalking across the street from the bank. I mean, Eng
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: just couldn't help himself, but Why call Lake?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: That's the real mystery.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Why, when you have a literal house of horrors waiting
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: for you, would you risk your freedom and your partner's
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: freedom over a shoplifting dispute? And why, on Earth, would
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Lake actually show up to the scene of an active
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: confrontation with store security?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: It points to a staggering level of hubris, deeply intertwined
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: with Eng's profound impulsivity. Eng shoplifted because he felt entitled
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: to take what he wanted.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: The behavioral loop of taking things was so ingrained, he
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: never bothered to check it.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And calling Lake, and Lake actually showing up, shows
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: that they fundamentally believed they were untouchable.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: They felt like gods.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: They had gotten away with literal murder for so long.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: They had played God in that bunker for so long.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: That they likely viewed a shoplifting accusation as a minor,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: annoying nuisance. They thought they could just talk their way
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: out of it, pay for the item, and drive home.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: But the hubris goes even further. Because when Lake arrives
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: at the hardware store to bail Eng out, the police
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: have already been called by the store manager.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: The police are on the scene.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: The officers start questioning Lake and ask him for his identification.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: And Lake, standing in front of uniformed officers, reaches into
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: his pocket and hands them a California driver's license belonging
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to a man named Robin Scott Stapley.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Which is an unbelievable mistake.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: The problem? Scott Stapley is a man who had been
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: reported missing. Lake handed the police the ID of a
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: man they had already murdered.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Again, the arrogance is astonishing. Lake simply assumed the police
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: were just writing a minor report.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: He didn't think they'd check.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: He assumed they wouldn't run the name through dispatch. Or
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: if they did, they wouldn't connect the dots to a
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: missing persons report from a different jurisdiction. He thought he
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: was the smartest person in the room.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: But that arrogant assumption was the fatal error that ended everything.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: It broke the whole case open.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: The police run the ID. Dispatch comes back and says,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: that's a missing person. The officers realize something is very,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: very wrong.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: So they detain Lake.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: They search his car, right there in the hardware store
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: parking lot. And inside the trunk, they find a firearm
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: equipped with an illegal silencer.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Boom.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Lake is arrested on a felony weapons charge.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Just like that, the impenetrable partnership is shattered. A vice
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: closes on them. And yes, the pun is fully intended.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: It's dark, but accurate. And this arrest launches a chaotic
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: aftermath that reveals exactly who these two men are at
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: their core.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Once the facade breaks, once the illusion of control is
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: stripped away in that parking lot, their true psychological baselines
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: immediately take over.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Right. Left alone in a police interrogation room, Lake asks
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: for a glass of water, reaches into his clothing where
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: he had hidden a cyanide pill, swallows it, and within
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: days dies.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: In a hospital bed. This is a monumental detail. Carrying
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: a cyanide pill on your person proves beyond a shadow
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: of a doubt that Lake knew exactly what was waiting
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: for him if he was ever caught.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: He wasn't delusional about his innocence?
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Not at all. He had planned an exit strategy. He
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: understood the total, unforgivable magnitude of his guilt, and he
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: chose to dictate his own ending.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: But is that really an act of control? I struggle
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: with that framing. To me, it doesn't sound like a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: mastermind in control. It sounds like sheer, pathetic cowardice.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: How so?
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: The moment his grand facade breaks and he's just a
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: guy in handcuffs, he can't face the reality of what
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: he is. He can't face the judgment. It's a cornered
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: rat taking the only way out so he doesn't have
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: to answer for the horror he caused.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: That's a very valid counterperspective. Whether you view it as
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: ultimate control over his own fate or absolute cowardice and
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: avoiding justice, the outcome is the same.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Right. He removes himself from the equation. He ensures he
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: will never sit in a courtroom.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: And while Lake takes the coward's way out, Eng does
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: exactly what we established in his early profile. He reverts
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: to his established pattern, evasion.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: While Lake is dying of cyanide poisoning, Eng slips away
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: from the hardware store, grabs his things, flees the United
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: States entirely, and makes it across the border into Canada.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: He runs, just like he ran from the hit-and-run, just
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: like he ran from the Marines.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: But meanwhile, back in California... Lake's arrest, the missing person's ID,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the silenced weapon, and his sudden suicide give investigators the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: thread they need to pull.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: They trace Lake's belongings and vehicle registration back to that
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: remote cabin in Willsieville.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I just want you to put yourself in the shoes
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of one of those local detectives for a second. You
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: get called out to follow up on a guy who
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: was arrested at a hardware store with an illegal gun,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: who then suddenly kills himself in custody.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: It sounds like a routine, maybe slightly weird, local case.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: You drive up into the quiet Sierra Nevada foothills, pull
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: up to this rustic cabin, probably expecting to find a
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: stash of stolen hardware goods, maybe some illegal weapons, maybe
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: a small meth lab.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Instead, you uncover an unparalleled nightmare.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: The sensory shock of that discovery is hard to overstate.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: The detectives start searching the property.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: They find the bunker. They find cinder block rooms with restraints.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And then they start digging.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: They start digging and they discover human remains. They find
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: personal items, driver's licenses, and clothing belonging to 25 different people.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: And then they unearth the snuff films and Lake's detailed
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: handwritten diaries.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: They walked into a literal house of horrors, and the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: only reason they found it was because of a shoplifting follow-up.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: The psychological impact on those investigators must have been profound.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: To peel back the surface of a mundane hardware store
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: arrest and find an abyss of human sufferings?
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: To realize that such profound evil was operating right under
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: the surface of the world, masked by things as ordinary
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: as a gaming magazine ad and a Cold War survivalist story.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: It completely shatters the illusion of safety.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: It proves that monsters don't live in castles. They live
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: at the end of a dirt road and they shop
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: at your local store.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: With Lake Dead and the incomprehensible scale of the horror
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: fully documented in those diaries and tapes, The entire focus
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: of the justice system shifts to finding the fugitive, Charles Eng.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Thus begins a long, agonizing, and often absurd road to justice.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Eng had fled to Canada in 1985. He manages to
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: evade an international manhunt, living under the radar, hiding in
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: plain sight in Calgary for six years.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: He was actually working as a mover, blending in perfectly.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: But then, in 1991, he is finally caught. And how
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: is one of the most wanted men in North America
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: finally apprehended?
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: It almost defies belief.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: It is the exact same flaw.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: He is caught for shoplifting.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Again, after escaping the country, laying low for six years,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: knowing his face is on FBI wanted posters, he is
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: undone in a Canadian department store for stealing a can
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of salmon.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: It's the exact same compulsion that brought the police to
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: the hardware store in 1985.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I am just floored by the salmon detail. You are
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: hiding from a mass murder charge. Your life literally depends
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: on staying off the radar of law enforcement.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: You've evaded everyone.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: You have successfully evaded the FBI, the RCMP, everyone. And
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: you decide to pocket a cheap can of fish. How
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: can someone possess the cunning to evade international capture for
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: over half a decade, but completely lack the basic impulse
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: control to just buy their groceries like a normal person? Yeah.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Reveals the intense rigidity of his criminal pathology. Nga wasn't
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: stealing that salmon because he was starving and penniless. He
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: was stealing because it was a deeply ingrained behavioral loop.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: He just had to take it.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: For him, the act of taking something without paying was
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: a compulsion he couldn't turn off, even when the stakes
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: were life and death. It's a massive cognitive dissonance where
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: the immediate, petty thrill of the theft completely overrides long-term
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: survival instincts.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: The logic center of his brain simply Could not override
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the compulsion. Right.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: So he's caught by store security in Calgary. And he
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: actually shoots a security guard in the hand during the
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: struggle before the Canadian authorities arrest him.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And they realize exactly who they have. But the delay
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't end there. He's caught in 1991, but his trial
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: in California doesn't even begin until 1998.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: That is a massive gap.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: 14 years after he initially fled that hardware store, he
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: finally sits in a courtroom. Why did it take so
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: incredibly long?
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: That delay is largely due to the complexities of international
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: extradition law and the friction between different justice systems. Canada
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: had abolished the death penalty.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: So they wouldn't send him back.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: It is a very common policy for nations without the
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: death penalty to refuse to extradite a suspect to a
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: jurisdiction where they will face execution, unless the prosecuting jurisdiction
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: guarantees the death penalty will be taken off the table.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Which California absolutely refused to do, given the sheer scale
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: and brutality of the crimes.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So and his defense attorneys exploited this friction. They
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: filed endless appeals in the Canadian court system, fighting extradition
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: He essentially used the Canadian human rights framework as a
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: shield to delay facing justice in California. Yes.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And once he was finally extradited in 1991, the delays
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: continued in the U.S. court system and constantly fired his lawyers,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: requested changes of venue, filed motions regarding evidence.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: He used every single procedural loophole available in the American
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: legal system to push the trial back further and further.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: But eventually, the clock runs out. In 1998, the trial begins.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: And when he finally does face a jury, his defense
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: strategy is incredibly predictable.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Eng claimed he was just an observer. He denied being
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: actively involved in the murders, essentially arguing that he was
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: just a bystander caught in Lake's orbit.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: It is a very common tactic for accomplices. especially when
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: the primary architect of the crimes, in this case Leonard Lake,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: is dead and cannot testify.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: You just blame the dead guy.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Eng tried to shift the entirety of the blame
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: onto a ghost. He tried to paint himself as a
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: helpless or passive participant who just happened to be living
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: in a bunker where 25 people were murdered.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: But his defense was absolutely demolished by their own hubris
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: because they didn't just commit the crimes. They filmed them.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Remember those tapes?
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: The trophies they created to feel powerful. The prosecution played
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: those tapes in court. The footage and Lake's diaries definitively
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: proved Eng was not just an observer.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: He was an active, enthusiastic, brutal participant. You can see
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: him on tape.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: The very trophies they created to immortalize their power became
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the undeniable instrument. of Nga's conviction. You cannot claim to
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: be a passive observer when there is video evidence of
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you holding the tools of torture, actively participating in the
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: terrorization of victims.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: The visual evidence bypassed any attempt at a semantic defense.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: So in 1999, the verdict finally comes down He is
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: found guilty of 11 murders, six men, three women, and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: two baby boys.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: The jury recommends death, and he is sentenced to die.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the final, incredibly static chapter of
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: this saga. It's essentially a state of permanent limbo.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Yes. Based on the updates in the legal timeline, the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: situation today is a complex, frustrating stalemate.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Charles Eng is currently in his 60s. His conviction and
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: his death sentence were upheld by the California Supreme Court,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: and he remains on death row at San Quentin Prison.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: However, the state of California currently has a moratorium on
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the death penalty implemented by the governor. The state hasn't
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: actually executed anyone since 2006, so Charles Ng just sits there.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: This raises a very difficult, very important question about the
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: mechanics of our justice system and the concept of closure
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: for the families left behind.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: What does it mean for the families of those victims?
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: They endured the horrific loss of their loved ones. They
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: endured a 14-year agonizing wait of legal delays and extradition
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: fights just to get a conviction. And now, decades later,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: they watch as the man responsible sits in an indefinite
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: bureaucratic limbo.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: There is a deep paradox here.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: A death sentence that is legally upheld by the highest
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: court in the state, in a state that fundamentally refuses
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: to carry it out.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: It's a stark reminder to everyone listening of how the
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: wheels of justice actually turn in reality.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: We expect swift, decisive conclusions.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: We want the movie ending where the gavel bangs and
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: the screen fades to black. But sometimes those wheels turn
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: incredibly slowly.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Grinding through decades of appeals, international treaties, and changing political
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: landscapes until they just grind to a complete standstill. The
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: victims' families are left in this permanent waiting room.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: It strips away the neat, conclusive endings we crave in
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: stories of justice. Instead of a finale, we are left
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: with a prolonged pause.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: It forces us to reconcile with the fact that the
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: legal system is a human construct, flawed and subject to
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: endless procedural friction.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: We've covered so much ground today. We started with two distinct,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: deeply disturbed paths. An older, paranoid man escalating from childhood
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: cruelty to familial murder. And a young, chaotic thief bouncing
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: through the military and prison systems.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: We saw them cross paths entirely by chance through a
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: mundane classified ad in a gaming magazine.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: We looked at the unspeakable, highly organized horrors they committed
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: in the absolute isolation of the Sierra Nevada mountains. And
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: we saw that massive, impenetrable empire of terror completely unravel.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Not because of a brilliant police sting, but because of
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: a stolen hardware tool. a dead man's ID, and eventually,
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: a stolen can of salmon in Canada.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: It is a profound, deeply disturbing case study in the
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: intersection of horrific, organized intent and petty, mundane incompetence.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I want to leave you with one final thought to
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: mull over. Just think about the sheer fragility of their secret.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Think about how much hinged on one tiny, stupid decision.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: If Charles Eng had just reached into his pocket and
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: paid for that vice on June 2nd, 1985.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Or if Leonard Lake hadn't arrogantly shown up to the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: store with a dead man's ID in his pocket, how
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: much longer would that cabin in Wilseyville have remained a secret?
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: How many more people would have answered an ad or
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: crossed their path?
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: It's chilling to realize that sometimes the only thing standing
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: between an undiscovered nightmare and the light of justice is
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a petty shoplifter who just couldn't resist a free piece
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: of metal.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: It is a dark thought, but a necessary one to
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: remember how fragile these webs of deception truly are. The
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: mundane world is always rubbing up against the unthinkable.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: questioning the world around you, and we'll see you next time.