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The Horrors Of Apartment 5904: The Banks Family · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to imagine that you share a
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: bedroom wall with an absolute nightmare.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: You're just lying in bed. It's the middle of a
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: freezing February night in Wisconsin. And suddenly you hear screaming
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: through the drywall.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: And not just an argument.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. Like the primal, terrified screaming of
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: a woman who is begging for her life. And then
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: comes this thumping.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a really violent sound.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Exactly. This heavy, rhythmic smashing sound. It's literally shaking the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: pictures on your wall. So you look out your window
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and you see your neighbor dragging this woman from the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: parking lot back into the apartment.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: It's a terrifying scenario.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It really is. So you do exactly what society has
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: hammered into your brain since kindergarten, right? You pick up
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: your phone, you dial 911, and you wait for the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: cavalry to arrive.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Because that is the social contract.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And nine minutes later, the police do arrive. They
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: pull into the parking lot. They roll their windows down.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And then... They sit in complete silence for 10 minutes. Yeah.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: 10 minutes. And then they put the car in drive
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and they simply leave.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Okay. Let's unpack this. Because today we are dissecting the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: anatomy of a systemic failure that literally cost an entire
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: family their lives. Welcome to the Deep Dive.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: It really is a premise that just completely defies our
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: most basic expectations of public safety. So we are examining
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: the true crime case of the Banks family murders in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: And we're drawing from an incredibly well-documented transcript by the
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: YouTube channel, truly criminal. Right. But, you know, our goal
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: today extends way beyond just mapping out a timeline of
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: a tragedy. We are taking a hard analytical look at
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: the invisible architecture of emergency response systems and honestly, the
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: deeply flawed protocols that govern them. Right.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Because this story, it forces us to look at two
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: intersecting horrors. On one hand, you have the chilling, just
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: hyper-possessive psychology of a domestic abuser. And on the other,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: you have this critical breakdown of the municipal infrastructure that
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: you and I and everyone listening right now, we blindly
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: rely on. Like we said, the social contract of 911
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: is that when you call, help arrives. And when that
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: contract is breached, I mean, the consequences are fatal.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: They are. And to understand the magnitude of what happened
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: in that apartment and really the intense psychological pressure that
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: preceded it, We have to start by understanding the target
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: of this violence.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to talk about who she was.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Right. We need to look at who Amara Banks was,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: though pretty much everyone in her life just called her Jerrica.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Jerrica. So she was 26 years old. And honestly,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: if you want to understand her drive, you really just
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: have to look at her resume. She was an honors
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: graduate from art school.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Which is incredibly impressive. Right.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: She was a classically trained, highly talented violinist, too. But
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: all of that, like all her personal ambitions... took a
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: backseat to her primary identity. She was a profoundly devoted
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: mother to three very young children.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Three under six, right?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She had five-year-old Zania, four-year-old Camaria, and a 21-month-old
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: toddler named Arzel Jr. But the family just called him Zell.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: And raising three children under the age of six as
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a single mother, I mean, that is an administrative and
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: physical marathon on a good day.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Her brother, David, actually described her existence as being completely
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: tethered to those kids. Literally every decision she made, every
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: hour she worked, it was all filtered through the lens
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: of what would benefit them.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And she was really working herself into the ground. She
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: took this grueling job in a hospital laundry room.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, heavy physical labor.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Taking on extra shifts, doing all this physical work,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: just to stockpile cash. Because the goal was to secure
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a new apartment. and essentially engineer a completely fresh start
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: for her family.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: And that phrase, a fresh start, that is the critical
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: variable here. Because in the context of domestic dynamics, a
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: fresh start usually implies an extraction.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Right, pulling away. Exactly.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Jericho was actively orchestrating her independence from the father of
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Zemiah and baby Zel, a 25-year-old man named Arzel Ivory.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: At this point in the timeline, they were no longer cohabitating.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Right, they lived a few miles apart.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and... Jericho was intentionally enforcing very strict boundaries.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And Arzel was pushing back on those boundaries hard. I mean,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: he was telling her family that he wanted to marry her.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: He was proposing, just constantly trying to escalate the commitment.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: And she was shitting it down.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Completely. She told him directly, like, there is no romance left.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: A long-term relationship is completely off the table. And she
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: made it clear that his presence in her life was
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: strictly permitted just for the logistical co-parenting of their children.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: We really need to pause on this boundary setting. because
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: from a behavioral psychology standpoint, it is arguably the most
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: precarious phase of a deteriorating relationship.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Why is that?
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Well, we don't have documented incidents of prior physical violence
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: in the source material up to this point, but the
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: imposition of boundaries by a woman onto a partner who
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: views her as a possession, it creates a very volatile friction. Right.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: And then Unfortunately, a catalyst occurs that takes that underlying
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: friction and just ignites it into an uncontrollable inferno.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And this brings us to the first really unbearable
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: turn in this timeline. And it involves baby Zell.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: So Zell had a history of severe respiratory issues. And
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: anyone who has cared for a child with breathing problems
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: knows how terrifying that can be. I mean, he was
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: actually slated to undergo tonsil surgery just to help clear
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: his airways.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: It was a chronic issue. Yeah.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: So on this specific day, Zell was too sick to
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: attend daycare. He was refusing food, refusing his medication. So
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Arzel takes over caregiving duties at his own place.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And the timeline of what happens next is just a
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: study in gross negligence. Arzel attempts to wake the toddler
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: from a nap, and he observes that the child is
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: totally unresponsive. Right. But more critically, he notes that Zell
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: is making strange, labored gasping sounds.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: See, if you hear a baby gasping for air and
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: they won't wake up, the human brain typically overrides all
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: other functions and just screams emergency. You dial 911 immediately.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: You call an ambulance.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: You seek immediate localized medical intervention. But Arzel's response is
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: this inexplicable delay. He observes this severe respiratory distress and
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: instead of calling for help, he just waits. Wow. He
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: waits for over an hour.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I have to stop you there because, honestly, the phrase
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: he waits just doesn't adequately capture the sheer absurdity of
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: his actions. I mean, it's like watching a car roll
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: slowly toward a cliff and deciding to go get a
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: coffee before you pull the emergency brake.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Right. Why? Like, what is the psychological mechanism behind that
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: level of inaction when a child is literally dying in
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: front of you?
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Well, there are a few theories forensic psychologists apply to
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: this kind of catastrophic delay. One is a severe deficit
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: in executive function caused by panic.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: So like the brain just freezing up?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: But Arzell's subsequent actions really contradict a panic response. A second,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: much more insidious theory is a profound narcissism.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Okay. How does that play out?
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: It minimizes the crisis because acknowledging it would require the
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: individual to admit they have lost control of the situation.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: They basically hope the problem resolves itself so they don't
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: have to face the scrutiny of medical professionals or, you know,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: the wrath of the child's mother.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: And the timeline only gets worse from here. Because after
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: wasting an hour while this baby is suffocating, Arzel puts
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: this practically unconscious toddler into his car.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And does he speed to the emergency room? No. He
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: drives to the daycare to pick up his older daughters.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: And by the time they get back to the car,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Zell is literally slumped sideways against the door. And still...
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Arzel doesn't go to the hospital. He drives around. He
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: actually stops at a store to buy snacks.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: The divergence between the urgency of the medical reality and
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Arzel's casual itinerary is just staggering. By the time he
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: finally decides to route himself to a hospital, he hands
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the toddler over to the triage nurses.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: And it's too late.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Way too late. The medical staff immediately note that Zell
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: is completely cyanotic. He is blue. He is entirely unresponsive
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: and he has no pulse. The hospital staff obviously scramble
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: to resuscitate him. But the window for intervention had closed long,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: long before they ever arrived.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Two and a half hours. From the moment Arzel noticed
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the baby couldn't breathe to the moment he handed him
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: to a nurse, two and a half hours had passed.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Just tragic.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. At 5.17 p.m., 21-month-old Arzel Jr. was pronounced dead.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: And that agonizing timeline of inaction, it isn't just a
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: catastrophic medical failure. It's the psychological match striking the friction
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: paper for literally everything that happens next.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Because Jerika must have been vibrating with an incomprehensible level
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: of rage. I mean, she entrusted her child to his father,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and the father went to get snacks while the baby died.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for their dynamic going
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: into the funeral?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, we're looking
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: at a mother consumed by a profoundly complicated traumatic grief.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: This isn't just sorrow over an illness. This is grief
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: fused with absolute targeted fury. Jerika held Arzel directly and
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: fundamentally responsible for the death of her son. and her
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: broader family entirely shared this view. They actually later explicitly
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: stated that Arzel didn't take three lives in this case.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: They said he took four. Yeah.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And despite this immense crushing weight, Jerika channeled her energy
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: into honoring her baby. She set up a memorial fund.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: She meticulously organized a funeral service for February 7th, 2020.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: She worked so hard on it.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: She really did. She planned this beautiful Lion King theme.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: She just wanted this to be a perfect send-off for Arzel.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: But you cannot put a grieving, furious mother and the
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: man she blames for her child's death into the same
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: room and just expect the social norms of a funeral
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: to keep a lid on the tension.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: No, absolutely not.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Jericho was highly specific about the program for the service.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: She had asked her mother, Valeria. to deliver a speech,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: but as Valeria approached the front of the room to speak,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Arzel completely circumvented the plan.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: This part is wild to me.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Right. He intercepted the microphone, took center stage, and just
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: began delivering his own unprompted speech.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: It is such a gross violation of the space. Like
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: the audacity required to stand over the casket of the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: child you neglected to save and then hijack the microphone
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: from the grieving grandmother.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: It's hard to fathom.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: It is. Jerika's family noted that she didn't erupt in
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that exact second because she desperately wanted to maintain the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: dignity of her son's service. But beneath the surface, she
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: was absolutely livid.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: It is a textbook demonstration of an abuser asserting control
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: in an environment where they have been rightfully marginalized. Jericho
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: was stripping him of his influence over her life, and
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: society was implicitly judging his failure as a father. Right.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Everyone in that room knew.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So by taking the microphone, he forcefully inserted himself
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: back into the center of the narrative. He demanded to
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: be the protagonist of a tragedy he caused.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: And that dynamic, you know, her justified fury and his
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: absolute refusal to be sidelined or held accountable, that is
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the primer. It leads us directly into the early morning
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: hours of February 8th.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: So the funeral concludes. The family, emotionally shattered, obviously, gathers
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: at the home of Jerika's sister, Ma, to decompress. Jerika
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: has a few glasses of wine. And eventually, exhaustion takes over.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Understandably. Right.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: At 1.30 in the morning, Ma drives Jerika, 5-year-old Zania,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: and 4-year-old Kamaria back to Jerika's apartment on North Sherman Boulevard.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: So they pull up, they go inside, and Arzel's already there.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: He's waiting for them.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And the presence of an unwanted adversarial figure in a
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: supposed safe space at 1.30 in the morning, it immediately
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: escalates the baseline tension to a crisis level.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And Jerika's reaction is explosive. And frankly, completely understandable. She
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: starts screaming at him. She yells that he never cared
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: about Zell, that his negligence killed their baby, and that
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: she cannot even stomach looking at him.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: According to the narrative Arzell later provided to law enforcement,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: he claimed that during this verbal altercation... Jericho retrieved a
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: knife and cut his wrist. Yeah. Right. We have to
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: treat that statement with extreme skepticism. It is a classic
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: self-serving justification crafted by a perpetrator after the fact. However,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: regardless of the prompt, Arzell's physical response was a massive,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: completely disproportionate escalation of violence.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: He physically overpowered her. He grabbed her and he slammed
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: her head into the apartment wall. And he didn't just
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: push her. He slammed her with such violent force that...
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: that it punched a massive hole straight through the drywall.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: And a blow of that magnitude immediately induces severe head trauma.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: We are talking about concussive force, severe disorientation, and blunt
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: force injury. But adrenaline and survival instinct momentarily override the trauma.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Because Jerrica knows she is fighting for her life. She
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: scrambles away, she gets the door open, and she runs.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is the middle of February in Wisconsin.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: It is freezing. She's barefoot. She is bleeding heavily from
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the mouth. And she is sprinting through the complex parking lot,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: screaming at the top of her lungs, literally begging him
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: not to kill her.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: And this is where the timeline intersects with the public sphere.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Because this violence is no longer contained, it is spilling
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: out into an occupied residential complex.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Right. People are home. It's the middle of the night.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: One resident hears the screaming, looks out their window, and
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: actually witnesses Jerrica running for her life. But the most
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: critical witness is the neighbor who lives in the adjoining apartment.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: This neighbor is lying in bed sharing the exact wall
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: that Arzell just smashed Jerika's head through. She hears the thumping.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: She hears the screaming. She gets up, looks out her window,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: and has a direct line of sight to the parking lot.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And what does she see?
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: She watches Arzell pursue Jerika, physically grab her, drag her
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: struggling body back into the apartment, and slam the door shut.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And this neighbor, she does not hesitate. She dials 911 immediately.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And thanks to the transcript, we know exactly what she
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: told the dispatcher. She said, quote, You can hear her screaming.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: You can hear it through the walls. He's over there
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: beating the hell out of this girl.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: From a law enforcement perspective, that call contains absolutely every
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: necessary data point to trigger the highest level of emergency response.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: You have a verified location, an active timeline, an eyewitness,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: and a very clear description of a violent felony in progress.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: But this is where the system completely blinks. The police
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: dispatch a cruiser. The officers arrive at the complex nine
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: minutes after the call is long.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Which is a decent response time.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: It is. But they don't rush to Jerrica's door. Like
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I said in the beginning, they pull into the parking lot.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: They roll their windows down. They sit in the cruiser
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: for 10 minutes just listening. They hear nothing. So they
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: call it in as a non-event, put the car in drive,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and leave.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: If you are listening to this and you feel a
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: sickening sense of disbelief, your reaction is entirely warranted. Because
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: to understand how police officers can sit yards away from
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: an act of murder and literally do nothing... We have
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: to pull back the curtain on CAD systems, computer-aided dispatch.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get into the weeds on this because it
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: infuriates me. Here's where it gets really interesting and, frankly, infuriating.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: How does a call explicitly stating he is beating the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: hell out of her right now, how does that result
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: in police officers treating it like a noise complaint?
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Well, when you call 911, the dispatcher is typing your
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: information into a CAD interface. That software uses triage algorithms
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: to assign a priority level to the call.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: And that dictates how fast police respond and what tactics
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: they use when they arrive. The dispatcher categorized this specific
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: call as a priority two.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Which means what exactly in police jargon?
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: A priority one call implies an immediate catastrophic threat to life.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: It's usually triggered by the explicit mention of a weapon
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: like a firearm or a knife or an officer down.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Priority two is still urgent, but it implies a lower
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: echelon of immediate lethality. It often covers domestic disturbances where
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: a weapon hasn't been explicitly identified.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: See, I have to push back on the absurdity of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: that algorithm. Because if a man is slamming a woman's
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: skull through a wall, the wall is the weapon.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: The floor is the weapon. The idea that a 9-1-1
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: men's system requires the magic word gun to treat a
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: violent beating as a priority one emergency is just a
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: fundamental failure of logic. I mean, it's like calling the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: fire department for a blazing house fire and the operator
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: writing down that someone down the block smells smoke.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is your analogy is spot on because
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: it highlights exactly how data can be technically logged but
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: completely stripped of the context that makes it actionable. And
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: that brings us to the second and arguably more fatal
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: error the dispatcher made. They typed the address of the
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: apartment complex into the system for the responding officers. but
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: they critically failed to transmit the caller's specific proximity to
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the violence.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: So wait, they didn't tell the cops that the caller
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: lived right next door.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When the officers received the dispatch on their mobile
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: data terminals in the cruiser, they saw a general report
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: of a disturbance at a massive apartment complex.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: They did not know they were looking for the specific
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: unit sharing a wall with the caller. Without a specific
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: apartment number, and without knowing the caller had a direct,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: localized line of sight, The officers essentially arrived entirely blind.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: So they just default to protocol, they park, they listen.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: And because Arzel had already dragged Jerika back inside and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: shut that heavy exterior door, the ambient noise in the
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: freezing parking lot was basically zero.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: They listened for 10 minutes. The standard protocol for a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Priority 2 disturbance without a localized unit number is to
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: establish a perimeter, listen for active conflict, and if none
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: is detected, clear the scene to free up resources for
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: other calls.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: They followed the flawed protocol perfectly.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: And their adherence to that flawed protocol signed Jerika's death warrant.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Because the police drove away and Arzel Ivory was left
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: with this uninterrupted, soundproof environment to execute the rest of
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: his horrific plan.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Once the police retreated, the situation inside the apartment devolved
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: from battery directly to homicide. Arzel overpowered Jerika and he
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: strangled her to death with his bare hands.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And the psychological justification he later offered to detectives You know,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: when they asked him about this exact moment, it is
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: truly sickening. It is. He noted that during the strangulation,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Jerika eventually stopped fighting back. Which makes sense, considering she
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: was bleeding out and heavily concussed from having her head
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: smashed through drywall. But Arzel interpreted her physiological failure to
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: resist as consent. He literally told police she wanted to
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: die and he was just helping her.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: That statement is a terrifying window into the pathology of
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: an abuser. It is a complete absolute externalization of blame.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Right. Taking himself out of the guilt.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Yes. He cannot accept the identity of a murderer. So
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: his brain reframes the act of strangulation as this act
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: of twisted mercy. It's an extreme form of cognitive dissonance
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: that basically allows him to preserve his ego while committing
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: an atrocity.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: But the cognitive dissonance reaches an unimaginable level in the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: next few minutes because Jerika is dead on the floor.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: And Arzel turns his attention to his two little girls,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Zania and Camaria. They are awake. They're in the apartment.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: He approaches his daughters. He physically leans in and kisses them.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: He tells them, Daddy loves you. He then tells these
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: terrified little girls that Mommy wanted them in heaven with her.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: And then he strangles his own children. He strangles a
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: four-year-old and a five-year-old. I mean this from a clinical perspective.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: If we're dealing with a severe psychotic break, sure, hallucinations
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: drive behavior. But he is coherent enough to craft this
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: narrative about heaven to calm them down. Is this psychosis
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: or is this just pure, unadulterated control?
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: It is control. And it's rooted in extreme narcissistic possession.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: This is a highly specific, highly dangerous psychological profile. In
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: this worldview, Arzel does not view his partner or his
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: children as autonomous human beings. They do not have independent
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: rights to existence. They are extensions of him. They are
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: his property.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: So when Jericho rejects him and, you know, blames him
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: for Arzel's death, She breaks that possession.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The primary relationship collapses. In his mind, the family
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: unit is over. And rather than walk away and allow
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: them to exist without him, his impulse is to liquidate
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: the assets. He destroys the property because he believes that
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: as their creator, he holds the ultimate authority over their existence.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: It's a truly grotesque distortion of paternal responsibility.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And once he has killed his entire family, that whole
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: delusion of mercy just evaporates. And pure... calculated self-preservation takes
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: over he realizes he has to get rid of the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: bodies and this leads to a series of gruesome frantic
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: attempts at a cover-up.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: He initially attempts to dismember the victims however the psychological
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: detachment required to murder them apparently didn't extend to the
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: visceral reality of anatomy right he told police he stopped
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: dismembering them because he saw a bone and the sheer
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: amount of blood spooked.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Him so he pivots he wraps their bodies in a
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: comforter Hauls him out to his car and just starts
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: driving around Milwaukee in the dark trying to figure out
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: what to do with three corpses. And he remembers this
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: old apartment building he used to live at on West
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Burley Street. He knows it has a dilapidated four-car garage
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: in the back with a broken lock. So he drives
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: there and dumps the bodies inside.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: But he knows simply hiding them isn't enough. He returns
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: to the garage and attempts to set the bodies on
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: fire to destroy the forensic evidence.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't work, right?
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: No, because he doesn't have the right accelerants. A standard
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: fire won't burn hot enough to consume human remains.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: So, showing clear premeditation and, honestly, a total lack of panic,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: he leaves the crime scene, drives to a local gas station,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: purchases a can of gasoline, drives back to the garage,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and sets the bodies alight again.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Then he goes and buys a handgun, gets in his vehicle,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and flees the state, driving 600 miles south to Memphis, Tennessee.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: He really thinks he's just erased his past.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: But while Arzell is driving south, the sun rises in Milwaukee.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: And the illusion of his clean getaway immediately shatters against
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: the reality of Jerrica's tight-knit family.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Because Jerrica's family knows something is wrong within hours. They
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: had concrete plans. They were supposed to gather for a
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: family brunch that afternoon. Jerrica was supposed to go to
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: her sister Ma's house to pick up her car.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: This is where we see the stark contrast between the rigid,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: slow-moving bureaucratic systems of law enforcement and the razor-sharp intuition
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: of a family.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Valeria, Jerrica's mother, described her daughter as a creature of
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: habit with a clockwork routine. Ma explicitly told police that
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Jerrica simply don't run off and that she would never,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: ever ignore her cell phone.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, put yourself in the family's shoes. You just
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: buried your infant grandson yesterday. Your daughter is grieving. You
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: call her to check in. It goes straight to voicemail.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: You check Facebook. She's not active.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: It's terrifying.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: The silence isn't just unusual. Given the context of the funeral,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: it is a blaring, deafening siren. They don't wait 24 hours.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: They go straight to the police and file a missing
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: persons report immediately.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: And initially, the police piece a few things together. They
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: manage to link the anonymous 911 call from the next
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: door neighbor the night before to Jerica's specific apartment unit.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So they execute a welfare check.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: They go inside. and they see the massive hole in
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the drywall. They notice the missing comforter. They even find
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a napkin on the floor with several drops of blood
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: on it. But somehow, they look at all of this,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and they conclude that the apartment doesn't look significantly disturbed.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: It's an assessment that really strains credulity in hindsight. They
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: do manage to get Arzel on the phone. It's been
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: roughly 24 hours since the murders.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Arzel spins a highly calculated web of lies. He admits
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: they had a fight. He claims Jericho was emotionally unstable
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: because of the funeral, that she ran outside yelling, and
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: that he gently coaxed her back inside.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: He says things calmed down, he went to sleep in
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: his truck, and now magically he's traveling out of state
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: for his job.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: But he worked as a local security guard. There is
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: zero reason for a local security guard to suddenly have
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: out-of-state travel the day after his son's funeral.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the detectives flag his story as highly suspicious.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: The sudden flight from the state leads them to initially
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: hypothesize that this might be a kidnapping scenario.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, OK,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: a mother and two little girls are missing. There's blood
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: in the apartment. The ex-boyfriend fled the state. Obviously issue
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: an Amber Alert immediately. You are applying common sense. Right.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: That is not what happened. It took almost a full
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: week for an Amber Alert to be issued for Zania
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: and Kamaria.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you to break this down because
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: I just cannot fathom a justification for waiting a week
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: to alert the public that two children are missing in
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: a violent context. How does law enforcement balance rigid bureaucratic
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: criteria with the blindingly obvious intuition of a family who
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: knows their loved one's routine?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: To understand the delay, we have to look at the
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: bureaucratic architecture of the Amber Alert system. The system was
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: designed in 1996 to be a rapid response tool. But
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: because it hijacks public infrastructure, you know, cell phones, highway signs,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: broadcast television, the Department of Justice established incredibly strict, rigid
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: criteria to prevent what they call alert fatigue.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: So they don't want people tuning it out. Right. If
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: the public gets an alert every time a non-custodial parent
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: is late dropping a kid off, they will eventually stop
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: paying attention.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: So what are the exact criteria that crippled this specific case?
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Law enforcement must have reasonable belief that an abduction has occurred. Second,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: They must believe the child is in imminent danger of
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: serious bodily injury or death. And third, they need descriptive
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: information about the victim and the abduction vehicle to make
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: the alert actionable.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Police Chief Alfonso Morales publicly defended the week-long delay by
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: stating that when they first investigated the apartment, there was
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: no definitive proof of an abduction and foul play wasn't
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: technically confirmed.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: So because Arzel hid the bodies well enough and because
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the police misread the blood and the hole in the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: wall is not significantly disturbed, the system basically paralyzed itself.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It is bureaucratic inertia. The threshold for imminent danger
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: wasn't met in the system's eyes because they didn't have
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: a witness saying he threw the kids in the trunk.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: The tragic irony is that Amber Alerts are designed to
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: flood the zone in the first few critical hours when
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: the trail is hot. By rigidly adhering to the criteria
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: and waiting a week, the Milwaukee police neutralized the exact
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: purpose of the system. Furthermore, because the police hadn't classified
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: it as a critical missing persons case, the local media
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: was incredibly slow to cover it.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: So Jerrica's family had to do the heavy lifting themselves.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: They were relentlessly calling news stations, begging them to run
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the photos, just doing the job the system refused to do.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: They were tireless.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Eventually, the pressure mounts and the police escalate their tactics.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: They return to the apartment on North Sherman Boulevard, and
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: this time, They bring a forensic cadaver dog.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: The introduction of the cadaver dog fundamentally alters the investigation.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Human remains detection canines are trained to detect the specific
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: chemical signatures of human decomposition and blood, even if it
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: has been meticulously cleaned.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: And the reality of the crime scene is finally laid bare.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: The dog goes into the apartment and immediately alerts in
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the girl's bedroom. Investigators open the closet and they find
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: human blood pooled inside. The dog then leads them to
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: a section of the carpet. When forensics pull that carpet up,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: they find that the floorboard underneath is completely saturated in blood.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: They also discover massive amounts of bleach residue. Arzel had
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: engaged in an extensive, desperate chemical cleanup effort, basically attempting
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: to destroy the proteins in the blood, which explains why
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: the initial visual inspection by officers seemed so inconclusive.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: So the terrifying picture finally clicks into place. The police
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: know it's a homicide. The Amber Alert finally goes out.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: But the actual break in the case, the tip that
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: solves it, it doesn't come from the forensics in Milwaukee.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: It doesn't come from the delayed media coverage. It comes
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: from a phone call 600 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Arzell's father calls the Memphis Police Department.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. Arzell had arrived at his father's home and, in
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: a display of profound detachment, calmly confessed that he had
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: just wiped out his entire family in Milwaukee and was
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: in Tennessee to start a new life.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: His own dad turned him in. which is an incredible
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: act of integrity given the circumstances. Memphis authorities move in.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: They arrest Arzel, initially holding him on an aggravated battery
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: charge related to the domestic violence incident, and he is
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: extradited back to Milwaukee.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: When Milwaukee homicide detectives finally get Arzel into an interrogation room,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: they are braced for a combative interview. But what they
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: encounter is deeply unsettling.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: He is completely, chillingly calm. He doesn't ask for a lawyer.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: He doesn't deny it. He confirms everything his father told
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the police in Memphis.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Every detail.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: He walks the detectives through the gruesome timeline we just discussed,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: step by step, and he tells them exactly where to
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: find the charred bodies of Jerrica, Zania, and Camaria in
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that broken garage on West Burley Street.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: The detectives were staggered by his demeanor. When they pressed
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: him on the motivation, specifically regarding the children, he reiterated
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: that terrifying philosophy of possession we discussed earlier.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, this part is awful.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: He stated clearly that because he had brought his children
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: into the world, he had the right to, quote, take
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: them out of it if he wanted.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I want to pause on that quote. I brought them
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: into the world. I can take them out. How does
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a human brain compartmentalize that level of atrocity? I mean,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: how is he not in a catatonic state of shock
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: after burning his own toddlers?
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question. It requires a near total
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: absence of empathy, which is a hallmark of psychopathy. But
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: it also relies on a twisted internal logic.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Like what?
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Well, If you truly believe a car belongs to you,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: you don't feel guilt when you take it to the
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: junkyard and have it crushed. Arzel had convinced himself that
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: his family held no intrinsic value outside of their relation
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: to him. Therefore, their destruction was simply an administrative task
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: he was entitled to perform.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: It is a complete and utter erasure of their humanity.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Armed with his confession and the location, police recover the bodies.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: The worst fears of the Banks family are officially confirmed.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: The desperate search ends... And the narrative abruptly shifts from
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: finding the missing to holding the monster accountable in a
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: court of law.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Arzel is formally charged. His bail is set at $ 750, 000.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: And this is where the legal maneuvers begin. Because despite
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: his full taped confession, Arzel initially enters a plea of
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: not guilty.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Which is pretty standard. They always do that to buy time.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: But then his defense attorney pivots. They attempt to change
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: his plea to not guilty by reason of mental illness.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: what most people know as the insanity defense. His lawyer
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: cites a history of schizophrenia and prior suicide attempts as
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the basis for the claim.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: And this is a critical legal threshold to examine. Pleading
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: not guilty by reason of mental illness or NGRI is
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: incredibly difficult to successfully execute, especially in Wisconsin, which utilizes
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: a bifurcated two-phase trial system for these pleas.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Right, because having a mental illness diagnosis isn't enough to
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: get away with murder.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The legal standard isn't just about whether you have schizophrenia.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: The defense must prove, usually referencing the American Law Institute
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: standard or a variation of the Mnitin rule, that at
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: the time of the crime, the defendant's mental disease was
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: so severe that they lacked the substantial capacity to either
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct or conform their conduct
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: to the requirements of the law.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: And I imagine the prosecutor looked at the timeline and
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: just laughed at that defense.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Adistically, yes.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Because if you are so deep in a psychotic break
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: that you don't know right from wrong, you don't buy
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: bleach to scrub the floorboards.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Precisely. The forensic psychologist appointed by the court evaluated Arzell
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: and reviewed the evidence. The evidence of premeditation and evasion
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: was just overwhelming. Arzell hid the bodies. He attempted to
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: burn evidence. He bought gasoline. He fled across state lines.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: He spent a complex lie to detectives on the phone.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: All of these actions demonstrate a crystal clear understanding that
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: his actions were illegal and carried consequences.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: So the doctor throws the NGRI defense completely out. The
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: court rules there is zero evidence his mental state impaired
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: his understanding of the crimes. Faced with a trial he
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: could not possibly win in April 2021, Arzel Ivory officially
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: pleads guilty to three counts of first-degree intentional homicide.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: And in the state of Wisconsin, first-degree intentional homicide carries
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: a mandatory life sentence. The only variable left for the
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: judge to decide during the sentencing hearing was whether Arzel
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: would be granted the possibility of petitioning for release on
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: extended supervision after serving 40 years.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: The sentencing hearing was a profound display of a family's
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: enduring strength. The victim impact statements were shattering. Jerica's brother, David,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: stood up in the gallery. He looked directly at Arzel,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the man who had destroyed his sister and his nieces,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: and he told him, you will have to watch your
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: back every second, every minute, every hour of every day
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: for the rest of your life.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Very powerful.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: He also made sure it was on the public record
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: that Arzel's negligence was responsible for Baby Zell's death, too.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: The court also heard from the broader community whose lives
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: were fractured by this loss. A letter from Zaniah's teacher,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Miss Bomber, was read aloud.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, this part.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: She describes Zaniah not as a victim... but as a
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: vibrant light in everyone's world. She shared a specific memory
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: of Zania running up to her desk right in the
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: middle of a math lesson, interrupting the class, just to
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: excitedly announce that her baby brother was an angel.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: That detail, it just breaks you. To think of that
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: five-year-old girl carrying so much innocent love for her brother,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: completely unaware of the darkness that was about to consume
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: her own life.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: It's devastating.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: It is. And then there was the statement from Jerika's mother, Valeria.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: As I was reading the transcript, her statement gave me
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: absolute emotional whiplash.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Valeria's address to the court is one of the most
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: complex expressions of grief and morality you will ever encounter
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: in a judicial setting.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: She stands up and she tells the judge that for
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: over 20 years, she has been a staunch, vocal opponent
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: of the death penalty. She fundamentally believed it was wrong.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: But she looked at Arzel and she admitted that he
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: broke her ideology. She said, there's some people, they don't
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: ever need to be let out. And he's one of them.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: It is a profound ideological shift forced by unimaginable personal trauma.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: We often hold abstract moral beliefs, but when evil physically
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: breaches your home and massacres your lineage, those abstractions shatter.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: But the whiplash comes in her very next breath. Because
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: after condemning him to rot, she expresses this incredibly complex,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: painful empathy.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, it was really unexpected.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: She notes that throughout all the pretrial hearings, she and
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: her son were always there. But she looked around the
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: courtroom and she realized that not a single member of
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Arzel's family had ever showed up to support him. The
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: man who murdered her daughter and grandchildren was sitting there
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: entirely alone. And despite her hatred for what he did,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: she felt a mother's pity for an abandoned son. She
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: told the court, he's somebody's child and you still be
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: there for your child.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: That statement encapsulates a deep, radical humanity within Valeria. A
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: humanity that Arzel fundamentally lacked.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Perfectly said.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: The judge, absorbing the gravity of these statements, the brutality
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: of the crimes, and the lack of any mitigating psychological factors,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: delivered the maximum penalty. The request for extended supervision was denied.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Arzel Ivory was sentenced to three concurrent life terms in
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: prison without the possibility of parole.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: He is locked away in a cage where he will die.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: But as satisfying as that final gavel strike might feel,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the reckoning for this case cannot end with Arzel Ivory.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Because we have to turn our attention back to the
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: system that left Jerrica Banks to die while police officers
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: sat comfortably in a heated cruiser in the parking lot.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: The systemic repercussions in Milwaukee were significant, though community advocates
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: strongly argue they were ultimately toothless. Let's start with the
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: 911 dispatch center. An internal investigation was launched to determine
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: how a caller reporting a violent beating was downgraded to
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: a priority two response without location context.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Right. And what happened to the dispatcher?
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: The dispatcher resigned before the internal investigation could even be completed,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: effectively short-circuiting the disciplinary process.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Shocking.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Curiously and controversially, she subsequently obtained employment as a prosecutor
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: within the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office before eventually resigning
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: from that position as well.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: That is a staggering lack of accountability. You fumble a
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: call that results in a triple homicide, you quit before
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: you can be fired, and you fail upward into the
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: district attorney's office. It's enraging. What about the two police
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: officers who parked outside and then just drove away?
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Initially, there was decisive action. The acting police chief at
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: the time, Michael Brunson, fired both of the responding officers.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: The official reasoning was a failure to conduct a thorough
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: and complete investigation of the scene.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, good. Firing is the absolute minimum consequence for that
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: level of operational failure.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: However, the police union intervened. The officers appealed their termination
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: to a panel of commissioners. During the appeal hearings, their
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: defense attorney focused heavily on the flawed intelligence from the
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: CAD system.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Ah, see where this is going.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: The argument was that the officers were effectively blindfolded by dispatch.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: They didn't know which unit to approach, and therefore, their
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: actions aligned with protocol given the bad data they received.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: And the commissioners bought that defense.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: They did. The panel reinstated both officers to the force.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: They downgraded their punishment from termination to mere unpaid suspensions.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: The more experienced officer received a 30-day suspension. The less
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: experienced officer received a 15-day suspension.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, 15 days. A woman is screaming for her life.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: You park 10 yards away. You do nothing. Three people
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: are murdered. And your punishment is a two-week unpaid vacation.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: It's like putting a tiny superficial Band-Aid on a severed artery.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: How does the system justify balancing three lost lives against
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: a 15-day suspension?
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: From a bureaucratic standpoint, the system protects its protocols, not
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: its outcomes. If an officer follows protocol, even if the
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: protocol results in death, the system struggles to punish them
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: severely without invalidating its own rules. During the hearings, one
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: of the officers gave a very candid statement. He openly
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: admitted that he constantly plays the what-if game in his head,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: wondering if he had just gotten out of the car
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: and walked the hallways if he could have changed the outcome.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: That has to be an agonizing psychological burden to carry.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: knowing your adherence to a flawed rulebook cost a family everything.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: It is the tragic burden of public service when human
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: judgment is replaced by algorithmic triage. And it's crucial to
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: understand that Jerika's case did not happen in a vacuum.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: It was the most visible flashpoint in a terrifying broader trend.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Between 2018 and 2020, domestic violence-related deaths in Milwaukee spiked
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: by a staggering 400%. 400% in two years.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: How does a city's infrastructure allow that kind of localized
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: epidemic to happen?
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: It's a confluence of variables. You have the isolation effects
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: of the early pandemic lockdowns, trapping victims with abusers, coupled
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: with systemic underfunding of domestic violence shelters and intervention programs,
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: and overlaid with a police dispatch system that, as we've seen,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: routinely triaged domestic violence calls as non-immediate threats. Yeah. Jerrica's
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: murder underscored an undeniable urgent need for a massive overhaul
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: of in how municipal networks categorize, communicate, and respond to
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: violence in the home.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: And to honor what was lost, the Banks family channeled
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: their grief into community action. They worked closely with the
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Sojourner Family Peace Center in Milwaukee. It's this incredible nonprofit
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: facility that provides comprehensive support from shelter to legal advocacy
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: for thousands of domestic violence survivors every year.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: It's a great organization.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: The family commissioned a massive, beautiful stained glass window to
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: be installed at the center. It depicts Jerika, Zania, and
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Camaria holding hands, walking forward into a bright golden sunlight.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: It serves as a permanent, luminous reminder of the joy
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: they brought to the world, while simultaneously standing as a
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: beacon of hope for other victims seeking the safety that
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Jerika was denied.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: As we wrap up this deep dive, it is vital
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: that we do not simply consume the Banks family's story
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: as true crime entertainment. We have to learn from the
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: cascading failures that allowed Arzel Ivory to operate in the
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: blind spots of the system. If you're listening to this,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: you have to be vigilant in your own communities. We
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: must demand transparency, funding, and operational efficiency from the emergency
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: networks we pay for and rely on with our lives.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: And as you reflect on the complexities of this case,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: I want to leave you with one final lingering concept
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: to mull over. Consider the psychological burden placed on the
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: neighbor who shared that bedroom wall.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: As a society, we constantly broadcast the mantra, if you
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: see something, say something. We tell citizens that they are
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: the first line in the fence. This neighbor did exactly
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: what we asked of her. She intervened. She called 911.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: She accurately and desperately reported the violent reality unfolding right
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: next door. She executed her role on the social contract perfectly.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, she did everything right.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Yet the institutional safety net completely and utterly collapsed anyway.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: What does it do to the social fabric of a
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: city when citizens take the courageous, terrifying step to protect
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: their neighbors, only to watch the system fail so catastrophically?
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: It's a haunting question. Because sometimes the most dangerous fracture
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: isn't in human nature, it's in the machine we built
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: to protect us from it. Thank you for joining us
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: on this intense, deep dive. Keep asking questions, keep looking
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: out for each other, and we'll catch you next time.