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The Search for Kelsey Schelling: The Case of the 10 of Spades · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to picture the biting cold of
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a Colorado winter. It is Valentine's Day, 2013. Right in
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the middle of February. Yeah, and we're in Pueblo. It's
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: this industrial city about two hours south of Denver.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: And out in this vast, freezing parking lot of St.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Mary Corwin Medical Center, there is a 2011 black Chevy
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Cruze just sitting there, completely abandoned.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: And it's freezing, so the windows are completely frosted over.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Exactly. There's no key in the ignition. There's no person
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: in the passenger seat. There is just this haunting, absolute silence.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: And, you know, usually when we talk about a crime scene,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: there's a tangible space where something terrible happened.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Right. Like shattered glass or yellow tape or, I don't know,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: scattered evidence.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Right. We expect physical remnants.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: A struggle that points directly to a violent event.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: But in today's Deep Dive, we are stepping into a
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: story where the physical evidence seems to just, well, vanish
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: into the icy air.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: It's completely invisible.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: That abandoned Chevy Cruze belonged to 21-year-old Kelsey Schelling. And
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to unravel exactly how it ended up in that parking lot,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: we have pulled together a massive stack of sources.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: We're looking at original Colorado Bureau of Investigation arrest affidavits.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Ross Seltauer data logs. Plus... The gripping courtroom
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: transcripts that finally closed the book on this whole thing.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: And our mission for this deep dive is to answer
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: a genuinely terrifying question, like how do investigators corner a
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: killer when they have no weapon, no crime scene, and
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: absolutely no body?
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Right, because it forces law enforcement to completely rethink their strategy.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Today, we are exploring a narrative built almost entirely on
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the invisible.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Digital footprints, right?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Digital footprints. The gravity of a really toxic relationship
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: and this groundbreaking legal strategy known as the bundle of sticks.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Which is fascinating. It is.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: It's a method that ultimately proves to a jury that
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: a missing body doesn't actually mean a missing crime.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So to understand the end of Kelsey's story, I mean,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: we really need to know who she was. Right. Kelsey
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: was 21. She was vibrant, really spirited. People always mentioned
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: her beautiful disarming smile.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: She just had this energy about her.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and she wasn't afraid to stand up for herself.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: But she had a deeply soft heart. She had gone
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: out to California for college. But by late 2012, the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: financial stress of living on her own forced her to
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: move back to Colorado.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Which is super common at that age.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. So she gets a place in Denver. She
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: lands a full-time job. And she really starts building this
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: solid foundation for herself.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: But, you know, moving back to Colorado also put her
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: back into the geographic orbit of her on-again, off-again boyfriend.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Dante Lucas.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Right. Dante was this towering guy. He was about 6'7.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: A former junior college basketball player, but his dreams of
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: making the NBA had kind of fizzled out at that point. Right.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: So while Kelsey was up in Denver building a career,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Dante was bouncing between his mother's and his grandmother's houses
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: down in Pueblo.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I always think of relationships like theirs not just as toxic.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: But like a gravity well.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good way to put it.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because when Kelsey is close to him, Dante exerts
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: this extreme neglect. He ignores her. He flirts with other women.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Makes her feel completely expendable.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Just wearing her down.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But the second she gets fed up and tries
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: to reach escape velocity.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Like when she's finally ready to walk away. Right.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: The moment she is ready to walk away for good.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: His ego just can't handle it. He turns on the charm.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: He exerts that gravitational pull and drags her right back
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: into the cycle.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: It's a classic tactic, honestly. It's meant to strip away
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: a partner's autonomy over time. And just three months after
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: she moves back, this massive catalyst enters the picture. One
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: that completely shatters their fragile dynamic. Yeah.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Kelsey discovers she is eight weeks pregnant.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Which changes everything.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: It really does. On Monday, February 4th, 2013... She goes
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in for her first prenatal appointment. She gets a due
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: date and she takes a picture of the sonogram.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: And she texts that photo to her mother, Laura, and
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: to Dante. Right.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: And this is basically the inciting incident of the entire
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: tragedy because the reactions are violently polarized.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Laura is thrilled, completely supportive.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: But Dante, he is furious. I mean, he had been
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: aggressive since she first mentioned the possibility of a pregnancy.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: And seeing that tangible, undeniable proof right there on his
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: phone screen, it just set him off.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Totally. This massive argument erupts over text. And Dante starts
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: manipulating the situation immediately.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Because that's his default. Right.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: He demands that Kelsey drive down to Pueblo that very
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: night so they can, in his words, make things work
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: face to face.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Keep in mind, it is late.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: She has just worked a full day. She is in
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: her first trimester, so she's exhausted.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: But Dante knows exactly how to manipulate her empathy.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: He does.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So around 9 p.m., Kelsey gets into her black Chevy
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Cruze and heads out into the dark winter night for
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the two-hour drive south.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And crucially, she doesn't tell her mother she's going. Right.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: And that is by design. Dante knows her mother would
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: have tried to stop her.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: It's an isolation tactic. You draw the victim away from
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: their support system, geographically pulling them onto your home turf
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: late at night when they are tired and vulnerable.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: It's just so calculated. So Kelsey arrives in Pueblo around
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: 10 p.m. And immediately Dante starts playing mind games.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: He redirects her to a local Walmart near his grandmother's house.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And she just sits there.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: In the cold.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She waits in her car in this dark parking
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: lot for 50 agonizing minutes.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, you have to imagine the anxiety building in
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: that car. 50 minutes feeling completely dismissed by the guy
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: who demanded you drive two hours to see him. Right.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: She's texting him at 11.18 p.m., then again at 11.24 p.m.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Her frustration is just boiling over. Finally, he redirects her
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: one more time to a dark street corner nearby. Apparently
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: it was a spot they used to hang out at.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: At 12.30 a.m., she sends a final, highly aggravated text
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: about how long she's been waiting. And then, um... The
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: digital record goes completely silent.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: For over two hours, there is just nothing.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Nothing at all.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Then at 2.42 a.m., the silence is broken. A call
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: is placed from Kelsey's phone, but it's not to Dante. No?
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: It's to an ex-girlfriend of Dante's. A woman Kelsey does
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: not know whose number isn't even saved in her contacts.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, wait. My mind immediately snags on this. If we
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: assume Dante has done something terrible to her, and he
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: is the one holding her phone... Which he is. Why
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: on earth would he call his own ex-girlfriend? I mean,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: that just immediately ties the device right back to him.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Because criminals in the immediate aftermath of a violent act
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: are rarely acting on logic. They are operating on pure adrenaline. Right.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: He's probably not thinking clearly at all. Exactly.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: His heart rate is through the roof. He is likely
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: scrolling through the phone's recent calls. Or maybe he's manually
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: dialing a number his muscle memory just knows by heart.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Wow. Just out of panic.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he wants to establish a false trail of activity
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: to make it look like Kelsey is still alive and
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: moving around. But in his panic, he makes a deeply
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: irrational choice.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: And that panic becomes even more obvious an hour later.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: At 3.56 a.m., a text is sent from Kelsey's phone
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to Dante's phone.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: And this text is just bizarre. It is.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: It reads, and I quote, I'm having a baby. I'm
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: not having a baby. I trapped him. He doesn't want
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to be involved.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: No punctuation at all? None.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: It's entirely unpunctuated and totally fractured.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: And this is where the cell tower data logs we
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: mentioned earlier become absolutely critical.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Right, because the phone pings the towers.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Right. Back in 2013, a cell phone doesn't just send
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: a message. It pings surrounding cell towers, measuring signal strength
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: to essentially triangulate a physical location.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: And that 3.56 a.m. text did not originate from the
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: street corner where they were supposed to meet.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: No, it didn't. The data placed the phone in this
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: desolate prairie area west of Dante's grandmother's house.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: So he's literally standing out in a dark field, texting
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: himself from her phone. Yes. He's essentially trying to text
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: his own alibi into existence, trying to make it look
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: like she had a psychological break and just ran off.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: But he completely fails to mimic her actual voice.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Precisely. The spelling, the frantic tone, it is nothing like
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: how Kelsey writes.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And when Denver police eventually get involved a few days later,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Dante sits down with them and offers this very polished,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: totally different narrative.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, of course he does.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: He claims they met up, argued, and then the next
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: morning went to Parkview Hospital for a pregnancy test because
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: he didn't believe she was actually pregnant.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: He says they then drove to Walmart to buy chips
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: and soda, got into another fight, and she drove herself
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: back to Denver.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: But Dante's timeline has a fatal flaw. It relies on, like,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: 1990s logic in a 2013 world. Right. He assumes his word.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: is all the police have to go on.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: But the physical world is watched by a digital one.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Detectives go straight to Parkview Hospital.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: And what do they find?
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Zero. There is zero record of Kelsey ever checking in.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: No insurance claims, no triage logs, no lobby footage whatsoever.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: But they do find footage of Kelsey's car, right?
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, they do. At 11.39 a.m. the next morning, which
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: is hours after Dante claims she drove back to Denver,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: her black Chevy Cruze pulls up to a local drive-thru ATM.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: And the high-definition camera clearly captures the person in the
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: driver's seat.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And it is not a 5'4 pregnant woman.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: No.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: It's Dante.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: It's Dante.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: He's driving her car, using her debit card, and he
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: withdraws $ 400 explicitly to pay his own cell phone bill.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: The callousness of that is just It's staggering.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: It is chilling.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, to use her money for his phone bill
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: right after.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: But the surveillance web is even wider than that ATM.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Just 20 minutes later at exactly noon, cameras at that
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Walmart Dante mentioned catch the Chevy Cruze pulling into the lot.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: A tall African-American man steps out, walks away, and the
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: video captures the car's exterior lights flashing as he remotely
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: locks the doors.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: He's just leaving it there.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Right. He walks around the back of the store and
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: is promptly picked up by a silver car.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And let me guess whose car that is.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Investigators later identify that silver car as belonging to Dante's
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: mother and grandmother.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Wow. And here's a detail from the CBI files that
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: will literally turn your stomach. That car sits in that
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: busy Walmart parking lot all afternoon right into the evening.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: With people pushing grocery carts right past it.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly. When the Colorado Bureau of Investigation takes over, they
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: eventually process the trunk of that abandoned car. They bring
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: in these specialized canine units. And the dogs hit on
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: a scent on the floor mats in the trunk. Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: The working theory is that Kelsey's body was concealed in
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the trunk of her own car in broad daylight while
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: he parked at a Walmart.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Which is just a horrific thought.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And to answer a question you might have about the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: science there, You might wonder how a dog can smell
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: anything weeks later, especially when the car was left in
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: freezing temperatures.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how does that work?
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Well, decomposition gases are highly pervasive. They permeate porous materials
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: like fabric floor mats almost immediately.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, I see.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: So even if the temperature drops and the biological material
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: is removed, that chemical signature remains trapped in the fibers
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: for a highly trained canine to detect. Okay, so the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: science proves she was likely in the trunk. But logically...
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't he just leave the car at Walmart?
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Good question.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a massive public lot. It blends in perfectly.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Why take the insane risk of returning the next morning,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: as footage shows he did, to move it to the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: hospital where it was eventually found?
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: It really comes down to the psychology of a killer's
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: safe zone.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: The safe zone.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Right. That Walmart was located right by his grandmother's house.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: It's his neighborhood. As the adrenaline wears off and the
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: paranoia sets in, He realizes he has left a massive
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: piece of physical evidence essentially on his own doorstep.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, so the proximity just starts eating at him. Exactly.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: He decides he cannot leave a crime scene sitting in
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: his own territory. So under the cover of early morning darkness,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: he takes this massive gamble of moving the car.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Presumably to dispose of the body elsewhere. Yes.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And then he dumps the vehicle at St. Mary Corwin
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Medical Center on the other side of town to create
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: geographical distance.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Despite piecing all of this visual and digital evidence together, though,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the investigation hits a brutal plateau.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Because they don't have the body. Right.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Law enforcement tells Kelsey's mother, Laura, that without a body,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: or without a legal declaration of death, which takes years,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: it is incredibly difficult to convince a district attorney to
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: bring a murder charge.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: They essentially tell her they are stuck.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is a devastating reality for families of missing persons.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: The perpetrator's success in hiding the body literally becomes a
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: legal shield protecting them from prosecution.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: But Laura Saxton refuses to give up. She actually hires
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: a private investigator. Wow. But then the case takes a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: turn that feels entirely surreal. It really does. Everyday citizens,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: women who were watching Laura plead on the evening news,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: they decide to take matters into their own hands.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Which is wild.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Women like Lauren Shore and Jessica Martin, they intentionally seek
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: out Dante Lucas. flirt with him online and actually start
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: dating him for the sole purpose of extracting confessions.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Which is unimaginably dangerous.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. It's totally reckless. But legally, wait, doesn't this taint
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the investigation? Like if these women are actively manipulating a suspect,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: doesn't a defense attorney immediately stand up in court and
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: claim entrapment that he was badgered into a false confession?
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: That is a really great distinction to make. But entrapment
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: only applies to agents of the state.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, like police officers.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Right, police officers or informants acting under explicit police direction.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Law enforcement explicitly told these women not to do this.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they were on their own.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because they acted independently as private citizens, the information
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: they gathered was completely admissible.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: And it worked beautifully because it preyed on Dante's overwhelming narcissism.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Because he thought he was so smart.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Dante genuinely believed he had outsmarted the detectives. He felt untouchable.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: So when these women gave him attention, he wanted to brag,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: you know, he wanted to control the narrative. Right. He
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: literally confessed to Lauren Shore that he was the one
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: who dumped Kelsey's car at the hospital, completely destroying the
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: alibi he gave to Denver police.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So his own arrogance is basically his undoing.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Pretty much.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So fast forward to 2017. The clock is ticking. And
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: CBI agent Kevin Torres is now leading the charge. They
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: finally get a DNA match to a specific hair found
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in Kelsey's car.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: So they know they have their man.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but going to trial without a body is still
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a monumental risk. They need him to make a definitive mistake.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: So they deploy a wiretap on Dante's fiercely protective mother, Sarah.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: But here is the thing about a wiretap. It is
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: entirely useless if the suspect isn't talking.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Because you can't just listen to a quiet phone.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Investigators have to weaponize the suspect's paranoia. Right.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: So they execute a, quote-unquote, shake-up strategy. They don't just
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: quietly search. They stage highly visible search grids around Pueblo.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, smart.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: They make sure the local news cameras are there. They
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: park marked cruisers right where Dante and his family will
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: see them.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: They essentially rattle the cage, specifically to induce a panic call.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: They want the family to see the police closing in,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: pick up the phone, and talk about it.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: And it works flawlessly. The wiretap picks up Sarah talking
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: to Dante. She has bought him a one-way ticket to Arizona,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: where Jessica Martin, one of those citizen sleuths, is actually
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: now living.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: So Dante is attempting to flee the state.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's November 2017. He is standing in the Denver
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: International Airport. His flight board's at 20 minutes. And suddenly,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: police surround him and slap on the cuffs. Wow. But
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: they don't arrest him for murder.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: No, because they didn't have the murder warrant finalized by
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: the district attorney yet, but they absolutely could not let
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: him get on that plane.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: So they arrested him for a completely unrelated crime, a $ 1, 000
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: robbery he had allegedly committed in Pueblo months earlier.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So put yourself in that interrogation room. Dante sits down
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: in the chair. He is sweating. He thinks it's over,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: like they've got him for Kelsey's murder.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's panicked.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Then the detectives casually mention, oh, We just want to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: talk about that robbery. You can almost hear the physical
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: sigh of relief.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: He thinks he beat the system.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: He does. But that immense relief causes him to completely
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: drop his guard. So when the detectives smoothly pivot the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: conversation to Kelsey, he is caught entirely off balance.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: It's a classic interrogation technique.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: And it works. He ends up formally confessing to law
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: enforcement that he did, in fact, drive and drop off
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the car at the hospital.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: And that confession ends anchors the circumstantial evidence. They officially
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: charge him with first-degree murder.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Finally.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: But as we've noted, prosecuting a no-body case is an
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: uphill battle of astronomical proportions. You have to prove not
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: just that he killed her, but that she didn't just,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: you know, walk away to start a new life somewhere else.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the trial and this brilliant piece
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: of forensic accounting involving 107 missing miles.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: This part is amazing.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: It really is. So just days before Kelsey vanished, her
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: father had kindly changed the oil in her Chevy Cruze.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: And when you change the oil, you write down the
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: exact mileage, right? So when police recovered the car at
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the hospital, the odometer had 473 new miles on it.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: So investigators methodically mapped out the exact routes Kelsey took
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: in those final days.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Denver to her doctor, the doctor to her workplace.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Her workplace down to Pueblo and the movements Dante actually
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: admitted to. Right.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: And that expected route only accounts for 366 miles.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: So 473 total miles minus the expected 366 leaves exactly
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: 107 unaccounted for miles.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: So the big question is, where did that car go?
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The defense might argue he just drove around Pueblo aimlessly,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Sure. But investigators knew Dante used to frequently cruise around
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: this remote mountain town called Beulah. which sits exactly 27
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: miles outside of Pueblo.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: So they literally physically drove the route.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, from Dante's house out to the mountains of Beulah
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and back. And the round trip, plus the miles driven
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: around Pueblo, accounted for those missing 107 miles perfectly.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: That's just incredible police work.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: And they back this up with hard geology.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Because soil isn't just dirt, right?
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Right. It's a geological fingerprint. Forensic experts matched the specific
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: mineral composition of the mud found on the undercarriage and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: tires of Kelsey's car to the unique soil makeup of
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the Beulah area. Wow.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: But they didn't stop there. Out near Beulah, there's a
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: massive landfill. Investigators pulled the security footage from the landfill's
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: front gate.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: At 4.30 a.m. on the morning Kelsey vanished, the camera
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: caught a mysterious set of headlights pausing at the entrance. Later,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: the gate's heavy lock was found tampered with and broken.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: So this is how prosecutors win a case without a body.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: They utilized a foundational legal analogy for the jury.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: The bundle of sticks.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Right, the bundle of sticks. Because if you take one stick, say,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: just the soil evidence, a good defense attorney can bend
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: it and break it by claiming, oh, he just went
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: for a drive.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Or if you take another stick, like just the 3.56 a.m. text,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: they might argue someone else used the phone.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: But.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: You bundle them all together. You take the ATM video,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the Walmart drop-off, the canine hitting on decomposition, the 107
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: missing miles, the prairie cell tower ping, the Beulah soil,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: and the tampered landfill gate.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: You tie all those sticks together into a single log.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: And no defense attorney in the world has the strength
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: to snap it. It becomes totally unbreakable.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: It creates a cohesive, undeniable chain of causality. And the
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: jury understood it perfectly.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: They really did. In March 2021, they deliberated for less
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: than three hours. Dante Lucas was found guilty and sentenced
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Less than three hours to secure a conviction in a
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: no-body case is a monumental victory for the investigators. It is.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: But when you look at the human element, it is
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: a pretty hollow victory for Kelsey's family.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Because, yes, Dante is locked away forever, but Loris Haxton
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: is still living a waking nightmare. She has stated publicly
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that she just wants her daughter's body back.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: She just wants a physical place to go visit her,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: you know, a place to leave flowers.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: And the reality of fulfilling that wish is devastatingly grim.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: It is, because if Kelsey is indeed inside that Pueblo landfill,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: the scale of the recovery effort is almost beyond human comprehension.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Right, because landfills are massive.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Modern landfills don't grid their trash perfectly. That specific landfill
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: is roughly 80 stories deep and spans 20 football fields
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: in length.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: That is just incomprehensible.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Environmental experts estimated that it would take a specialized crew
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: of 20 people digging 10 to 12 hours a day,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: 7 days a week, for 70 years to search it completely.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: 70 years.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: It is just a terrifying expanse of earth.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: And if we step back to look at the broader context,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Kelsey's story sheds light on a horrifying systemic issue.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. According to CDC data spanning from 2005 to 2022,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: homicide and suicide are the leading causes of death for
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: pregnant people in this country.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: That is such a heavy statistic.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: The extreme vulnerability that pregnancy introduces, particularly within the dynamics
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: of domestic violence, is profound. Kelsey's tragedy is, heartbreakingly, not
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: an isolated incident.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: It really fundamentally changes how you view the world around you.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: You know, we open this deep dive looking at the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: silence of that abandoned Chevy Cruze in a cold parking lot.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And we live in an era where our devices betray
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: our every move. Cell towers map our locations. High-definition cameras
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: capture our faces at ATMs. And our own digital footprints
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: ensure that a killer like Dante Lucas could not hide
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: his guilt.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Technology solved this puzzle.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: It did. But how terrifying is it that despite all
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: our digital omnipotence, despite knowing exactly who committed the crime
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: and exactly how they did it, the physical earth can
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: still swallow someone whole.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: It's sobering.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: It keeps the secret so deep that a mother is still,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: to this day, begging the dirt to yield the truth.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Keep questioning the narratives around you and keep looking deeper.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: We'll catch you on the next one.