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Twisted New Clues in ‘Poison Mom’ Alleged Murder Plot · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know, when you think about a Thanksgiving dinner, there's
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: this almost universal expectation of warmth.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: For you listening, just picture it for a second.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: You have the turkey, the mashed potatoes, the family gathered
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: around the table.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: It's supposed to be safe.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to be this completely safe, predictable environment. You
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: let your guard down because you're surrounded by the people
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: you know best in the world. I mean, it's the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: ultimate domestic sanctuary.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Right, which is precisely what makes the betrayal of that
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: sanctuary so just fundamentally terrifying.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: It really is.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: When that expectation of safety is weaponized, it strikes at
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the very core of human vulnerability.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to the mission of our deep
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: dive today. We are stepping into the world of a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: truly staggering investigation out of North Carolina.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a massive one.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: We are unpacking this extensive, just meticulously detailed investigative report
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: From the Law and Crime Network. And I have to
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: tell you, this is not just a story about like
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: a single poisoned bottle of wine at a holiday dinner.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: No, not even close.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: We're looking at a locked room mystery playing out right
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: there at the family dining table. But as you pull
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: on the threads, it reveals this labyrinth of shifting identities,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: completely astonishing alibis and cold cases that stretch back decades.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: It's incredible.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Our goal today is to figure out how investigators are
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: building a massive circumstantial murder case when the suspects passed
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: is essentially a complete mirage.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a phenomenal challenge for law enforcement. I often
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: find that the most compelling mysteries usually unravel through the
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: smallest physical footprints. Right. Because when a suspect's identity is
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: entirely fluid, I mean, when they change their name, their history,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: their very persona changes. The physical world becomes the only
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: reliable narrator.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: This is so true.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: We're talking about the microscopic chemistry of a poison or
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: the undeniable timestamp on a digital search history. Those elements,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: you know, they don't lie.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: OK, let's unpack this. We need to set the scene.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And I want to map this out very carefully for
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: you listening, because the cast of characters here is, well.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: It's dizzying.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a lot to keep track of.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: The date is November 30th, 2025. The location is a
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: property on Schmidt Terrace in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Which is this picturesque area just outside of Asheville.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Beautiful area.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Gathered at this property for Thanksgiving dinner, we have 12 people.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And immediately I'm fascinated by this, like, Agatha Christie-style setup.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what it feels like.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: You have a confined space, a closed circle of people,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and a deadly substance right in the center of the table.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: But the social dynamics here are incredibly complex.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, complex might be an understatement. The interpersonal environment in
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: that room is chaotic, and understanding that chaos is vital
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: context for the defense strategy we'll analyze later.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the core family unit first. So at
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the center of the table is the mother, Gudrun Linda
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Jean Casper Leiningkugel.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: That is quite the legal name.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: It is, because of that sprawling name, we're just going
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: to refer to her as Gudrun today. So also at
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the table is her 32-year-old daughter, Lena Livis. Then you
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: have Gudrun's other daughter, Mia. And Mia brings her boyfriend.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a man named Richard. So far, you know, that sounds
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: like a standard family gathering.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Totally normal.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: But then we look at the extended circle, and this
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: is where I have to admit I got a little
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: confused reading the report.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't blame you.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: The police search warrants mention two other men present at
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: this dinner. One is a man named Landon, who the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: police note Goodren referred to as her boyfriend.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: But then there's another man present named Jeffrey. And according
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: to Goodren's daughter, Mia... Jeffrey is her mom's boyfriend.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the sheer awkwardness of that dynamic is just palpable.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: I can't even imagine.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: You have 12 people confined to a dining room, navigating
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: these tangled, overlapping relationships where even the immediate family members
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: can't seem to agree on who is dating the matriarch.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: It's so strange.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: It really sets a scene of underlying tension before the
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: meal even begins.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: So we have this tension, this crowded table, and sometime
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: during the evening, some members of this group decide to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: enjoy some wine.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Which is pretty standard for Thanksgiving.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: The investigation details that Goodrin retrieved an open bottle of
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: wine and presented it to the table. Mia, the daughter,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: takes a sip. She immediately realizes it, quote, tasted off,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: and she.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Spits it out.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Which is a visceral, instinctive reaction that almost certainly saved
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: her life.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank goodness she did.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: But the tragedy unfolds right next to her. Her older sister,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: 32-year-old Leela... and Mia's boyfriend, Richard, keep drinking.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, whoa.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: We consume the wine.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And here's where it gets really interesting and highly suspicious
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: from an investigative standpoint.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Highly suspicious.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Gudren, the mother who brought this open bottle to the table,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: drank absolutely none of it.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Not a drop.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Her stated reason, according to her surviving daughter, Mia, is
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: that Gudren is.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Allergic to grapes.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, it provides a very convenient built-in justification for abstaining.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, totally.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: If you're introducing a tainted substance to a communal setting...
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Having a well-known, pre-established medical excuse not to partake is
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: a massive tactical advantage.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: But let's look at what was actually in that glass,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: because this wasn't just a bad vintage or spoiled wine.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: The investigation revealed that the three of them, Mia, Lila,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and Richard, consumed a chemical called acetonitrile. Now, according to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the ETA
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: guidelines cited in the source material, this is a.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Clear, colorless liquid.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: It's primarily used as an industrial solvent, often in the
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: manufacturing of lithium batteries. My immediate thought is, this is
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: not something you accidentally knock off the spice rack into
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the gravy.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. It is a highly specific industrial chemical.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: And its physical properties make it an incredibly insidious weapon
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: in this specific context. Because it's clear and colorless, it
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: would blend perfectly into a glass of white wine or
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: go entirely unnoticed visually in red wine.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: That's terrifying.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: The only warning sign would be the taste, which Mia detected.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: But the true horror of acetonitrile isn't just that it's toxic.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: It's the specific delayed mechanism of how it kills you.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I really want to understand the biology here. Why is
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: a battery solvent so deadly to the human body?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Well, to understand why it's so lethal, we have to
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: look at how the human body processes foreign substances.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: When you ingest acetonitrile, your digestive system absorbs it. And
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: your body recognizes it as a solvent, a toxin that
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: needs to be broken down and excreted.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Makes sense.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: So your liver enzymes, specifically the cytochrome P450 enzymes, go
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: to work trying to metabolize it. But the byproduct of
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: that breakdown process is hydrogen cyanide.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Wait, it literally turns into cyanide inside you?
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Yes. It's a chemical Trojan horse.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: You swallow an industrial solvent, and your own metabolism unknowingly
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: converts it into a notoriously lethal poison.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: That is just beyond belief.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Cyanide arborates by halting cellular respiration. It binds to the
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: enzymes in your mitochondria, essentially suffocating your cells from the
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: inside out, even if you are breathing normally.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: And the agencies are very clear on the symptoms. Severe headaches, nausea, convulsions,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: and eventually death.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: That delayed mechanism is terrifying. But it also explains the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: timeline of the aftermath perfectly.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Because they didn't drop dead at the dinner table like
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: in a movie. It takes time for the liver to
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: process the solvent into cyanide.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: So after the dinner, Leela goes home, over the mountains,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: which is about an hour or two drive. Gudrun claims
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Leela called her saying.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: She felt sick.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Right. Which fits the timeline.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Gudrun even told Leela's father later that she was checking
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: if anyone else had flu-like symptoms or an upset stomach.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: But by December 1st, the very next day, Leela is
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: found dead in her home.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: It's a catastrophic outcome resulting from a slow, agonizing biological process.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: And we can see just how much poison was in
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: that wine by looking at the survivor.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Richard.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Right. Richard, Mia's boyfriend, also drank the wine. He survived,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: but he spent nearly a week in the hospital fighting
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: for his life.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: And the numbers on his toxicology report are just staggering.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, they're unreal.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: The police say Richard's blood showed a level 10 toxicity
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: of cyanide. For you listening, let's put that into perspective.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, context is important here.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: The medical experts note that levels between 0.2 and 5
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: are considered highly toxic.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: He was at a 10.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: That means he was walking around with double the maximum
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: highly toxic threshold of cyanide in his bloodstream.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: It is an absolute testament to extraordinary emergency medical intervention
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: that he is alive today.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Truly a miracle.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: But from a forensic standpoint, a level 10 toxicity doesn't
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: just happen from a trace contamination. It underscores an incredibly
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: high concentration of the original acetonitrile in that wine bottle.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Just imagine the sheer terror of this for a moment.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: You go to a holiday meal. You're sitting with your family,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: drinking wine, sharing stories.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: It's a nightmare.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: And unbeknownst to you, you're ingesting a lithium battery solvent.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: that is slowly converting into cyanide in your bloodstream as
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: you drive home over the mountains.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: It's chilling.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Tracing a severe, life-threatening illness back to that exact domestic
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: sanctuary is awful. And it naturally leads investigators to look
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: at the person who poured the wine, the person who
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: didn't drink it, and the person whose digital footprint tells
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a very specific, devastating story.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Which is the pivot point of every modern investigation. We
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: move from the physical reality of the chemical to the
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: digital reality of the suspect's intent.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Because explaining away the presence of a highly toxic industrial
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: solvent in the Thanksgiving wine requires a narrative. And suspects
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: often start by leaving a trail they think makes them
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: look innocent, but which actually builds the bars of their
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: own cell.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Let's dig into that digital trail, because the unsealed search
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: warrants in this case are mind-blowing.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: They really are.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: The authorities examined... Gudrun's phone. And before this dinner even
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: took place, they allege Gudrun searched this exact phrase on
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: her device. What happens if I accidentally ingest acetonitro?
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: She misspelled it, writing acetonitro instead of acetonitrile. But the
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: intent is unmistakable.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. The phonetic misspelling is actually quite common
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: in forensic digital evidence, but the search engine algorithms easily
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: correct it, delivering the exact toxicological information she was seeking.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Okay, I have to push back here.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at this and thinking, if you were planning
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: a calculated cold-blooded murder at a family gathering, why on
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: earth would you Google the exact weapon beforehand?
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: It's a fair question.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: It seems almost cartoonishly foolish. Is it sheer incompetence, or
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: is there... A psychological reason someone would do this.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: It's a brilliant question. Defense attorneys frequently highlight these seemingly
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: foolish digital footprints to argue that their client couldn't possibly
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: be a criminal mastermind.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Like they wouldn't be this dumb. Right.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: They argue it must be a misunderstanding. But if we
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: analyze this through the lens of criminal psychology, it often
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: comes down to a highly flawed attempt to build a
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: preemptive defense.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: A preemptive defense.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: You mean planting seeds for an excuse before the crime
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: even happens?
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Look closely at the specific wording of her search query. Okay.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: She didn't search lethal dose of acetonitrile or how to
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: poison someone with acetonitrile. She explicitly searched what happens if
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: I accidentally ingest.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Ah, accidentally.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. Investigators view this as the suspect trying to script
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: the narrative in advance. If law enforcement eventually finds the chemical,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: or if someone gets sick and the poison is identified...
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: She has already established a digital record of being concerned
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: about an accidental exposure. Wow. So she's trying to leave
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: a breadcrumb that points to negligence rather than malice.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: So she might have thought that search query was her
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: get out of jail free card.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: She was trying to build an alibi into the algorithm itself,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: not realizing that to a detective, searching for the exact
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: murder weapon days before the murder is the ultimate red flag.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: It's the smoking gun for intent.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: That is fascinating.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: But that search query is just the foundation of a
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: towering structure of shifting explanations she gave to authorities.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: And those shifting explanations are a masterclass in how an
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: investigation dismantles a suspect's credibility. Because when a suspect gives
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: multiple contradictory explanations, investigators don't just see lies. They see
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: a roadmap of the suspect's internal panic and their desperate
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: attempts to plug holes in a sinking ship.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Well, let's break these alibis down because they escalate in absurdity. First,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: according to a doctor, Goodrin came to the hospital while
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Richard was fighting for his life and claimed the wine
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: was stored near barn chemicals, including rat poison.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Right. This is the environmental contamination defense.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: It's an attempt to explain the poison's presence without intent.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: They live on a property in Hendersonville that has a barn,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: so she is trying to leverage the reality of their
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: rural setting to create a plausible accident.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: But the chemistry completely ruins that alibi, right? Acetonitrile isn't
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: rat poison. It is a highly specific battery solvent.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: A medical professional or a toxicologist is going to look
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: at that blood work and immediately know that barn runoff
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: doesn't cause a level 10 cyanide spike from acetonitrile.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: See, right through it.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: So when that narrative fails, she pivots during her police interviews.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: She brings in a new character. We can call this
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the Uncle Dan defense.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, Uncle Dan.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: She tells police that someone who lives in her house,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: who she refers to as Uncle Dan, bought the chemical
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: on eBay.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: And pay attention to her justification for why Uncle Dan
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: had to buy it. It's incredibly specific.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: She claims she couldn't buy it herself because she had
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: issues logging into Amazon and eBay.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: This is a classic example of how pathological fabrications crumble
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: under basic investigative scrutiny.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: How so?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Well, every lie a suspect tells creates a new measurable
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: thread for detectives to pull. If you tell law enforcement
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: that Uncle Dan bought an industrial solvent on eBay, police
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: are going to look for Uncle Dan.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: They're going to want to talk to him.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They are going to subpoena the eBay purchase records.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: They are going to pull the IP addresses from the
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: router in the house to see exactly which device logged
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: into the marketplace at what time and under what account.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And according to the source material, It is entirely unclear
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: to investigators who this Uncle Dan even is.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: He might not even exist.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: It appears to be.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: A phantom entity created to absorb the blame. But she
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't stop there. When the Uncle Dan story doesn't close
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the case, she pivots again.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: The lies just keep coming.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: She tells police the wine was stored in an area
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: where the kids play. And this leads to what is
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: arguably the most shocking, desperate alibi of the entire case.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: This part is just mind-blowing.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Goodren allegedly told police that her two-year-old daughter, Beatrice, transferred
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the poison into the wine.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: A two-year-old.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: From an investigative and logical standpoint, this is where the
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: suspect's credibility completely evaporates.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: It vanishes.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: You have to consider the mechanics of what she is
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: claiming here. Think about the fine motor skills required for
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: a toddler to open a secure container of industrial solvent.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Impossible.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: And then successfully transfer that liquid into the narrow neck
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: of a wine bottle without spilling it everywhere, knocking the
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: bottle over, or catastrophically poisoning themselves in the process. It
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: defies all physical logic.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: It really does.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Mila's father, Travis, pointed this out perfectly. He said, have
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: you ever seen a two-year-old try to pour contents from
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: one container to another?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: It ends up everywhere.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: It ends up everywhere. It is not physically plausible.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: But more than the physics, it shows a terrifying psychological
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: willingness to throw literally anyone, even a toddler, under the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: bus to evade suspicion.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And this cascading series of lies is exactly what prosecutors
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: build their cases on. A jury might forgive one panicked
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: misstatement to the police.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: People get scared.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: People get scared. They misspeak. But when you claim it
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: was barn chemicals, and then you claim a mysterious Uncle
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Dan bought it on eBay because you lost your password,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: and then you claim a two-year-old poured it into the bottle.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: It's just too much.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: The totality of those contradictory statements becomes overwhelmingly powerful circumstantial
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: evidence of a guilty conscience.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: That guilty conscience, or perhaps the Complete lack thereof brings
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: us to the collateral damage of all these lies. Beyond
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the victims who physically ingested the poison, there are the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: people left behind whose realities are entirely shattered.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: The families.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to Travis Peterson. He anchors this
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: story because he represents the devastating, lingering human cost of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: this crime.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Travis's perspective is vital. We can get lost in the
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: chemistry and the digital forensics, but Travis grounds the narrative
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: in profound grief.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: He really does.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: And the shocking realization of who he was actually dealing
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: with all these years.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Travis is Leela Airey's biological father and Gudrun's former partner.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: The timeline is important here. They lived in Wisconsin in
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the early 90s, had Leela eventually separated, and Gudrun took
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Leela down to North Carolina.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about how Travis found out his
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: 32-year-old daughter was dead. Because the disconnect of identity and
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: emotion that Goodrin displays during this interaction is chilling.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: It was December 2nd, the day after Lilo was found dead.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Travis was at work in Wisconsin.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Just a completely ordinary day, interrupted by a phone call
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: from an unknown North Carolina number.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: He picks it up and immediately recognizes Goodrin's voice, who,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: by the way, he knew as Linda, not Goodrin.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Right, Linda.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And instead of leading with a horrific emergency, Goodrin engages
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: in what Travis describes as chit-chat. She casually asks him
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: when he gets off work.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: The psychological detachment required to engage in casual small talk
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: when you are calling to inform a parent that their
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: child is dead is profound.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: It's sickening.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: It suggests a staggering lack of empathy, a complete inability
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: to mirror the appropriate emotional weight of the situation.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Travis says he pushed her, sensing something was wrong, asking
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: what was going on. And she just bluntly told him
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Lila was dead. He completely broke down at his desk.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: His entire department knew to stay away because he was
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: so audibly distraught.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Just heart-wrenching.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: He then travels from Wisconsin to North Carolina for the funeral.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: At this point, keep in mind, Goodrin hasn't been arrested.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: The investigation is still ongoing.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Right. She's just a grieving mother in the eyes of
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: the public.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So Travis goes up to the woman he once loved,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the mother of his child, to give her a hug
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: of mutual grief. And His description of that physical contact
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: is one of the most haunting details I have read
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: in this entire report.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: It stuck with me, too.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: He said, quote, When I would go to give her
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: a hug, I mean it's like hugging a plank of wood.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: That phrase, hugging a plank of wood, it speaks volumes.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: It really paints a picture.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: It's a physical manifestation of a psychological void. In moments
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: of extreme grief, human beings naturally seek connection. We subconsciously
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: mirror each other's sorrow. For her body to be that rigid,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: that devoid of resonance, it implies she is entirely disconnected
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: from the tragedy she allegedly caused.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: And that void seems to be filled entirely with cold
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: financial calculation because the timeline here is aggressive.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Very aggressive.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: In mid-December, right after Travis got back from the funeral
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and right before Goodren was officially arrested in mid-January, she
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: starts texting him. What is she texting the.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Grieving father about?
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Money.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: She is asking about life insurance policies on Leela.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: This introduces a massive structural element to the investigation. the
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: potential financial motive.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Crimes of this nature often boil down to either profound
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: interpersonal grievance or financial gain.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: She tells Travis she, quote, Unbelievable. Travis, who was completely devastated,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: actually sent her a check to help cover funeral expenses. Hmm.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: But she kept pushing him. She told him to ask
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: his parents if they had taken out a policy on
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Leela from when she was born back in 1993.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: It turns out his parents did have a policy, but
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: it was on Travis, not Leela.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: But the sheer.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Audacity to probe for payouts weeks after your daughter's sudden death.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: It frames the emotional detachment we saw at the funeral
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: in a much darker, much more predatory light. She is
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: hunting for assets.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: And it aligns perfectly with the bizarre fabrications she was
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: simultaneously telling the police about Travis himself.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: This is where you realize just how pathological the lying is. Remember,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Travis is alive and well. He is answering texts, taking
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: phone calls, writing checks.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: A very real person.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: But what does Goodwin tell the police interrogating her in
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: North Carolina? She claims that Leela's biological father was test
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: driving a car, got into a bad accident that left
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: him paralyzed from the neck down, and eventually committed suicide
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: so she wouldn't have to suffer.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: She essentially murdered him in her narrative.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Completely erased him.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: She erased his existence with a highly dramatic, tragic fiction.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And she even added that the biological father's brother then
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: adopted Leela. When the police eventually called Travis as part
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of their background investigation and started asking him, are you
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: sure you're Leela's biological dad?
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Imagine that phone call.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Travis was stunned. He had to defend his own existence.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: He told them, I'm not a nut. Yes, Leela's my daughter.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Construct a lie that is so easily, immediately disproven, the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: police literally had the man on the phone.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It suggests a suspect who is so accustomed to reinventing
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: reality to suit her immediate needs that she no longer
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: calculates the long-term viability of the lie.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Like it's just reflex.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, we see this in extreme cases of pathological lying
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: or sociopathy. She invents a tragic backstory to garner sympathy
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: from the police, or perhaps more maliciously, to completely erase
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Travis's legitimate claim to Leela's legacy, her remains, or any
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: potential estate. If Travis doesn't exist, Goodrin controls the entire
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: narrative and all the assets.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: It is deeply unsettling. And it leads to this incredibly
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking quote from Travis. He is looking at this woman,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: seeing all these accusations, seeing the footage of her smiling,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: as she walks into the courtroom for her hearings. And
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: he says, I still love the woman that I was with.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I still love the woman that bore me my child.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: The woman that's down in that courthouse right now deserves
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: to die.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: It is a profound expression of grief. He isn't just
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: mourning the loss of his daughter. He is mourning the
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: loss of the reality he thought he knew.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: The woman he loved never truly existed.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: It captures that terrifying concept of realizing somebody you shared
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: a life with has morphed into an entirely unrecognizable stranger.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: And that exact strategy of camouflage, hiding the truth in
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: plain sight beneath fabricated realities, is the thematic bridge that
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: connects this Thanksgiving tragedy to a much darker history.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: It's not a one-off.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: No, because as detectives dug into Goodrin's past, they realized
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: that her current life in North Carolina was built on
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: a foundation of shifting aliases and decades-old secrets. This Thanksgiving
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: poisoning was not an isolated incident.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Not at all. It appears to be the culmination of
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: a terrifying, decades-long pattern of behavior.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Let's go back 18 years, to 2007. The police have
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: officially reopened a death investigation. And where did this death occur?
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: On the exact same property, Schmidt Terrace, where the 2025
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner took place.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: The geographical and chemical similarities here are staggering, and they
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: form the backbone of the broader investigation.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: The victim in 2007 was a man named Misha Schmidt,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: who also went by Michael. He was the owner of
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the property, and Goodrin lived in the house on that
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: property at the time. Misha was found dead in his camper.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: When police investigated in 2007, Gudrun told them that she
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: had seen him two days prior, they had a few drinks,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and she explicitly characterized him to authorities as an alcoholic
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and a drug user.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Which is a highly effective, very common tactic used by poisoners.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Is it really? Oh, definitely.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: By painting the victim as an addict, the suspect provides
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: law enforcement with a convenient, prepackaged explanation for a sudden death.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Oh, I see.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: They're hoping authorities will write it off as an accidental
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: overdose or the inevitable result of long-term substance abuse, which
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: often leads to less rigorous toxicology screens.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: And for a long time, it seems that tactic worked perfectly.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: There was just a brief line in an old local
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: newspaper saying, he died suddenly, case closed.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: But now, in light of the Thanksgiving incident, they go
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: back and pull his old autopsy and toxicology reports. And
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the shocker is revealed. Misha Schmidt... died of acetonitridal poisoning.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: The exact same highly unusual industrial battery solvent used in
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: the 2025 Thanksgiving poisoning.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And if you thought Richard's level 10 toxicity was bad,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Misha's numbers are terrifying. Yes.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: His toxicity level was a 300.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Biologically, a toxicity level of 300 is an absolute system override.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: It's hard to even fathom.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: The amount of acetonitrile required to generate that much cyanide
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: in the bloodstream is massive. It wasn't a trace amount.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: It was a deliberate, overwhelming dose designed to be fatal.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: But the plot thickens even further, because just like the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: text to Travis about Lila, there is an insurance angle here, too.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Always follow the money.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: The unsealed search warrants detail that a life insurance policy
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: was taken out on Mieter Schmidt just five days before
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: his death.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Five days.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: The timing is the ultimate red flag for insurance fraud investigators.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: And the description of Misha on the life insurance application
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: didn't even match the physical description provided by the medical
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: examiner who performed the autopsy.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Someone didn't do their homework.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Someone allegedly falsified the application. That policy ended up paying
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: out $ 25, 000 to his wife. And here is the truly
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: chilling part. Authorities currently have no idea where Misha Schmidt's
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: wife is today. Her whereabouts are completely unknown.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: The implications of that are immense. You have the exact
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: same location, the exact same incredibly rare poison, an undeniable
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: financial motive via a sudden life insurance policy, and a
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: suspect who is present and providing cover stories to the
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: police in both instances.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: It's a huge pattern.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: But the geographical scope of this investigation actually extends far
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: beyond the borders of North Carolina.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, it takes us all the way back to Wisconsin.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: The local paper in North Carolina, the Hendersonville Lightning, reported
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that authorities in rural Sawyer County, Wisconsin, are now actively
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: revisiting the 2017 death of a man named Elroy Lawn Jr.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: And what blew my mind in the Sawyer County reports
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: is that they aren't just looking at random associates. They
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: are looking at her former husband.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Elroy Lawn Jr. was Goodrin's former husband. And the age
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: dynamic is notable. He was in his 70s when he died,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: 28 years older than Goodrin.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Now, at the time in 2017, he'd known health issues.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: So much like the addict narrative used for Misha Schmidt,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Ellroy's death was not initially looked at as suspicious.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: It blended in.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: It was deemed health related. But now, given the murder
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: charges and the acetonitrile revelations in North Carolina, Wisconsin authorities
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: are taking this serious second look.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: It is crucial to emphasize here, as the source material notes,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: that Gudrun has not been charged in connection to Elroy
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Long Jr.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: 's death.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: She is legally presumed innocent of all these historical allegations.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, very important context.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: But from an investigative standpoint, when you have a suspect
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: tied to one confirmed chemical poisoning and a historical confirmed
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: poisoning on the same property, standard procedure dictates that every
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: sudden death in their orbit over the last two decades
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: demands rigorous reexamination.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: And tracking her orbit is incredibly difficult because her identity
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: is so utterly fluid. We mentioned earlier that Travis knew
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: her as Linda.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Right. Linda Jean Casper.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Well, the legal record shows she legally changed her name
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: on October 2004 from Linda Jean Casper to her current
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: sprawling alias Goodren, Linda Jean Casper lining Kugel.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Name changes are inherently criminal, of course. People change their
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: names for marriage, divorce or personal reasons all the time.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: But when combined with entirely fabricated personal histories, they become
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: deliberate tools for evasion.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: And oh boy, did she fabricate a history. Let's look
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: at this 2016 interview she did with a local newspaper,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the Mountain Express, in Asheville.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, this interview is wild.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: She's trying to.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Make it as a restaurateur, planning to open a place
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: called the Patton Public House. In this published interview, she
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: claimed she had been working since she was 13 years old.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: She explicitly told a reporter, I owned a laundromat. I
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: had to learn how to run the business and fix
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the machines.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: It paints a very compelling narrative of a hardworking, self-made entrepreneur.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: It builds instant trust and authority within a community.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: She also claimed she had opened six restaurants and bars
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: across the country. She said her new restaurant was inspired
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: by the European public houses she grew up with in Germany.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Germany?
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Claiming she traveled back and forth between Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Europe as a child.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: It sounds like an.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Impressive worldly resume until you cross-reference it.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: With actual reality.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Which Travis did.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Travis totally debunks this. He knew her family. He says
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: her parents moved from Spring Valley, Wisconsin, to run a laundromat.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: The family ran it. They didn't know it when she
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: was 13.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: A slight but important exaggeration.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And as for growing up in European public houses, Travis
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: says she had never been to Germany a day in
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: her life, as far as he knew. So I have
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to ask, why do this? What is the pathology behind
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: constructing a completely fabricated personal history like this?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Constructing these elaborate laundromats? serves a dual purpose. Socially, as
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: we noted, it grants them immediate unearned prestige.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: Sure. People respect you.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: But practically, in terms of evading law enforcement or leaving
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: past lives behind, continuous reinvention is a profound survival mechanism.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: How does that work in practice?
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Think about how databases worked over the last 20 years.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: If you are constantly moving states, changing your legal name,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: and completely rewriting your backstory, it becomes incredibly difficult for
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: investigators in different jurisdictions to connect the dots.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, that makes sense.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: A detective in Wisconsin looking into the death of a
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: husband belonging to Linda, the laundromat worker, isn't going to
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: easily find Gudrun, the German-raised restaurateur in North Carolina.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: It creates complete silos of information.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: It isolates her past completely.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: From her present, which is exactly why it took the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Thanksgiving poisoning for the 2007 camper death to finally be
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: connected to her.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: It is a brilliant, terrifying camouflage of lies. And that
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: strategy of camouflage, hiding the truth in plain sight, leveraging confusion,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: is the exact same tactic her defense attorneys are now
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: trying to deploy in the courtroom.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: The legal chess match has officially begun, and it is
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: fascinating to watch the defense strategy take shape against this
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: mountain of circumstantial evidence.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: The defense team's first major move was filing a motion
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: for pretrial release. They want her out of jail while
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: she awaits trial. And the reasons they gave are quite surprising,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: relying heavily on humanitarian angles.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: They're attempting to humanize a client who is facing incredibly
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: monstrous allegations.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: They cited that when she was booked into jail in January,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: she had been breastfeeding her three-year-old child, and she requested
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: to be released to continue doing that.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: They also mentioned she has an eight-year-old child who needs her,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and that she suffers from unspecified medical conditions that make
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: pretrial detention a risk to her health. But beyond the
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: humanitarian place, their biggest legal argument is that the state's
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: case is, quote, circumstantial, and therefore doesn't prove she poses
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: a generalized risk to the public.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: The word circumstantial is thrown around a lot in true
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: crime media, often as a pejorative. People hear circumstantial, and
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: they think it means the evidence is weak or entirely speculative.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Like it doesn't count.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Right. But legally, that is a massive misconception. Yes.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: And we have brilliant insights from defense attorney Jason St.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Aubin in the source material on exactly this point.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: He laid it out perfectly.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: He explained that in almost any poisoning case, you are rarely,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: if ever, going to have direct evidence. Unless the person
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: is terrible at poisoning, you aren't going to have a
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: 4K video of them pouring the chemical.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Into the glass.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Poisoners are inherently secretive.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: So the state has to rely on circumstantial evidence.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: And St.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Aubin makes a crucial point that the law actually weighs
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence and direct evidence equally.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: This is a fundamental principle of the justice system. The
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: law makes no distinction in weight between direct and circumstantial evidence.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, I need a clarifying analogy here. For you listening,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: if you aren't a lawyer, how do we visualize direct
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: versus circumstantial evidence being equal in the eyes of a jury?
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Think of it like this. Direct evidence is if you
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: look out your window and you see snow falling from
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: the sky. You directly witnessed the event happening. Circumstantial evidence
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: is if you go to sleep, wake up the next morning,
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: look out the window, and see three feet of snow
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: on the ground, fresh footprints, and a snowman in your yard.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: I like this.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: You didn't see it snow. You didn't witness the event.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: But the circumstances, the accumulation, the footprints point to the
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: undeniable fact that it snowed. The law says both ways
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: of knowing it snowed are perfectly valid and carry equal
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: weight in a courtroom to establish a fact.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: That is a perfect way to look at it. The
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Google search for acetonitro, the shifting alibis about Uncle Dan
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: and the two-year-old, the presence of the exact poison in
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: her house. That is all three feet of snow on
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the ground.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: It's a blizzard of evidence.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: But St.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Aubin also brings up a massive, potentially case-defining hurdle for
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the defense in this trial. And it involves a legal
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: concept called Rule 404B.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Rule 404B is one of the most fiercely debated rules
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: of evidence in criminal law. It deals specifically with the
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: admission of prior bad acts.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: In plain English, based on this rule, the prosecutors are
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: going to try to introduce the 2007 asset deny trial
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: poisoning of Misha Schmidt into the 2025 Thanksgiving murder trial.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: And the defense will fight tooth and nail, filing every
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: motion possible to keep it out.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Because it is incredibly prejudicial to the jury, right?
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: If I ought a jury and I hear she used
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: this exact poison 18 years ago, my brain immediately goes to, well,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: she did it before, so she definitely did.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: It this time.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And that is the exact cognitive bias that Rule
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: 404B is designed to prevent. The justice system demands that
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: you are tried for the crime you are currently charged with,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: not for being a bad person generally.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: You cannot use past crimes to prove a propensity to
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: commit crimes. However, there are exceptions.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Like what?
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Prosecutors can introduce prior bad acts to show a pattern,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: a clear motive and opportunity, or a highly specific modus operandi.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Like a signature left at the scene.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Precisely. If a bank robber always wears a highly specific
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: clown mask and uses a specific catchphrase, previous robberies with
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: that mask can be introduced to prove identity.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Oh, I get it.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: In this case... The use of acetonitrile is so incredibly
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: rare and specific, it is not a common household item,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: that prosecutors will argue the 2007 case proves Goodrin had
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: prior knowledge of the chemical's lethal effects, access to it,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: and a pattern of using it on that specific property
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: in Hendersonville.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: That makes total sense.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: If the judge allows it in, they will have to
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: give the jury very careful, stern instructions on how they
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: are allowed to consider that evidence. But for the defense...
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Just having the jury hear about 2007 is an absolute
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: worst case scenario. It is devastating to the presumption of innocence.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: So if you were the defense attorney and you were
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: staring down this mountain of circumstantial snow and you might
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: lose the 404B battle, how do you counter that?
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Well, St. Aubin pointed out that the chaotic Thanksgiving dinner
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: setup is actually a massive gift to the defense.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: It is what we can call the 12 people at
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: the table defense.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: We mapped out the room earlier for a reason. You
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: have 12 people in a room. You have Tangled romantic relationships,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: potential jealousies. You have an open bottle of wine.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: A lot of moving parts.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Goodrin's daughter even said she thought the wine was already
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: open and missing a bit when it was initially brought
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: to the table. And they live on a rural property
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: where chemicals are allegedly present. For a defense attorney, that
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: crowded room introduces 12 different vectors for reasonable doubt.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: The defense's job is not to prove who committed the crime.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: The burden of proof rests entirely on the state. The
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: defense just has to prove that the state hasn't eliminated
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: all other reasonable possibilities.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Could one of the confusing boyfriends, Landon or Jeffrey, have
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: spiked the wine? Could Mia's boyfriend, Richard, have been the
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: target of someone else at the table? Could it have
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: been an accidental contamination from the barn?
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: So many questions.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: St. Aubin notes that without a clear, overwhelming, documented motive
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: for Goodrin to murder her own daughter and her daughter's
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: boyfriend in a room full of witnesses... A jury might
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: struggle to convict beyond a reasonable doubt when so many
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: other people had access to the room and the wine.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: It is going to be a fierce, granular battle over
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: the narrative. They will be dissecting every minute of that
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: dinner party. And there is one final legal context we
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: need to touch on regarding the stakes of this trial.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: The prosecution has officially stated they are not going to
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: seek the death penalty in this case.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Which might surprise some observers, given the severity of multiple
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: murder and attempted murder charges involving a highly calculated poisoning.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: North Carolina is a death penalty state. In fact, they
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: recently updated their laws to allow for firing squads or
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: electrocution if lethal injection drugs aren't viable. So why take
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: the ultimate punishment off the table for a crime this heinous? St.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Aubin explained that in North Carolina, despite the laws remaining
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: firmly on the books, Actually pursuing the death penalty has
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: become extraordinarily rare.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: Oh, really?
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It comes down to logistics, resources, and the reality
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: of the appellate system.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: The extreme costs of a capital trial are staggering. It
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: requires specialized defense teams, massive investigative resources, and it triggers
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: decades of exhaustive, mandatory appeals.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: It's a huge burden on the state.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: District attorneys have to weigh whether it is worth it,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: especially in a case built entirely on circumstantial evidence where
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: appellate courts are highly active.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: A sentence of.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Life without parole achieves the primary goal of removing the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: threat from society permanently without the immense financial and procedural
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: burden of maintaining a case on death row for 20 years.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: It is a pragmatic economic decision by the prosecution. But structurally,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: it also lowers the stakes slightly for the defense.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, so?
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: It allows Goodran's attorneys to focus entirely on building reasonable
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: doubt and fighting the 404B motions without the looming existential
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: threat of their client's execution complicating every single tactical decision
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: they make during the trial.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: So as we pull out of this incredibly deep dive,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: let's just look at the sheer scale of what we
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: have unpacked today. We started with the ultimate symbol of
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: domestic safety, a Thanksgiving dinner, a family gathered around a table.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: And from a single sip of tainted wine, an entire
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: hidden world was blown wide open.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: We moved from the microscopic metabolism of a lithium battery
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: solvent in the liver to to a devastated father in
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin mourning a woman who perhaps never really existed in
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: the way he understood.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: We have a trail of bodies, an astonishing web of
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: legal aliases spanning decades, and absurd, desperate alibis blaming two-year-old toddlers.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: And underneath all.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Of this is a very meticulous, high-stakes legal chess match.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: It's a fascinating legal battle.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: You have a prosecutor trying to connect the circumstantial snow
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: on the ground and a defense attorney pointing at the
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: 11 other people in the room to create shadow and doubt.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: It is a stark reminder that the physical world, the
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: chemistry we leave behind in our bloodstream, the digital searches
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: we execute on our devices, often holds the absolute truth
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: that our fabricated, spoken narratives try so desperately to bury.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: And that leads me to a final thought for you
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: to mull over as you go about your day. We
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: leave a digital and chemical footprint everywhere we go. From
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the panicked queries typed into our phone's search engines to
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the trace elemental levels metabolizing in our blood.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: We are always leaving tracks.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: In an age where literally everything is tracked, measured, and
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: recorded by the physical and digital world, how long can
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: someone truly hide behind a fabricated identity before reality demands
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the truth?
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: The evidence always waits patiently for someone to know how
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: to read it.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you for taking this deep dive with us today.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Keep questioning the narratives around you, and we will see
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: you next time.