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Iowa Woman Impaled by Corn Rake in Savage Murder at Family Farm · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis, there's this
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: expectation of precision.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. It's supposed to be an exact science. Right.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Like engineering almost. You break your arm, the x-ray shows
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: that jagged white line, and the doctor just points to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: it and says, there it is.
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  Speaker 2: It's broken.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's broken. It is very binary. It is very clean.
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  Speaker 2: We definitely like things to be visible and easily categorized.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We do. But then you step into the world of
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: forensic pathology. and crime scene reconstruction, and suddenly it's like
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that x-ray machine is just totally broken.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Right. The landscape becomes incredibly murky.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Very murky. But sometimes, even in all that confusion, the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: physical evidence just screams the truth so loudly. I mean,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: it completely dismantles a carefully constructed narrative.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: It really does. And that is exactly what we are
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: getting into today.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is. So welcome to this Deep Dives, everyone.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Today we are taking you on a journey that is, well,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: it's fundamentally... A masterclass.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: A masterclass in how physical evidence and basic geometry can
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: obliterate a lie.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Along with modern digital footprints, right?
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just fascinating how these things come together
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: to expose the truth.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It really is. We are heading to a sprawling family
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: farm in Earlville, Iowa.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, set the scene for us. The year is 2018, right?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, 2018. And a farm like this, it's the kind
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: of setting that immediately evokes a sense of quiet, you know,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: routine life. Isolation. Right.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Lots of open space. No neighbors peeking over the fence.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But the isolation of a sprawling agricultural property is,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: it's a double-edged sword.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Well, it provides privacy, certainly, but it also provides a massive,
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  Speaker 2: totally unwatched stage, a place where things can happen without
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  Speaker 2: any outside witnesses.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: That is deeply unsettling. Yeah. So to set the table
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: for you today, listener, we are looking at the death
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of 39-year-old Amy Mullis.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: And the subsequent trial of her husband, Todd Mullis. Right.
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  Speaker 1: And the core tension of this entire case revolves around
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: this radical, almost whiplash-inducing shift in the narrative.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a massive pivot.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Right. Because by the time this case actually goes to trial,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the defense argues that Amy was indeed brutally murdered.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: But they absolutely insist it was not by Todd.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they point the finger at some phantom unknown intruder
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: who supposedly just slipped onto the farm.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Which is wild. Meanwhile, the prosecution argues something entirely different.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: They say Todd was a highly controlling husband who executed
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: a cold, calculated plan.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: To protect his farm and his finances from a looming divorce, right?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That is the core of their motive.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Because to understand how a jury
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: gets presented with this phantom intruder theory, we have to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: start with the initial... Deeply shocking crime scene.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: It's a rough one.
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  Speaker 1: It really is. It is November 10th, 2018. Amy Mullis
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  Speaker 1: is found face down in what the family calls the
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  Speaker 1: red shed on their property.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: And we should clarify, she has a corn rake protruding
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: from her back. Right.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And for those who don't know, a corn rake is
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: this heavy agricultural tool with sharp metal prongs. It is
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: not a garden rake for leaves.
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  Speaker 2: No, it's a serious heavy duty piece of equipment.
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  Speaker 1: And the person who finds her in this horrific state
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: is her own 13-year-old son.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Which is just heartbreaking. The timeline of that specific day
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: is so critical for understanding the mechanics of what the
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: prosecution alleges is a trap.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Walk us through that morning.
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  Speaker 2: So on that Saturday morning, Todd, Amy, and their 13-year-old son, Tristan,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: were working in one of the farm's hog barns.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: They were preparing the space for a new delivery of pigs.
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  Speaker 2: So that meant setting up water pipes, moving heaters, things
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: like that.
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  Speaker 1: That sounds like heavy labor. It is.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: And context is vital here regarding Amy's physical state. She
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: had actually undergone an outpatient medical procedure, a surgery, just
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: four days prior on November 6th.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She was on strict weight restrictions, she was suffering
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: from dizzy spells, and she was demonstrably unsteady on her feet.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Wait, she is four days post-op and dizzy. Why is
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: she out working in a hog barn moving heavy equipment?
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Well, according to the testimony, Todd noticed her unsteadiness and
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: allegedly suggested she go back to the house to rest.
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  Speaker 1: But she stayed.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, she wanted to stay and help. Now, because they
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: were constantly opening and closing the heavy barn doors and
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: moving equipment, there was this concern about a litter of
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: feral kittens running around the farm.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, okay. I can see where this is going.
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  Speaker 2: Right. The kids were upset about the possibility of a
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: kitten getting run over by the machinery. So Todd gives
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Amy a specific directive.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: What does he tell her to do?
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  Speaker 2: He tells her to go over to the old red shed,
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  Speaker 2: grab a pet carrier, and place it by the shop
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  Speaker 2: so they can secure the kittens.
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  Speaker 1: But wait. Knowing she's on a strict weight restriction, asking
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  Speaker 1: her to carry a pet carrier across a sprawling farm
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  Speaker 1: feels incredibly counterintuitive.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, looking at the notes, that carrier weighed between
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: 15 and 18 pounds.
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  Speaker 2: It does. And more importantly, it isolates her. She leaves
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  Speaker 2: the hog barn to fulfill this mundane agricultural chore.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: While Todd and Tristan just continue to work in the barn.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. And sometime later, Todd claims he notices the pet
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: carrier hasn't been placed by the shop yet. So he
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: sends Tristan to go check on his mother. Tristan walks
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: into the red shed and makes the traumatic discovery. He
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: yells for his father.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: And Todd runs in.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. And this is where the timeline of Todd's immediate
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: reactions becomes the focal point of the initial investigation.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Because he calls 911, right?
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: He does. And in that frantic audio, he basically establishes
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: his defense in real time.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: What does he say?
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: He tells the dispatcher that Amy had a freak accident.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: He claims she must have had a dizzy spell and
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: fallen backward onto the rake.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, I have to pause on that detail.
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  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
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  Speaker 1: It's like trying to claim a paper cut caused a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: severed limb.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, how could anyone, even in a state of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: absolute adrenaline-fueled panic, look at a heavy farm tool deeply
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: embedded in a person's back and conclude it was a
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: simple trip and fall?
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  Speaker 2: And crucially, he admits on the call that he pulled
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: the corn rake out of her back.
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  Speaker 1: Wait, he pulled it out?
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  Speaker 2: Yes. He tells the dispatcher he removed it.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That is wild. I mean, confidently concluding to a 911 dispatcher, oh,
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  Speaker 1: it was just a simple trip and fall after pulling
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  Speaker 1: it out.
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  Speaker 2: We have to look at the cognitive load of constructing
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  Speaker 2: a lie in real time under extreme stress.
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  Speaker 1: Right, because the brain just scrambles.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. When you look at the psychology of trauma, people
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: certainly act irrationally. However, removing an impaled object is nearly
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  Speaker 2: universally understood, even by complete laypeople, as something you do
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  Speaker 2: not do.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Because it acts as a plug, right?
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. The object acts as a plug for catastrophic vascular bleeding.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Pulling it out is the worst thing you can do.
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  Speaker 1: But Todd needs an immediate explanation for the horrific scene
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  Speaker 1: he is presenting to the dispatcher.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. Accident is the most convenient, least culpable explanation available
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  Speaker 2: to his conscious mind in that split second.
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  Speaker 1: So his brain reaches for the closest available shield.
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  Speaker 2: Completely ignoring how fragile or illogical that shield is when
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  Speaker 2: held up to the light, he needs to explain the
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  Speaker 2: rake and the blood.
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  Speaker 1: So his brain formulates the equation. Dizzy spell plus sharp
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  Speaker 1: tool equals fall.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely.
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  Speaker 1: I understand the brain grabbing the nearest excuse. I really do.
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  Speaker 1: And a 911 dispatcher in the chaos of a call
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  Speaker 1: might accept that freak accident story initially.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, they're just trying to get help to the scene.
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  Speaker 1: Right. The paramedics sprinting into that shed are focused entirely
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: on keeping oxygen flowing to a brain. They are not
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  Speaker 1: playing detective.
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  Speaker 2: Their priority is strictly medical intervention.
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  Speaker 1: But eventually... That body goes to the autopsy room. And
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  Speaker 1: the cold, hard science of forensic pathology doesn't care about
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  Speaker 1: a husband's rushed narrative.
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  Speaker 2: Not at all. And this introduces Dr. Kelly Thompson, the
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  Speaker 2: medical examiner who conducts the autopsy.
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  Speaker 1: What does Dr. Thompson find?
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  Speaker 2: Well, in forensic pathology, you don't just look at the
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  Speaker 2: wounds in isolation. You look at the biomechanics of how
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  Speaker 2: a wound could physically occur.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the actual physics of the injury.
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  Speaker 2: Right. Dr. Thompson conducts the autopsy with the preliminary police report,
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  Speaker 2: stating this was an alleged accidental fall.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Because that's what Todd said on the call. Yes.
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  Speaker 2: But almost immediately, the doctor encounters a glaring physical impossibility
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  Speaker 2: on the autopsy table.
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  Speaker 1: Because he's looking at the puncture tracks, right?
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  Speaker 2: He is. In a fall, especially an accidental backward fall
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  Speaker 2: onto a static object, a forensic pathologist expects to see
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  Speaker 2: specific indicators.
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  Speaker 1: Like what?
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  Speaker 2: They look for a single trajectory of entry. They look
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  Speaker 2: for the depth of the wound to correlate with the
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: weight of the body and the force of gravity.
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  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
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  Speaker 2: They also look for a lack of secondary scraping or
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: hesitation marks. But what Dr. Thompson sees does not align
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: with a single gravitational impact.
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  Speaker 1: So what does he do?
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  Speaker 2: He realizes he needs to see the tool itself. He
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: actually goes out to the ambulance garage to view the
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: specific corn rake that was secured by law enforcement.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. He went to the garage himself.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. He examines the size of the tines. the prongs,
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  Speaker 2: the spacing between them, and he counts them.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: The corn rake has exactly four times.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Four times?
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  Speaker 2: Four times. However, when examining Amy's back, Dr. Thompson maps
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: out six distinct deep puncture wounds.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Wait, so we have four prongs on the tool, but
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: six holes in the victim.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, even if you are the clumsiest human being
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: on earth and you suffer a massive dizzy spell and
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  Speaker 1: you fall backward onto a pitchfork or a rake, you
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  Speaker 1: get four punctures.
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  Speaker 2: The biomechanics of an accident completely fall apart right here.
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  Speaker 1: It's just impossible. Dr.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Thompson testified that it is physically impossible to see how
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  Speaker 2: four times could cause six distinct puncture wounds in a
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  Speaker 2: single impact.
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  Speaker 1: So what does that mean happen?
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  Speaker 2: It means the rake was plunged into her back, pulled
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  Speaker 2: out entirely, and then violently plunged in again.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
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  Speaker 2: At least twice, given the wound patterns. You cannot fall
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  Speaker 2: on a rake, impale yourself, bounce off it, and fall
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  Speaker 2: perfectly onto it a second time in a slightly different position.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: That is just brutal. And that specific piece of medical
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: data is the exact moment the freak accident narrative dies.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: It's dead in the water.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: The math simply does not allow for it. And, you know,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I try to picture the defense team sitting in a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: conference room months later, prepping for a murder trial, reading Dr.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Thompson's autopsy report.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, the panic in that room must have been palpable.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: They are completely boxed in by geometry. They have nowhere
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  Speaker 1: to go.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: It forces a radical, incredibly dangerous pivot in their entire
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: trial strategy.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: They can't just stick with the false story.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: No, because the mathematical geometry is undeniable. The defense attorney
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: cannot go into court and argue it was an accident.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Why not? Just legal.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Legally and ethically. A defense attorney cannot present a theory
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: they know to be demonstrably false or physically impossible.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: That edges into suborning perjury, right?
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Or presenting a frivolous defense. Yeah. They have to
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: operate within the realm of the physical evidence.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Either they do.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: So the defense attorney literally stands up in front of
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: the jury during opening statements and concedes the most horrific
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: point imaginable.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: He actually admits it was murder.
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  Speaker 2: He says to the jury, Amy Mullis was viciously and
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  Speaker 2: deliberately murdered.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Just think about the psychological atmosphere that concession creates in
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a courtroom.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: You are defending a man accused of butchering his wife.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And your opening move is to look the jury in
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the eye and say, my client's initial story to 9-11
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: was a complete fiction.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: She didn't fall. She was slaughtered.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: But then he follows it up with, but my guy
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: didn't do it.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: It is a phenomenal high wire act. I mean, you
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: are admitting your client was found holding the murder weapon.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: You're admitting he provided a false narrative to emergency services.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And now you are asking a jury to believe in
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: a phantom.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: It really is a phantom. The defense theory relies on
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: the jury accepting that a completely unknown intruder, motivated by
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: completely unknown reasons, somehow bypassed any security.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Slipped onto a rural, highly isolated family farm.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Perfectly timed an attack in the incredibly brief window of
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: time Amy was alone in the red shed.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: And then brutally murdered her using a crime of opportunity
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: agricultural tool that just happened to be found on site.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, and then vanished into the Iowa countryside without leaving
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: a single trace of DNA, footprints, or a getaway vehicle.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, it requires the jury to suspend disbelief to
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: a degree that just strains all logic.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It's a huge leap to ask them to make.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Because once a jury accepts that a deliberate, vicious murder
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: took place... which both the prosecution and defense now agree on,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the glaring immediate question isn't, did a ninja do it?
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: No, definitely not.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: The question is, who benefits from her death?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And in criminal proceedings, prosecutors are not legally required
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: to prove motive.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Really? They don't have to prove why?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Legally, no. They only need to prove that the crime
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: happened and who committed the act.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, but juries want the why.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Psychologically, juries absolutely crave the why. They need a narrative
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: framework that makes sense of the violence. Right.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, it's just senseless.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: And if you don't provide a motive, the defense can
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: exploit that vacuum to create reasonable doubt.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: And the why in this case brings us into the
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: deeply troubled, intensely monitored personal life of Amy Mullis.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: It's a very dark picture.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: The prosecution presented a marital dynamic that read less like
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a partnership and more like a hostile corporate takeover.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: That's an incredibly accurate way to describe it.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Todd and Amy's marriage was fundamentally broken. Several years prior,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Amy had engaged in an affair.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Yes. The couple went to counseling. They ostensibly reconciled. But
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: the power dynamic of the marriage permanently shifted.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: It shifted into an environment of extreme coercive control.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Coercive control is a term usually associated with domestic abuse,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: but it's important to understand the actual mechanics of it.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: What does it look like day to day?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not necessarily about physical violence. It is about
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: micromanaging another human being's autonomy until they have absolutely none left.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: And the timeline here is crucial because by 2018, Amy
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: had begun a second affair.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Right. This time with a farm manager named Jerry Frazier.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And Todd discovered this second affair in July of that year,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: just a few months before the murder.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Now, to understand Todd's reaction to this second affair, we
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: have to understand Todd's core identity.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Which was the farm.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: He didn't just work on a farm. He was the farm.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: He grew up in an agricultural family. His father was
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: a farmer. His brothers are farmers.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: It's in his blood.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: His entire sense of self, his legacy, and millions of
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: dollars in land assets and equipment were tied up in
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: that specific family farm in Earlville.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So the prosecution argued that Todd was facing an existential threat.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: A massive one. In the event of a divorce, Iowa
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: is an equitable distribution state.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Meaning she gets half.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes. Amy could be entitled to a significant portion
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: of the marital assets, which would likely necessitate selling off
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: parcels of land or liquidating farm equipment to buy her out.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So for someone whose identity is inextricably linked
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: to the dirt they own, a divorce isn't just a
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: romantic breakup.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: No, it is the literal dismantling of his empire.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: So he starts running his marriage like a closed-loop security system. Yes.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: If we look at the testimony from Amy's close friend
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Terry Stainer, She describes a woman living under a microscope.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: It was suffocating.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just jealousy. It was an audit of her existence.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Tell us about Terry Stainer's testimony.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Terry Stainer detailed the exact mechanisms of Todd's control. After
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: the first affair, as part of the terms of their reconciliation,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Todd demanded that Amy quit her job at the local
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: hospital in Manchester.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Which instantly severs her from financial independence, right? Exactly. And
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: it takes away a daily social support network. She's not
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: seeing co-workers anymore.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It removes her from an environment she controls and
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: places her permanently in an environment he controls.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: On the farm.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, Terry testified that Amy was forced to maintain an
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: approved friend list.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: An approved friend list. You mean Todd literally picked who
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: she could talk to?
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. Todd strictly regulated who she was allowed to communicate with.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And Terry mentioned that Amy was put on a literal
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: timer when she left the house.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, a timer.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: If she had to run into town for groceries or errands,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: she had to report exactly where she was going, the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: route she was taking, and exactly how many minutes it
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: would take her to return.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: It's extreme paranoia.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Terry said Amy explicitly described feeling like a slave or
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a hostage on her own property.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: And that terminology is critical. A hostage implies a captor
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: who holds the power of life and death.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And she felt that way.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: She did. And the most chilling detail from Terry's testimony
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: confirms Amy's awareness of that threat.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: What did she say?
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Amy told Terry in no uncertain terms that if Todd
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: ever found out about the second affair with Jerry Frazier,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: she said, I would disappear.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: She didn't say he'll serve me with divorce papers or
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: he'll kick me out of the house. She said I
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: would disappear. She understood the lethality of the control she
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: was living under.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: She knew what he was capable of to protect the farm.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: What fascinates me is how law enforcement approached this specific
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: psychological profile when they finally got Todd into an interrogation room.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: It's a very delicate dance for investigators.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, you have an investigator sitting across from a
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: man who meticulously tracks his wife's movements. How do you
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: extract a confession from someone who refuses to cede control?
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Well, law enforcement utilized a classic interrogation technique known as
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: theme development or minimization.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Minimization, okay. How does that work?
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: When an investigator wants a confession, they know that confronting
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: a suspect with the sheer horrific reality of first-degree murder
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: will just cause the suspect to shut down and demand
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: a lawyer. Right.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: If you walk in and say, you butchered her, they'll
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: just ask for an attorney.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So the investigator offers a psychological out. They minimize
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: the moral weight of the crime to make it more
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: palatable for the suspect to admit to the physical act.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: So what did the investigator actually say to Todd in
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: that room?
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: The investigator leaned heavily into the infidelity. He suggested to Todd, listen,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: you didn't hurt her because you don't love her. You
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: hurt her because you love her too much.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: He said she betrayed you. She brought her vows again.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: And in a moment of overwhelming heartbreak and anger, you snapped.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: It was a crime of passion.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: He's essentially offering him a manslaughter defense on a silver platter. Yeah.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: He's saying, just tell me you lost your temper.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a very common tactic.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: But Todd... Completely rejects the premise, right?
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: He fundamentally rejects it. And that rejection tells us everything
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: about his psychology.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Because a crime of passion implies a sudden, uncontrollable snapping
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: of the mind. A total loss of control.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Right. An impulsive act.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: But everything we know about Todd's behavior, the timers, the
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: approved friend lists, the isolation, suggests a man who demands absolute,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: rigid control over every variable in his environment.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: So admitting to losing control is just impossible for him.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Right. Admitting to a crime of passion would mean admitting
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: he lost control of himself, which is anathema to his personality.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: That makes so much sense.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, a crime of passion simply did not align with
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: the digital evidence investigators were quietly uncovering in the background.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Right, because being a terrible, controlling husband establishes a motive,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't prove action.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: No, it just proves you had a reason to be angry.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: To bridge the gap between he hated her and he
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: planned to murder her Investigators had to look beyond the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: physical farm. They had to look at his digital footprint.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Digital forensics has completely revolutionized the prosecution of premeditated crimes.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I can imagine.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: In the past, proving premeditation required finding a physical diary
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: or a purchased weapon or a witness who heard the
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: suspect explicitly state their plans.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Which is pretty rare.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Very rare. But today, we don't have to guess what
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: a suspect was thinking in the solitary hours before a crime.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: We can access their search history.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: We can look at their cache files and the unallocated
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: space on their devices to reconstruct their exact thought process.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Which is terrifying, but amazing for investigators. So law enforcement
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: executed a search warrant and seized an iPad linked directly
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: to Todd's Google account.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: And the timeline of the search history they extracted is staggering.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Let's look at January 5th, 2018. This is months before
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the murder, but right in the thick of the failing merits.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, tension was high.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: At 2.54 a.m., someone on that iPad visits a website
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: called truthaboutdeception.com.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: A very specific site.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, specifically looking at pages regarding cheating and infidelity stats.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: That initial search establishes a baseline of suspicion and rumination.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: At 3 a.m., no less.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It shows a mind hyper-focused on marital betrayal during
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: the early hours of the morning. That's a time when
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: cognitive defenses are typically lowered and anxieties peak.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: You're just sitting in the dark spiraling. Right.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: But it's the rapid escalation of the search terms that
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: is so legally damning.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Shortly after the statistics search... The user looks up six
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: traits almost every cheating woman has.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: And then at 3.18 a.m., the search query completely shifts gears.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: It gets really dark.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: It does. The query entered is, what did ancient cultures
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: do to infidelity?
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Followed almost immediately by, did ancient cultures kill adulterers?
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: When digital forensic analysts recover this kind of data, how
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: hard is it to find if the user deleted it?
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: They often pull it from SQL databases within the iOS
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: operating system, even if the user attempted to clear their
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: browser history.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: So hitting clear history doesn't actually hide it.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: No, the data is still there. They are looking for
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: a narrative of intent. And at 3.18 a.m., we are
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: seeing a man sitting in the dark wrestling with a
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: profound narcissistic injury.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Actively seeking historical and cultural justification for lethal violence against
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: his spouse.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He isn't searching for divorce attorneys in Iowa. He
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: isn't searching for marriage counseling techniques or asset protection trusts.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: He is researching the mechanics of executing an unfaithful wife.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: When the prosecution confronted Todd with these specific searches while
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: he was on the witness stand, his defense was almost comical.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: It was certainly hard to believe.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: He claimed that he and Amy were simply big fans
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: of the History Channel.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, that was his explanation under oath.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: He testified that they would watch documentaries about ancient civilizations
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: or Native American tribes, and it would just prompt them
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: to look up historical trivia on the iPad.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: It is a textbook attempt to normalize highly anomalous predatory behavior.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Right. Trying to make it sound boring.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: He is trying to recontextualize a deeply personal, obsessive 3 a.m.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: search history into a shared, casual, educational curiosity with his wife.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: But logically, it completely falls apart.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: You don't transition from watching a documentary on the Roman
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Empire to Googling, did ancient cultures kill adulterers at three
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: in the morning just for fun?
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: No, you do not.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Especially when your own marriage is actively dissolving due to infidelity.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: The context makes it incredibly suspicious.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: And even if a jury might in some alternate universe
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: buy the History Channel excuse for the January searches, there
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: was another search query just days before the murder that
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: destroys that defense entirely.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Correct. In early November, just four days before Amy was killed,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: right around the time she was having her medical procedure,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: there was a search on that same account for organs
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: of the body.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Organs of the body. Four days before she is impaled
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: multiple times in the torso with a sharp agricultural tool.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: The organs of the body search transitions the entire narrative
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: of the prosecution's case. It moves the timeline from theoretical
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: simmering rage in January to to mechanical tactical planning in November.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: It goes from fantasy to reality.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It shifts the internal monologue from why do people
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: kill to where exactly do I strike to ensure lethality. Wow.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: A search for human anatomy four days before a penetrating
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: trauma murder obliterates any remaining illusion of a spontaneous crime
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: of passion.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: It demonstrates cold, calculated premeditation. It proves he planned it.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, it does.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Having established this intense motive of financial preservation and coercive control...
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And having tracked this undeniable digital trail of premeditation, we
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: have to turn to the most heartbreaking piece of this puzzle.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: We do.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: We have to look at how this calculated plan was
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: actually executed on the morning of November 10th. And that
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: brings us to the testimony of Tristan, their son.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Tristan's involvement is undoubtedly the most tragic element of this trial.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Testifying in a murder trial is inherently stressful for seasoned experts.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: But to be a 14-year-old boy, he was 13 when
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: he discovered the body.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Just a kid.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Sitting in a massive courtroom, looking at your father sitting
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: at the defense table, and knowing that your cross-examination might
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: be the key to sending him to a maximum security
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: prison for the rest of his life.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: The psychological weight of that is almost incomprehensible.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: It truly is.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I want you, the listener, to just think about the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: burden on that kid. You are the one who walked
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: into the red shed. You found your mother. And now,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: attorneys in suits are asking you to parse out the
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: exact minutes and seconds of your traumatic memories in front
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: of a jury.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Because Tristan's timeline of events that Saturday morning became a
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: massive battleground during the trial.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Walk us through his initial statements versus his testimony.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: When we look at how memory is encoded during a
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: traumatic event, we have to understand the role of the amygdala.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: The fear center of the brain.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Yes. When a person experiences a profound shock, the amygdala
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: floods the brain with stress hormones.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Adrenaline? Cortisol?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly, which can severely interfere with the hippocampus' ability to
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: consolidate episodic memory.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: So the timeline gets fuzzy.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Specifically, the sequence and duration of events. So, initially, when
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Tristan spoke to the police at the hospital on the
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: very day of the murder, in a state of absolute
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: fresh shock, he told them he was with his dad
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: the entire time. Okay.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. His brain is just overwhelmed.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Later, in a formal deposition, he refined that timeline and
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: stated he was only out of his dad's sight for
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: about one minute and 40 seconds.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And the defense team absolutely clung to that one minute
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and 40 seconds.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, they grabbed onto it tight.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: They tried to weaponize that incredibly tight timeline to prove
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: their case. They did. They argued to the jury, look
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: at the son's own words. Todd only had 100 seconds
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: away from his son. There is no physical way Todd
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: could have walked from the hog barn to the red shed,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: brutally attacked his wife, staged the scene, and walked all
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the way back to the hog barn without being covered
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: in blood or completely out of breath in under two minutes.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: It is a mathematically sound defense argument, provided the premise
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: of the timeline is accurate.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Which it wasn't.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: No. By the time the trial commenced, Tristan had met
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: with his Oherni and profoundly reassessed his memory of that morning.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Because the fog of trauma had lifted a bit.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Yes. He realized that his initial trauma-induced estimation of time
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: was completely inaccurate.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: So what did he say on the witness stand?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: On the stand, Tristan admitted that the 1 minute and
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: 40 seconds estimate was wrong. He testified that he was
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: actually separated from his dad, working in different parts of
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: the hog barn or outside retrieving equipment, for an hour
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: to an hour and a half.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Wow, an hour and a half. That is a monumental
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: shift in the evidentiary landscape.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: It changes everything.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: The prosecution brought in experts to explain how the trauma
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: of discovering his mother's mutilated body clouded Tristan's immediate perception
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: of time.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: And an hour and a half window provides more than
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: ample time for Todd to carry out the murder, clean
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: himself up and return to his tasks.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And it also explains the mechanics of the trap.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Let's think back to the setup with the pet carrier. Right.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Amy is dizzy. She is specifically on a weight restriction
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: from surgery.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Why would Todd ask her to walk across the farm?
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to fetch a 15 to 18 pound carrier.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: It was a deliberate, calculated ruse to isolate her in
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: a specific location.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: The red shed.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: The prosecution's theory was that he created a perfectly plausible,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: deniable reason for her to be in the red shed
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: alone out of sight of their son.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: And it explains why the carrier was never moved from
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the shed.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She walked in and he was either waiting in
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: the shadows for her or he followed her in shortly
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: after she arrived.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Using a concern for feral kittens and a mundane farm chore,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: as the trap to execute your wife, it is just
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: so dark.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly cold.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: So let's look at the board. We have the physical
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: evidence of the four times and six holes completely dismantling
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the accident theory.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: The geometry proves it was murder.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: We have the motive of extreme coercive control and the
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: fear of losing the farm assets.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: The financial and psychological motive is set.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: We have the digital trail of 3 a.m. searches about
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: ancient executions in human organs.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Undeniable premeditation.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: And we have the Sun's corrected timeline allowing for an
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: hour and a half of opportunity. It all points directly
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to Todd.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: It does. But the prosecution had one final piece of evidence. Right.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: And honestly, when I first read about this, it sounded
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: like something out of a psychological thriller.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: It brings us right back to the very beginning of
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: the investigation. The 911 call. Right.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: The one where he claims it was a fall.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Yes. During a trial, early evidence is often revisited with
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: new technological context. The prosecution took the original recording of
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Todd's 911 call and sent it to forensic audio analysts.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: How does that even work?
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Because if Todd is supposedly doing CPR on his wife,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the audio must be a chaotic mess.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, it is.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, heavy breathing. the dispatcher talking, chest compressions. How
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: can an analyst pull anything useful from that noise?
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Audio Forensics utilizes advanced software to create a spectrogram.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: A spectrogram? What is that?
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: It's a visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies in
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: a signal as it varies with time. Analysts can actually
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: isolate specific frequency bands.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: So they can separate the sounds visually?
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Yes. They can map the acoustic signature of the dispatcher's
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: voice and subtract it entirely. Oh, wow. They can identify
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: the rhythmic, low-frequency thumps of the CPR chest compressions and
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: filter them out.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: So they are stripping away the noise.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: They are left with the underlying, isolated human vocal frequencies
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: that were masked by the chaos.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: So they focus on the quiet spaces between the breaths.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The prosecution played these isolated enhanced audio clips in
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: the courtroom.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: And what did they hear?
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: They alleged that a distinct whisper can be heard underneath
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: the chaos of the call. A voice which they argued
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: matched Todd's acoustic profile, whispering the word cheating.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Cheating.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: And in a second enhanced clip, whispering the phrase go
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: to hell cheating.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: That is bone chilling. But when the prosecutor played the
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: tape for Todd on the stand, he flat out denied it, right?
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: He did. He said he didn't hear the words, he
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: just heard a mechanical ping sound on the tape.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Just a ping. But if we assume the audio analysts
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: are correct, why on earth would a man who is
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: meticulously executing a premeditated murder suddenly whisper his motive into
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: an open phone line with police dispatch?
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: It seems reckless, but it introduces a fascinating psychological concept
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: known as leakage.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Leakage. Okay, explain that.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: When a person is holding on to a massive high
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: stakes lie, like actively covering up a brutal murder they
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: just committed, the cognitive effort required to maintain that facade
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: is immense.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: It takes a lot of brain power to lie.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: The conscious brain is working in absolute overdrive. It is
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: managing the physical rhythm of the CPR. It is listening
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: to the dispatcher's instructions. And it is frantically reinforcing the
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: fake narrative of the accidental fall.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: So his brain's RAM is completely maxed out just trying
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: to play the role of the panicked husband.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Cognitive depletion sets in. And while the conscious brain
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: is occupied, the subconscious brain is boiling over with the
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: true emotion and the raw reality of the event. In
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: moments of extreme adrenaline fueled stress, the conscious control slips
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: for a fraction of a second. The psychological dam breaks
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: and the subconscious truth literally leaks out in a muttered
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: word or a whisper.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Hence leakage.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: In this case, The deep-seated resentment, the rage over the infidelity,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: the very motive for the crime leaked out in a
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: whisper while he was pretending to try and save her life.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: It acts as the cinematic climax of the trial, but
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: it's grounded in hard science.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: It is entirely scientific.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: It takes those 3 a.m. Google searches about infidelity from
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: 10 months prior and connects them directly via an audio
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: thread to the very moment of her death on the
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: floor of the red shed.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: It's a straight line from intent to action.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: The jury isn't just looking at a printed search history.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: They are arguably hearing the motive being whispered over the
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: victim's body in real time.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: With all this staggering evidence laid out, the mathematical impossibility
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: of the physical wounds, the oppressive motive, the digital premeditation,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: the corrected timeline, and the audio leakage.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: It's overwhelming.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: The resolution of the trial seemed inevitable.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: And it was. After seven hours of deliberation, the jury returned.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: They found Todd Mullis guilty of first-degree murder.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: of parole.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Which feels like the definitive locked-door end to the story.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: But Todd's reaction to the verdict and his subsequent legal
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: maneuvers open up a whole new, frankly bizarre chapter of
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the legal system.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: At his sentencing hearing, Todd was given the customary opportunity
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: to address the court.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: He stood up and stated, with apparent genuine indignation, that
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: the American justice system is supposed to be built on
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Sure, that's the standard.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: But he complained to the judge that he felt he
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: was forced to prove his innocence throughout the trial rather
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: than the state proving his guilt.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: The audacity is astounding. I mean, he stands there having
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: been convicted by a mountain of forensic pathology, digital search warrants,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and circumstantial timelines and plays the victim of a biased system.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: It's classic deflection.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: But the true absurdity lies in his current legal maneuvering.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Todd is actively seeking a new trial, and he has
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: filed appeals based on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: To understand this appeal, we have to look at the
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: legal threshold established by the Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, what does that test require?
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: To prove ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must satisfy
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: a two-pronged test. First, they must prove that their lawyer's
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: performance was deficient, meaning the lawyer made errors so serious...
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: They were not functioning as the counsel guaranteed by the
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Sixth Amendment.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's prong one.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Second, they must prove that this deficient performance prejudiced the defense,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: meaning that if the lawyer hadn't made the mistake, the
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: outcome of the trial would likely have been different.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: So what exactly is Todd claiming his lawyers did wrong?
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Did they miss a witness? Did they fail to object
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: to evidence?
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: No. His argument is that he wanted his defense team
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: to stick to his original story.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: The fall.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: He is furious that his lawyers abandoned the narrative, that
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Amy simply fell on the rake.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: You have got to be kidding me.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: He believes that if his lawyers had gone into that
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: courtroom and forcefully argued it was an accidental fall, he
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: would have been acquitted. He claims that shifting the blame
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: to an unknown intruder is what made him look guilty.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: But wait. How can a lawyer be deemed ineffective for
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: refusing to present a defense that defies the laws of physics?
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: We established that the rake had four tines and the
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: body had six holes.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: They cannot be deemed ineffective for that. In fact, under
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: the rules of professional conduct, a lawyer cannot knowingly offer
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Because that would be lying to the court.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If a lawyer knows their client's narrative is physically
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: contradicted by the autopsy, presenting that narrative to a jury
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: crosses the line into suborning perjury or presenting a frivolous defense.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: So they literally couldn't use the fall defense.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: His defense attorneys had to abandon the accident narrative because
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: presenting a mathematically impossible defense to a jury is legal suicide.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: It would have destroyed whatever tiny shred of credibility the
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: defense had left.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: And yet, Todd is fighting tooth and nail, filing appeals,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: for the right to use a defense that is disproven
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: by basic geometry.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: It's his only option. Why?
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Because psychologically, it is the only lie he has left
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: that doesn't involve a phantom ninja killer.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: The intruder theory didn't work. So he wants to retreat
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: to his very first instinctual lie from the 911 call,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: completely ignoring the scientific evidence that proves it false.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: It is the ultimate manifestation of a man who believes
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: he can simply dictate reality to a courtroom, much like
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: he dictated his wife's movements on the farm.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates how modern investigations weave together disparate disciplines. It's
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: no longer just about dusting for fingerprints.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Right, it's so much more than that now.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: It requires cellular data analysis, iOS database extraction, acoustic spectrograms,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: and forensic pathology all working in concert to trap a
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: fabricated narrative.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: So to briefly recap this incredibly dark journey for you, listener,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: we started with what looked like a tragic freak accident
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: in a quiet agricultural setting.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: But layer by layer, the truth was unearthed.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: We saw how the simple geometry of a farm tool
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: dismantled a rushed lie.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Four times, six holes.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: We explored the suffocating reality of a marriage built on
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: coercive control and financial paranoia.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: The timers, the approved friends lists.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: We tracked a digital footprint that showed a man researching
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: ancient executions in the middle of the night.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: The organs of the body search.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: And we listened to the chilling reality of a murderer's
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: true motive leaking out in a subconscious whisper on an
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: emergency tape.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: The evidence was just overwhelming.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Which leaves me with one final thought for you to
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: mull over. Something that hums beneath the surface of this
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: entire deep dive.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: And what's that?
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Well, In an era where our phones meticulously track our steps,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: where our browsers record our darkest, most fleeting curiosities in
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: unallocated data space, and where emergency calls capture not just
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: our conscious words, but our subconscious whispers, is it actually
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: possible to commit a truly perfect premeditated crime anymore?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: It's a great question.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: The technology and the forensics that surround us are constantly
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: bearing witness. They act as an invisible, ever-present jury. observing
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: every single thing we do, even when we think we
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: are entirely alone in a quiet red shed.