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Pregnant Woman Murdered By Cop Boyfriend · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine finding a chilling, picture-perfect crime scene. Like, it is
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the dead of night, you are on a secluded road,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and you're staring at what appears to be a tragic suicide.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Right, a really grim discovery.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly. A pregnant woman hanging from her vehicle. And her
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: purse is just sitting right there in the front seat. Oh, wow. Yeah,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and there's a typed suicide note neatly folded inside. It's
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: like all the pieces are laid out just waiting for
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the authorities to put them together.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Right, it looks like a textbook case on the surface.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: But the investigator who arrives first, you know, the one
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: looking at the scene, the one examining the note, he
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: isn't there to solve the puzzle.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Wait, really?
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He is the one who built it.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. That is, I mean, at that point, you
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: step out of the realm of an investigation and you
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: step onto a theater stage.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: We are talking about a staged crime scene, like a
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: locked room mystery right in plain sight. The props are
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: perfectly placed. The lighting is dramatic. The blocking is exactly
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: what the director wanted you to see.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: But the script is wrong.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Fundamentally, fatally flawed.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we are
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: bringing you with us as we unpack a truly harrowing,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: just meticulously documented true crime case out of Buena Vista, Michigan.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: It's an intense one.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It really is. We've spent the last week poring over
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: extensive transcripts, court documents, and investigative reporting from True Crime
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: News and Crime Watch Daily.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: So many source materials for this one.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mountains of it. But our mission today isn't just
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: to recount a tragedy for you. We are going to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: dissect the forensic science, the dark psychology of a staged
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: crime scene, and the meticulous, almost suffocating investigative work required
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: when the prime suspect is the very first police officer
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to arrive on the scene.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: You know, to understand how this entire facade was dismantled,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: You really need to hold on to one foundational concept
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: of forensic science throughout this entire story.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Okay. Lay it on us.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: It is called Lockhart Exchange Principle. You might have heard
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: the shorthand version, which is basically every contact leaves a trace.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Right. That's like rule number one in forensics.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Edmund Lockhart, he was a pioneer in forensic science
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: back in the early 20th century. He postulated this physical
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: reality that criminals constantly try and usually fail to outsmart.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So what exactly does it mean in practice?
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Well, he stated that it is impossible for a criminal
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: to act, especially in the commission of a violent close
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: quarters crime, without leaving traces of their presence and simultaneously
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: taking traces of the crime scene with them.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: So it's a two-way street of evidence.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It is a biological and physical exchange. I mean,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: we're talking hair. Fibers, skin cells, bodily fluids, even soil
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: from a shoe.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Right. All the invisible stuff.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And what is fascinating about this case is that
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: you have a perpetrator who is literally an expert in
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: law enforcement.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: That's the scariest part. It is.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: This is someone who knows the protocols. Someone who knows
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: exactly what investigators are going to look for when they
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: shine their flashlights into the dark.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: But even a professional can't account for everything, right?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They cannot account for the chaotic environment. entirely unpredictable
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: nature of a victim who is ferociously fighting for her life.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Locard's exchange principle dictates that in that chaos, evidence is
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: going to be generated. The stager tries to control the
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: narrative with a script, but the physical world simply refuses
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: to lie.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I am honestly stuck on the sheer audacity of this
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: from the very beginning, because initially the physical world in
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: this case looked exactly like a textbook tragedy to the
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: untrained eye.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: It really did.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Let's start with the victim. Because her life trajectory is
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the very first thing that violently clashes with the scene
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: that first responders supposedly discovered. We're talking about 32-year-old Jenny Webb.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Jenny is described by everyone in the source material
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: as the sparkle of her family.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I love that description.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Right. She had a magnetic personality, a really fierce sense
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: of independence, and just this overwhelming optimism.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: She was really coming into her own, you know? Like,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: at 32, she had a solid, good-paying job. She had
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: just gone through the incredible... incredibly stressful but rewarding process
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of buying her own house.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Setting up her own domain.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And she was eight and a half months
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: pregnant with her first child, a little boy she had
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: already decided to name Braxton.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: But you have to understand the context of this pregnancy
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: because it wasn't some long-planned, meticulously scheduled life event.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. Her mother, Dawn, was in absolute
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: shock when she found out because Jenny herself didn't even
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: realize she was pregnant until she was five months along. Wow.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, five months is a massive structural life pivot
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: to make in a very short amount of time. The
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: biology of a hidden pregnancy like that often means the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: physical signs are subtle or mistaken for other things until suddenly, like,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: there's just no denying it.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Right. You can't ignore it forever.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: So Jenny goes from a single independent homeowner focusing on
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: her career to realizing she is way past the halfway
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: mark of bringing a human life into the world.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: The circumstances surrounding the father were incredibly complex. The father
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: was a man Jenny had been friends with for a decade.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Ten years of friendship.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Ten years. But he was married. Now, the transcript showed
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Jenny was under the impression that he was separated from
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: his wife. That they were basically living completely separate lives
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: at the time their friendship became intimate.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Right, but she wasn't harboring any illusions about it.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. There was no fairytale romance playing
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: out in her head.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: She was a realist. I mean, her mother explicitly stated
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: that Jenny was not in love with him. She didn't
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: want to marry him. Right. She had no fantasies about them,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: you know, buying a station wagon and raising this child
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: together under one roof. Jenny was entirely prepared and seemingly
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: quite content to take ownership of her situation and be
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: a single mother to Braxter.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: She was taking total responsibility.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Which makes her behavior on the evening of her murder
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: so critical.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: We have to contrast the psychological state of someone who
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: is supposedly about to end their own life with Jenny's
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: actual documented behavior that night. Right.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: The timeline is key here.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: It is late August. After a full day of work,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: being heavily pregnant... Jenny doesn't go home and isolate herself.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: She goes over to her best friend Andrea's house to
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: help her take care of newborn twin girls.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Picture the physical toll of that.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, I can't even imagine.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: You are eight and a half months pregnant. Your center
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: of gravity is completely shifted. Your back aches. You are exhausted.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And you choose to spend your evening helping a friend
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: wrangle two screaming newborn twins.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: It's wild.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: But that behavior speaks volumes about her character.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: And more importantly for the investigation, it speaks to her
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: psychological state. She is nurturing. She's future oriented. She is
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: literally practicing for the arrival of her own son.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: She tells Andrea she can't stay too late, though, because
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: she has plans to meet the baby's father. She tells
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: her friend they need to discuss, quote, this whole child
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: support thing and putting his name on the baby's birth certificate. Right.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: The father was apparently dragging his feet on this.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: It was a point of friction, sure, but a mundane one.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It was administrative. It wasn't some dramatic showdown.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Right. So she leaves her friend's house, and the very
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: last exchange they have is Andrea saying, same time tomorrow
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: if you're willing, and Jenny casually replying, yep, see ya,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and driving off.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: She is making concrete plans for the very next day.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Exactly. She's looking forward.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Then, a matter of hours later, we are presented with
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: a jarring, horrific juxtaposition between A Pontiac Aztec is found
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: parked near a drainage ditch on a secluded dead-end road
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: in Buena Vista, Michigan.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: And Jenny Webb is found dead, hanging by an electrical
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: extension cord from the luggage rack of that car.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's walk through the exact procedural steps of what
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: happens next, because this is where the theater production officially
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: opens to the public.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Right, the curtain goes up.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: The first officer on the scene is Officer Ken Blue
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: from the Buena Vista Township Police. He is quickly followed
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: by Officer Tim Patterson.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: According to the investigative reports, Patterson pulls up his cruiser
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: and Blue is already out of his car, standing near
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the vehicle, asking Patterson, how do you want to do this?
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: They approach the Pontiac. They see Jenny. And crucially, they
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: both treat her as an unidentified Jane Doe. Right.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Neither of them indicate they have any idea who she is.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: They are processing it as a standard tragic discovery. But,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, standard operating procedure for a first responder is
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: extremely rigid.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There are rules.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Your job is to secure the scene. You ensure there
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: are no active threats in the tree line. You check
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: the victim for any signs of life. And then you
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: freeze the area.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: You don't touch anything.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You preserve it for the detectives and the crime
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: scene technicians.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I have to throw a flag on the playwright
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: here because Blue completely ignores that protocol. Oh, totally.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: The very next thing Officer Blue does is reach into
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the vehicle, pull Jenny's purse out, rummage through it, and
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: extract a folded piece of paper which turns out to
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: be a suicide note.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: It's unbelievable.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: If you are treating this as an unknown scene, why
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: is the very first officer immediately rooting through a victim's
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: purse before a detective has even been dispatched?
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: It is a massive intrusion into the scene. You do
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: not go fishing through personal effects. Unless you are trying
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: to establish immediate identity for a life-saving medical intervention, which
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: this clearly was not.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Right. She was already gone.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Pulling a folded piece of paper out, opening it, reading it,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: that contaminates evidence. It introduces your fingerprints, your DNA into
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the ecosystem of the crime scene.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: So why do it?
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: From an investigative standpoint, it looks like he knew exactly
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: what he was looking for and simply couldn't wait for
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: a detective to find it. The script had to be
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: read immediately to set the narrative.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: And the script itself was absurd. I mean, if the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: staging of the body was a physical lie, this note
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: was the psychological lie. It was typed. out. Yeah. Single
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: spaced size 10 font.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: It reads like an interoffice H.R.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Memo.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Not the final agonizing emotional words of a mother to be.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: The content of the note is just wild too. The
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: writer claims that the father of the baby is some
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: random guy named Chris who she met at a local bar.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Classic misdirection.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: The note goes on to detail how she's ruined her life.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Feels like a massive financial failure. Can't afford to support
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: the baby. and ends with this totally sterile sign-off. It's
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the only way. I love you, and I'm sorry, Jenny.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: You know, in behavioral analysis, when you look at stagers,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: people who manipulate a crime scene to look like a suicide,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: an accident, or a burglary, they almost always give themselves
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: away by over-explaining.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, really? They try too hard? Yes.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: They are terrified that the police won't reach the correct conclusion,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: so they provide way too much detail— to guide the
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: investigator's hands.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Like pointing them to a fake suspect.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A fake name to throw them off the scent,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: a fake location of meeting, a fabricated financial motive to
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: explain the despair. A genuine suicide note is often much shorter,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: much more focused on emotional pain, rather than laying out
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: a logical bullet point argument for why they are dying.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: You contrast that type sterile document to what her mother, Dawn,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: said when they eventually showed it to her. Dawn took
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: one look at it and rejected it instantly.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I don't blame her.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: She told investigators that if Jenny were ever to write
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: a suicide note, it would absolutely be handwritten. She would
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: have used her signature glitter pens. She apparently loved writing
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: in purple, green, or pink.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that shows her personality.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: And she wouldn't have printed out one generic boilerplate memo
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: for the whole world. She would have written individualized, deeply
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: heartfelt letters for every single person she cared about.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: It just wasn't her.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Right. The note was a complete character assassination of who
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Jenny was.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Well, the note is the first domino in this staged scene,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: but the second one falls almost immediately after Blue and
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Patterson read it.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Blue reads this note with Patterson standing right there.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Then he pulls out the victim's wallet, looks at her
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: driver's license and suddenly proclaims, gee, I know this girl
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: from one of the local bars.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Let's analyze the linguistics of that sentence for a second.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Okay. Break it down.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Gee, I know this girl. Not, oh my God, I
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: know her. Not, this is my friend.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Right. It's very casual.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: It is distancing language. He is minimizing his connection to
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: her while simultaneously establishing a very casual, distant reason for
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: why he might recognize her face, just in case someone
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: in the department finds out they are acquainted. He is
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: laying defensive groundwork.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Wow. That's incredibly calculated. Yeah. While this is happening- Detective
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Sean Waterman arrives on the scene to take over.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: And Waterman gets some incredibly suspicious context from Officer Patterson.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, the radio silence.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Yes. It turns out Officer Blue hadn't just been out
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: on normal patrol prior to this, quote unquote, discovery. He
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: had been completely unresponsive on the police radio. He missed
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: his routine radio checks for an hour and a half.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: From roughly 9.05 p.m. to 10.30 p.m.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: A 90-minute radio blackout for an on-duty police officer is
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: an eternity.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It's huge, right.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: It is an immediate disciplinary issue because it's an officer's
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: safety risk. Dispatch doesn't know where you are.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: And how did Patterson even find the scene? He didn't
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: just stumble upon it while driving around. He went actively
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: hunting for Blue because he was fed up with the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: radio silence.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: He had to track him down.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Right. Patterson drove to this specific, isolated, dead-end road because
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: he knew this was Blue's go-to hiding spot if he
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: was going to sleep on the job.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: But when Patterson arrived, he noted that Blue did not
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: look like a guy who had just been jolted awake
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: from a nap. He was sweating profusely and completely out
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: of breath.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: The 90 minutes of radio silence is where the reality
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: of the murder takes place. I mean, think about the
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: timeline and the physical exhaustion required here.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: It's dark. It's secluded.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: And staging a human body, especially the body of an
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: eight and a half month pregnant woman, is not like
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: arranging mannequins in a store window. It is incredibly physically demanding.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: It's agape.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: You are dealing with dead weight. You are dealing with
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: the mechanics of tying an extension cord to a luggage rack, lifting, adjusting.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine the sheer panic of those 90 minutes.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Because murder is not clean. It is not easy. And
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: it rarely goes according to the plan in your head.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: He's sweating. He's breathless. because the physical reality of what
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: he just did is catching up with him. But despite
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: these blaring red flags, the radio silence, the sweating, the
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: immediate contamination of the personal, the scene is processed under
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Blue's watchful eye.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: He's just hovering there.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Blue even takes the evidentiary photos himself. The car is
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: eventually towed, Jenny's body is transported to the morgue, and
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Detective Waterman is left with the terrible task of driving
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: to Jenny's mother's house in the middle of the night
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: to deliver a death notification.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: The interaction that is about to happen between Detective Waterman
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: and Dawn Webb is the pivot point of the entire case.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: It changes everything.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: It is the exact second the investigation morphs from a
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: tragic suicide inquiry into a homicide investigation with a truly
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: horrifying suspect pool.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: So Waterman sits down with Dawn and tells her there's
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: been a suicide. Dawn instantly, viscerally rejects it. She says
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: she may be dead, but she did not commit suicide.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: She knew right away.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: She sees a copy of the type note, dismisses it
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: immediately as a fake. and tells him about the glitter pens. Waterman,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: doing his job, starts asking questions to get to the
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: bottom of this alternate theory.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Right. He's following the lead.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: He asks her three questions, culminating in, Do you know
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: who the father of the baby is? Dawn looks at
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: him and says yes. And then she drops the absolute bombshell.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: She says, You're Officer Kim Blue.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Try to put yourself in Detective Waterman's shoes in that
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: exact second.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I would pass out.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Right. Imagine the physical reaction, the adrenaline spike, the cold sweat.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: This isn't a civilian suspect. This is a colleague.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Guy he works with every day.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: This is a man wearing the exact same uniform, carrying
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: the exact same authority, who was just standing shoulder to
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: shoulder with him at the crime scene taking photos. Waterman
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: later recalled that his face literally went white. He said
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: he felt physically sick to his stomach.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: The power dynamic of the entire investigation shifts on its
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: axis in that one sentence. He realizes instantly that the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: man who, quote unquote, found the body... the man who
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: just so happened to find the suicide note in the purse,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: was the married father of the baby who had been
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: dodging putting his name on a birth certificate.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: It creates an immediate catastrophic crisis of jurisdiction and conflict
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: of interest.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Right, because they can't investigate their own guy.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: A local police department simply cannot investigate its own active
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: duty officer for a homicide, not if they want the
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: conviction to hold water in a courtroom. The defense attorney
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: would absolutely destroy the case on the grounds of bias,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: compromised evidence, Or the thin blue line brotherhood protecting its own.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: They had to step back.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: They had to lock the case down and hand it
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: off immediately.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Which brings the Michigan State Police into the fray. Detective
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Alan Ogg takes over as the lead investigator. But
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: by the time Ogg gets the call and heads out
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: to the scene on that secluded road, the primary visual
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: evidence has been removed.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the scene is basically empty.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: The body is at the morgue. The car is in
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: an impound lot.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: And this is where Blue makes a classic arrogant misstep.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: He thought he had controlled the narrative the night before,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: but the next morning, as the state police and their
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: forensic scientists are gathering at the site to do a
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: daylight sweep, guess who comes driving up to the police line?
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Ken Blue, in his personal vehicle, wearing civilian clothes.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: The old adage says criminals always return to the scene
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: of the crime, and people often think it's out of
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: a sense of guilt or some morbid remorse.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Like they feel bad about it. Right.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: But from a behavioral standpoint, it is almost entirely about
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: risk management.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: He's checking his work. Yes.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: He needed to know what the state police were looking at.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: He needed to monitor the investigation to see if his
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: stage play was holding up to their scrutiny or if
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: they had found something he missed in the dark.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Well, the state police immediately recognize what a liability this is.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: He is ordered to leave the scene and go straight
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: back to his station.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Thank goodness.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And it's a good thing he was removed because the
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: forensic team, Gary Ginther, and Valerie Bowman were about to
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: blow his stage scene completely out of the water.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: They did incredible work here.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: They are standing near the ditch where the Pontiac Aztec
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: was parked, and they realize something is very wrong. The
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: scene is too pristine.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Right, there's no sign of a struggle.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: For a traumatic event involving a vehicle, a hanging, a
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: pregnant woman, there is simply not enough physical disruption in
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the dirt, in the gravel right there.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: So they apply basic crime scene logic. They start walking.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: They expand the perimeter outward from the focal point. And
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: 195 feet away from where the car and the body
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: were staged, along the asphalt of the road, they find it.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: They find the true primary crime scene. Exactly. You talk
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: about a magician dropping all his props while trying to
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: force you to look at a card trick. This is
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: exactly what happened. 195 feet away, they find a pair
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: of flip-flops abandoned in the street.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: He's left there.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: They find a discarded cigarette butt. They find a distinct
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: blood spot on the asphalt. And not too far from that,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: a tiny little necklace charm that had been broken off
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a chain.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: This perfectly illustrates the vital distinction between a primary and
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: a secondary crime scene. The primary scene is where the
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: actual assault, the violence, the murder took place. The secondary
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: scene is where the body was deposited, moved, or in
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: this case staged. The items found 195 feet away paint
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: a vivid, violent picture of a sudden struggle.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: An ambush. It totally rewrites the story.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: It completely shatters the static, peaceful imagery of a woman
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: simply tying an extension cord and hanging.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: A perfect match to Ken Blue. Wow. The blood spot
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: on the pavement and the broken necklace charm. A match
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: to Jenny Webb. And while forensics is processing the asphalt,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: investigators are diving into Jenny's phone data.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: A phone record.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Remember, Blue told Patterson he just casually knew her face
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: from a bar. But in Jenny's phone, his number is
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: saved as Ken Cop Boo.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: The Boo likely being her shorthand for Buena Vista.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly. And they find three phone calls between Jenny
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and Ken Blue that very evening. the exact evening they
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: were supposed to meet to discuss child support.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: The web is closing in with terrifying speed.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: It really is. The physical evidence is starting to point
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: aggressively at an active duty officer. But investigators know that
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: to lock in a cop, to really trap someone who
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: knows the justice system inside and out, they need him
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: to talk on the record before he realizes he is
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the primary target.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Which takes us right into the interrogation room. If you
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: study the transcripts of this interview, it is a masterclass
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: in hubris on the part of Ken Blue and an
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: absolute masterclass in tactical, psychological interviewing by the state police.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: So it has been about nine hours since Jenny's body
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: was found. Detective Sergeant Ogg and Lieutenant Jason Teddy sit
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: down with Blue. The tone at the very beginning of
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the interview is incredibly jarring.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: It is intensely casual.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: It is just three guys shooting the breeze in a room.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: They make jokes about turning their cell phones off, quote,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: so we can all behave. It sounds like guys waiting
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: for a meeting to start, not a murder interrogation.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: That atmosphere is entirely intentional by Og and Teddy. When
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: you are interviewing a fellow law enforcement officer, their guard
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: is naturally up because they know all the interrogation techniques.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: You know it's coming.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: They know the read technique. They know how to spot
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: a bluff. You cannot go in hard and accusatory. Or
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: they will invoke their Miranda rights and demand a union
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: rep or an attorney immediately.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: So you have to play nice.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: You have to play on their professional ego. You cultivate
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: this atmosphere of, hey, we're all cops here. We're on
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: the same team. We just have to check these bureaucratic
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: boxes on this paperwork so we can clear this up.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: You make them feel like a collaborator in the investigation
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: rather than the subject of it.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And Blue falls for it. Hook, line, and sinker. He
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: recounts his version of the night. He says he was
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: just out patrolling, saw the car parked weirdly. And that
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: he and Patterson approached it roughly the same time. Yeah.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: He says he saw the door open, saw the extension cord,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and yelled, hey, we got a body. But here's where
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the detectives start to gently, almost imperceptibly, box him in.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: They ask him a very basic procedural question. Did you
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: guys check for vitals?
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And Blue's response is, frankly, pathetic for a trained first responder.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: He says no. He claims he didn't want to disturb
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the scene because there was no movement. He didn't see
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: her chest rising and her lips were bluish, so he
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: just assumed she was deceased.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: It's such a weak excuse.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Then they press him on the most glaring issue. How
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: did he not recognize his friend of 10 years hanging
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: right in front of him? He gives this excuse, I
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: just went into cop mode. He says he never sees
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: her in that position, meaning not dressed up with her
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: hair done for a night out, so he just didn't
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: register it was her face.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Cop mode is a highly convenient psychological shield. But while
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: he is spinning this narrative... The detectives are observing him physically.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is the best part.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: And what they see completely contradicts the calm, collected story
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: he is telling. He is sitting across from them with
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: a serious, highly visible injury to the inside corner of
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: his eye. He has a prominent band-aid wrapped around his
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: right index finger. He has fresh, red scratches on his
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: head and his forearm.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: So the detectives ask about the eye, keeping it casual.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: And Blue claims he was wrestling with his dog on
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the floor of his house once. before his shift started,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: and the dog accidentally scratched him.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Sure, blame the dog.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: But Og and Teddy had already done their homework. They
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: had spoken to a fellow officer who actually ate dinner
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: with Blue during their shift that night, prior to the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: 90-minute radio silence.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Tasted.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: That co-worker confirmed Blue had absolutely no injuries, no eye scratch,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: nothing wrong with him during dinner.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: The level of cognitive dissonance required for Blue to sit
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: there is staggering. I mean, he is sitting across from
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: seasoned homicide detectives bleeding, scratched up like he's just been
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: in a brutal bar brawl. And he genuinely believes they
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: are buying his story about a clumsy dog. It speaks
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: to a profound, deep seated arrogance, a belief that his
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: uniform provides an impenetrable alibi. He thinks his word as
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: an officer of the law simply overrides physical reality.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I want to focus on his denial of the affair
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: for a second. Why lie so blatantly about having an
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: intimate relationship with Jenny and When he knows, he has
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to know that her family is aware of him.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: He had to have known.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: The detectives literally tell him during the interview, her family
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: knows who the father is. They know your name. They
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: know where you work. And Blue still sits there, shakes
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: his head and says, wow, no possibility of that. None.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Is he just so used to his authority never being
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: questioned that he thinks his no can alter the facts?
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I think it's a combination of habituated authority and sheer
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: survival panic. In his daily life as an officer, his
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: word is often treated as the definitive truth on a
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: police report.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Right, he writes the narrative.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: He is used to dictating the official record of reality.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: But in this interrogation room, he's trapped in a lie
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: of his own making. He calculates that if he admits
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: to the affair, he admits to the paternity, which provides
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: the motive, which connects him directly to the murder.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Ah, I see.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: He is trying to hold a dam together with his
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: bare hands, just denying the water even exists.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: But the dam inevitably breaks. The detectives finally make their
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: move and they do it brilliantly. They don't yell. They
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: don't pound the table. They don't turn on a spotlight.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: They keep it cool.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: They simply say they need to exclude him from the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: crime scene evidence. And they slide a standard DNA consent
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: form across the table asking for a cheek swab.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: That single piece of paper is the ultimate reality check.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: You can lie in a conversation. You can manipulate a colleague,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: but you cannot lie to a DNA swab.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: No, you can't.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: He hesitates. The silence in the room stretches out. He
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: realizes the science is about to corner him.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: He pauses, pen in hand, looking at the form, and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: finally says, I can't tell you one thing, though, guys.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I did, in fact, sleep with her. There it is.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: The pivot is incredible. It is the first admission of truth.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: But it's too late. The swab is taken. And Blue
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: thought he could talk his way out of the room.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: But his DNA is the key that unlocks an absolute
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: floodgate of forensic evidence. Right.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Lou thought giving up his DNA would make him look cooperative,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: but he completely forgot about the one witness he couldn't silence.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Jenny's body.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's talk about the autopsy.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: When the medical examiner, Dr. Kanu Varani, began the autopsy,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: his entire fabricated timeline fell apart. The autopsy results completely
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: obliterated the hanging narrative. Jenny Webb did not die from hanging.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: She died from chokehold suffocation. The ligature mark found on
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: her neck from the electrical cord. Dr. Virani determined definitively
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: that it was inflicted post-mortem after she was already dead.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Let's connect the dots here because this is where the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: betrayal becomes truly chilling. Blue wasn't just a street cop.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: He was specifically a certified police chokehold trainer for his department.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, that detail is huge.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: And investigators found his training manual on vascular neck restraints
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: sitting right on the front seat of his squad car.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Most people think strangulation is simply about cutting off the
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: air supply by crushing the windpipe. It's not. Vascular compression strangulation,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: which is what chokeholds rely on, is about applying highly
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: specific pressure to the carotid arteries on the sides of
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the neck. This cuts off the blood flow to the brain,
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: causing unconsciousness in a matter of seconds and death very
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: shortly after. Blue was a trainer. He knew the exact
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: biomechanics of how to kill someone instantly, efficiently, Without leaving
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: the messy, prolonged signs of a struggle for air.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Terrific.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: He weaponized his law enforcement expertise to execute a pregnant woman.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: But remember Locard's exchange principle that we talked about. Blue
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: thought he was in total control of the mechanics of death.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: But Jenny fought back. She fought fiercely for her life
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: and the life of your unborn son. And in doing so,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: she generated the exact evidence that would destroy his life.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: The forensics on her clothing get mind-blowing here.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the glove.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: When the crime lab was processing Jenny's clothes, they found
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: something deeply anomalous. Tangled inside her clothing was the torn-off
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: tip of a latex glove.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Just a piece of it.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Right. The lab tests the outside of this glove tip,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: and it comes back positive for a mix of DNA
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: blood and saliva belonging to both Jenny and Ken Blue.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Then they swab the inside of the glove tip. The
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: inside tests positive purely for Ken Blue's blood.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: So the theory of the crime becomes perfectly clear. While
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Blue had her in this vascular chokehold from behind, his
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: hand wearing a latex glove to avoid leaving fingerprints was
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: clamped over her mouth to keep her quiet.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Right, covering her mouth.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Jenny, fighting for air, bit down on his right index
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: finger so hard that her teeth sheared right through the
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: latex glove, severing the tip of the glove and wounding
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: his finger severely.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: By biting his finger, Jenny turned Ken Blue into a
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: walking biological evidence dispenser.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: That's a great way to put it.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: He couldn't stop the bleeding in the dark. His blood
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: was found on the extension cord used to stage the hanging.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: It was found on her clothing. It was smeared in
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: the backseat of her Pontiac Aztec. It was found inside
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: his own patrol vehicle. And inevitably, it was going to
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: be on his uniform.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: And Blue knew this. He knew he was bleeding everywhere.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: So he tried to pull another magic trick on the investigators.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: When they asked for his uniform from that night, he
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: calmly handed over a laundry bag containing a police uniform. Right.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But the investigators took one look at it and knew
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: it was a decoy. The uniform was crisp. It had fresh,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: sharp creases pressed into the front and back of the legs.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: The shirt smelled strongly of fresh laundry detergent.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Picture the absurdity of this defense. You have a man
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: claiming he just discovered his friend hanging, which is supposedly
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: a chaotic, highly emotional scene involving moving a body. And
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: yet the uniform he claims he was wearing looks like
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: it just came off a dry cleaner's hanger.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Makes no sense.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: The juxtaposition of a crisp, clean uniform against a man
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: who had just wrestled an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant woman to the
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: asphalt and dragged her dead body to a car is
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: almost insulting to the intelligence of the state investigators.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: The police obviously don't buy the decoy uniform for a second.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: They secure a search warrant for his personal pickup truck.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: And what do they find stashed out of sight under
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the rear seat? His real duty-worn uniform, absolutely covered in bloodstains.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Of course. The blood, of course, comes back from the
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: lab as a perfect DNA match to Ken Blue. But
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: even with all of this, the DNA, the blood in
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the car, the chokehold evidence, there is one piece of
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: forensic science in this case that stands out as an
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: absolute masterpiece of deductive reasoning.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: The fingerprints. This is where the science locks the cell door.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Walk us through the science of this because it is brilliant.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: They find a bloody fingerprint on the passenger side of
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Jenny's Pontiac Aztec. Right. It was a print made in
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Ken Blue's blood. and the ridge details perfectly matched Blue's
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: right index finger. But it wasn't just a standard fingerprint identification.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: The image of the fingerprint actually showed physical damage to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: his skin.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: To understand why this is the climax of the case,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: you have to understand how fingerprints work. Your fingerprints are
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: formed in the dermis, the deep layer of skin, and
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: they project up through the epidermis.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. They are unique, but they are also a real-time
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: physical map of your skin's current state. If you get
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: a deep cut on your fingertips, say, from a desperate
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: woman biting through a latex glove that cut damages the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: ridge pattern.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: So it changes the print.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: It creates a scar or a void. When you leave
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: a print after that injury, the print will show that
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: exact void. The bloody print left on the car showed
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a distinct break in the ridge pattern at the bottom
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: of the loop. It showed the exact wound Jenny had inflicted.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: So the bloody print on the car proved that he
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: touched the car after his finger was damaged by her teeth.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It establishes a definitive timeline.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: I love this analogy. It's like leaving a digital timestamp
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: on a physical object. Because when forensic analysts went back
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: to the lab and ran chemical processing on the type
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: suicide note, the very note Blue claimed he found in
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: her purse after she was dead, they lifted 14 latent
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: fingerprints off the back of the paper.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: 14 of them.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: All 14 prints belonged to Ken Blue. But crucially, the
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: print from his right index finger on the note did
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: not show the ridge damage. The loop pattern was perfectly intact.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: That is the checkmate for the prosecution.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Is there any conceivable way a defense attorney can spin
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: that to a jury? You have an undamaged print on
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the suicide note and a damaged bloody print on the
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: car where she was hung.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Scientifically, logically, it is an insurmountable timeline. It proves, without
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: a shadow of a doubt, that Ken Blue handled that
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: suicide note before the murder took place, before Jenny bit
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: him and damaged his finger.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Because he couldn't have handled it intact afterward.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: It proves he brought the note with him to the meeting.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: It elevates the crime from a crime of passion, or
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: a sudden argument about child support gone wrong, to premeditated,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: highly calculated first-degree murder.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: This sequence is undeniable.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: The sequence of events is locked in stone. He typed
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: the note, handled it with intact fingers, brought it to
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: the meeting, murdered her, sustained the bite injury, staged the
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: body leaving a damaged bloody print, and then pretended to
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: find the note later. The forensics tell a story that
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: his lies simply cannot override.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: And the premeditation is further backed up by a search
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: warrant executed at Blue's house. Police find extension cords in
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a utility drawer that are completely identical in make and
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: model to the one used to hang Jenny.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Right, the exact same cords.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: One cord is missing from the bundle, but the plastic
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: twist tie that held together is still sitting right there
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: in the drawer. And when they pull the hard drive
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: on his home computer... The search history is horrifying.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, this part is chilling.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: He was Googling best way to commit suicide, painless suicide,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: and incredibly specifically, vascular compression strangulation.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: He was literally researching how to kill her using his
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: own police expertise and simultaneously researching how to frame it
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: using Internet tropes of suicide. He was building the stage
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: play weeks in advance. It is a mountain of indisputable,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: scientifically rigorous evidence.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: With this absolute avalanche of proof, Blue is arrested and charged.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: But the legal proceedings reveal a heartbreaking statutory loophole and
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: introduce us to a deeply unsettling psychological phenomenon regarding his family.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: The trial phase was really tough on the family.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: The case heads to the courtroom, but not without fierce,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: almost unbelievable resistance from his relatives. Let's examine the charges first,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: because this is a point of significant legal tragedy that
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: devastated the family. Ken Blue is charged with first degree
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: murder for the death of Jenny Webb. And he is
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: charged with assault on a pregnant individual causing miscarriage or stillbirth.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I remember reading that and being so confused. Why wasn't
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: he charged with a second count of murder for the baby, Braxton?
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: He was eight and a half months along. He was
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: two weeks away from being full term. By all medical definitions,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: that is a fully viable infant.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating reality of the legal system at
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: that specific time. When this crime occurred, Michigan state law
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: had a glaring loophole.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: What was the loophole?
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: The law simply did not recognize an unborn child, even
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: one at eight and a half months gestation, as a
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: legal victim of murder in this specific context. The prosecution
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: desperately wanted to charge him with a double homicide because morally, practically,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: that is exactly what it was. But legally, their hands
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: were tied by the statutory definitions available to them.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: That is incredibly frustrating.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: It highlights a profound gap. between the moral reality of
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: the crime, a man murdering a mother and her near-term infant,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: and the slow bureaucratic evolution.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Of the law. It is a devastating injustice for Jenny's family,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: who had to grieve the loss of two lives where
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: only seeing justice for one. And speaking of family, while
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Jenny's family is grieving this double loss, Ken Blue's family
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: goes on the offensive in the media.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, the sister.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, his sister, Debbie Dennis, publicly and fiercely defends him
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: to anyone who will listen. She gives news interviews claiming
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: that Ginny might have dramatically staged her own hanging, just
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: to scare Blue, and that it was all a terrible accident.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Just an absurd theory.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: And when reporters press her on the overwhelming DNA and
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: blood evidence, she alleges that the state police planted it
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: all to frame her brother.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: This is a textbook extreme example of family denial fueled
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: by severe cognitive dissonance.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Explain how that works in this context.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Cognitive dissonance is the mental pain or discomfort experienced by
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: someone holding two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: at the same time. For Debbie, belief A is a
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: core identity pillar. My brother is a good man, a
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: dedicated police officer, a protector of the community. Right. Belief
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: B is the stark reality. The physical evidence proves my
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: brother brutally murdered a pregnant woman. The human brain often
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: cannot hold both of these absolute truths simultaneously without having
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: a psychological breakdown.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: So it just rejects one? Yes.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: To protect the foundational belief that her brother is a
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: good person, her brain creates elaborate, sometimes purely delusional rationalizations
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: to dismiss the new evidence.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: You hear the sister talking about planted evidence, and you
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: have to ask, at what point does family loyalty exist?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: crossed the line into pure delusion. I mean, think about
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the logistics of her theory. How could the state police
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: possibly plant Ken Blue's fresh blood inside a tiny latex
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: glove tip that was found tangled tightly inside the victim's clothes?
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: You can't fake that.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: The logistics of that conspiracy would require dozens of corrupt cops,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: medical examiners, and lab techs all working in perfect, immediate
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: synchronization to frame a small-town patrolman.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: It is completely illogical. But denial isn't born from logic.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: It is born from a desperate need for psychological self-preservation.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Facing the reality that someone you grew up with, someone
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: you love and trust, is a monster who can strangle
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: a pregnant woman with his bare hands is a profound
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: trauma in itself.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: So her mind just created an alternate reality.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Her mind simply rejected the trauma by rejecting reality altogether.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: But thankfully, the jury didn't have that problem. The trial
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: lasts over three exhausting weeks. The prosecution meticulously lays out
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: their case, calling 31 witnesses to the stand.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: 31 witnesses. That's a lot.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: The forensic experts walk the jury through the timeline, explaining
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Locard's exchange principle, mapping out the primary and secondary crime scenes.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: They detail the biomechanics of the chokehold, the damaged fingerprint timestamp,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: the computer searches. They build a wall of evidence brick
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: by brick.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: It was incredibly thorough.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: And the defense. They call exactly one witness.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: And crucially... Ken Blue does not testify in his own defense.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: His attorney basically just tries to vaguely poke holes in
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: the investigation, suggesting sloppiness or cross-contamination by the first responders.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: But they offer no cohesive alternate theory that aligns with
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: the physical facts.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Because there is no alternate theory. The evidence was absolute.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: The jury deliberated for just two hours.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Two hours. That is incredibly fast for a murder trial.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: For a complex three-week murder trial involving scientific testimony, two
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: hours is nothing. It means they took one look at
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: the evidence and had no doubts. They returned a verdict
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of guilty on all counts. Ken Blue was sentenced to
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: life in prison without the possibility of parole.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: At the sentencing hearing, Dawn Webb, Jenny's mother, finally got
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: the chance to look the man who destroyed her family
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: in the eye and deliver her victim impact statement.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: What did she say?
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: She called him an evil monster and told him to
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: go to your cage and think about how you squeezed
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: the life and breath out of my daughter and grandson.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: It is a raw, powerful, and necessary moment of accountability.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: The fallout in his personal life was just as swift.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Just days after his arrest, Blue's wife filed for divorce. Blue,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: of course, never admitted guilt, maintaining his arrogance to the end.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: He appealed his case all the way to the Michigan
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court, which flatly denied his request for a new trial.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: He just wouldn't let it go.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: No. From prison, he issued a statement blaming his conviction
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: on expert and witnesses with personal agendas and a total
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: disregard for proper investigative practices.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: He is still playing the role of the aggrieved superior
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: cop who knows better than everyone else. He is still
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: trying to control the narrative, still trying to direct the play,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: even from inside a prison cell.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: It makes you wonder about the long-term impact a case
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: like this has on a community. Buena Vista is a
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: township where people know their local police. They see them
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: at the diner. They wave to them on patrol.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: It's a tight-knit place.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: When the quote-unquote good guys, the people sworn to protect you,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: commit the ultimate betrayal, how does a town recover its
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: trust in law enforcement? The psychological damage radiates outward from
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: the victim's family into the precinct and into the entire community.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: It completely shatters the social contract. And as we wrap
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: up this deep dive into the evidence, I think that
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: is the most vital and perhaps the most unsettling takeaway
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: we need to explore.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Let's summarize what we've unpacked today. A bad cop tried
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: to use his inside knowledge of the justice system, his
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: understanding of forensic evidence, and his training in staging to
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: commit the perfect murder and erase his responsibilities to a
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: child he didn't want.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: He really thought he could outsmart everybody.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I thought he could write a script, build a set,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and force the world to watch his play and applaud
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: the tragic ending. But he was undone by two things.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: His own staggering, blanding arrogance, and the ferocious final fight
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: of a mother protecting her unborn child.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that fight was everything.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: As the investigators said during the trial, Jenny was their
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: best witness. By fighting for her life, by biting him,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: She left an undeniable forensic trail that spoke for her
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: when she no longer could.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: She fought back, and the science honored her fight. But
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: if we connect this specific tragedy to the broader picture
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: of society, this case forces us to confront a very
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: dark reality. I want to leave you with this thought
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: to mull over. The weaponization of trust.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: The weaponization of trust.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: From the time we are children, society conditions us to
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: view the police uniform, the squad car, and the badge...
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: as absolute symbols of safety. If you are in trouble,
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: you are taught to run to the uniform. But when
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: a predator hides behind that exact shield, it creates a
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: terrifying paradox.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: The costume itself becomes the camouflage.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It forces us to ask some very uncomfortable questions
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: about our own perceptions. How much of our daily safety,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: our sense of security in the world, relies on the
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: mere costume of authority?
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: That is a scary thought.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: And what systemic blind spots do we create within police departments,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: within the justice system, and within our own minds when
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: we automatically assume that a badge equals morality? Ken Blue
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: used that blind spot. He assumed it would make him
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: invisible to his colleagues.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: It goes right back to that locked room mystery on
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: the theater stage we talked about at the very beginning
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: of this deep dive. We are so heavily conditioned to
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: trust the director that we sometimes forget to ask if
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: the play itself is real.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: We have to keep questioning the narrative.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: But this case proves that no matter how good the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: costume is, no matter how perfectly placed the props are,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the truth is relentless. It will leave a trace. It
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: will leave a damaged fingerprint and a drop of blood.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: It will leave a voice, even when it has been
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: violently silenced. Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: As always, keep questioning the script, look closer at the details,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: and stay insanely curious.