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The Severed Leg and Airbrushed Jeans · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know how, like when you pull a single loose
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: thread and it just completely unravels an entire sweater? Oh, yeah.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: It just destroys the whole thing. Right.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Well, in August of 1994, a police officer in Bridgeport, Connecticut,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: basically pulled a loose thread by opening a single trash
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: bag that was just left sitting in the middle.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Of the road. And that one bag changed everything.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: It really did. Because inside that bag was a severed leg.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: But the actual unraveling, like the thing that and entire
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: communities' secrets wide open started with what was sitting right
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: next to it in that bag.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where this case gets incredibly twisted.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You sent us this cold case file, and as
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we went through these police transcripts, crime reporter notes, and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: autopsy reports about the unsolved murder of Benjamin Rosario, we
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: realized something.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: This isn't just your standard mystery about who committed a
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: horrific crime. It's a master class in how a massive
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: manhunt can pivot from chasing this terrifying phantom to staring
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: at a nightmare sitting right in your own living room.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: That is so true. And to really understand how those
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: kinds of blind spots happen in a real investigation, we
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: kind of have to transport ourselves back into the stifling
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: atmosphere of that specific time and place.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, man. 1994 in the summer. Right.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Picture August 3rd, 1994. It is one of those incredibly
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: sweltering summer afternoons. The heat index is pushing past 100 degrees.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: The pavement is practically shimmering with all that humidity.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Just miserable.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Completely. And in the newsroom of the Connecticut Post, local
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: crime journalists, you know, they aren't getting push notifications on
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: their iPhones yet.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: No Twitter or anything.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They're sitting at these clunky metal desks just sweating
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: in front of box fans, and they're listening to the hypnotic,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: static-filled crackle of a police scanner. That's how you got
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: the news. Yeah.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And on this particular afternoon, there's a reporter named Dan Tepper.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And he's listening to that scanner when an excited cop
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: calls in a strange discovery on Seaview Avenue over in
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the city's East End.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Right. A very specific call. Yeah.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: But what really catches Tepper's attention isn't even the discovery itself.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It's that the dispatcher abruptly shouts at the officer over
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the radio to, quote, keep your voice down.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Which is an immediate red flag for any seasoned reporter.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Tepper knows that means something big is happening.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: So he grabs a photographer. They rush out to the scene.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And when they arrive, they find Bridgeport Patrol Officer Ernie
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Nandori standing on this sun-baked asphalt, just staring down at
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a black plastic trash bag.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And Officer Nandori's initial mindset here is actually really crucial
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: to understand from an investigative standpoint.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Well, he works a beat where people illegally dump household
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: garbage on the street all the time. It's just a
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: constant nuisance.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Just everyday trash.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Right. So when he looks at this bag in the road,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: he sees what he thinks is a discarded Halloween toy
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: sticking out of the plastic. Wow. Yeah, he thinks it's
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: a fake prop. He has literally no reason to assume
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: he's looking at a piece of a human being.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: But it's not a prop.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: No.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a severed human leg. A full leg.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Foot still attached. And this is where the investigation gets
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: its first massive jolt. Because the clue that instantly narrows
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the focus... isn't even the physical remains.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: It's what was in the bag with it.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's a highly distinct piece of clothing stuffed inside
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: that bag with the leg. A pair of heavy dark
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: denim jeans. And they are completely unmistakable. They're emblazoned with
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: a custom airbrushed star and the letters SD.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: And unique identifiers like that, like custom clothing, they immediately
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: collapse the timeline for an investigator.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Because it's so specific, right?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Finding an unidentifiable limb can mean weeks of searching
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: through missing persons databases, just hoping for a match. But
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: finding a custom airbrushed garment, that gives you an instant,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: highly specific search parameter.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: And the crazy part is Nandori doesn't even need to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: run a search. He recognizes the description of these pants instantly.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Which is just wild timing.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: It is, because just one day prior, he had personally
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: sat down to take a missing person report from a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: woman named Nelly Rosario and her son Brick. They were
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: reporting Nellie's husband, who was 45-year-old Benjamin Rosario, missing.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: And they gave a very specific description.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Right. When Nandori asked what Benjamin was wearing the last
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: time they saw him, Nellie and Brick explicitly stated he
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: was heading to his local neighborhood bar, a place called
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Side Effects, wearing those exact airbrushed jeans.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: So the velocity of the case just accelerates dramatically right there.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Within 24 hours of a man being reported missing... A
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: piece of his body, along with a very specific clothing
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: he was allegedly wearing, is found discarded out in the open.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Just sitting in the street?
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And over the next few days, the reality of
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: the violence really becomes clear. Investigators find another trash bag
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: tucked under a nearby highway overpass. And then shortly after that,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: an off-duty police officer is actually out fishing near Pleasure Beach,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: which is this overgrown area closed off to the public.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: And he catches the horrific, unmistakable scent of human decomposition
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: baking in the August sun.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: That's horrifying. It's awful.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: He follows that stench into the brush and discovers four
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: more trash bags containing the rest of the remains. And
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: pretty quickly, fingerprints confirm the victim is Benjamin Rosario.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: The brutality of it is just staggering. But, you know,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: reading through the initial police report for this deep dive,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: there is a behavioral detail that feels completely out of
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: place to me.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Which part?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Well, when Officer Nandori took that missing person report from
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Nellie and Brick, he specifically noted their demeanor in his report.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: He described it as feeling like an, quote, informational meeting.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Like no crying, no panic, no frantic pleas to find
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: their husband and stepfather. But, I mean, couldn't that just
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: be shock? People process trauma weirdly all the time, right?
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: They do, yeah.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: So how do investigators look at a wife who isn't crying,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and definitively separate genuine psychological shock from someone who is
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: actively covering up a crime.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: That is a phenomenal distinction to make, and it's something
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: investigators wrestle with all the time, because shock and staging
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: actually look very different when you dig into the nuances
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: of victimology.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down for me.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: So genuine shock usually involves dissociation, right? A freezing response
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: or extreme anxiety where the person might actually be completely
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: unable to recall basic facts. They are just overwhelmed by
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: the unknown.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: So they wouldn't be super detailed.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. An informational meeting, however, implies organization. It suggests the
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: individuals are calmly checking a box. They are constructing a
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: narrative for the police, delivering very specific details like the
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: airbrushed jeans rather than seeking active help to find a
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: lost loved one.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the presence of calculation rather than the absence
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: of emotion that acts as the red flag for police.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: That makes so much sense. But the police didn't actually
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: immediately zero in on the family because their minds went
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: to a much scarier, much broader narrative right out of
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the gate.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: They did.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: They assumed a serial killer had descended on Bridgeport.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Because the sheer scale of the mutilation kind of blinded
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: the local police to the quiet indifference of the family.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: The absolute savagery of cutting a human being into pieces
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: and bagging them, it suggests a level of depravity that
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: local cops usually associate with serial offenders.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And the rumor mill in the city just went into
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: absolute overdrive, which, to be fair, wasn't totally baseless. The
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: case files note that between 1992 and 1994, four other
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: men had been murdered, dismembered, and dumped in trash bags
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: along highways in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Right. And those murders were later attributed to Richard Rogers,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: who is widely known as the last call killer. Yeah.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So Bridgeport PD brings in this FBI profiler, Special Agent
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Greg McRae. to figure out if Benjamin is victim number five.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: McCrae gets this massive box of files. Autopsy reports, crime
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: scene photos, neighborhood interviews.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: The whole package. Yeah.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: And almost instantly, he dismantles the serial killer theory entirely.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Because profilers look past the superficial similarities, like bodies and bags,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: to examine the deep mechanics of the crime. Let's look
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: at how McCrae broke this down, because it's fascinating. He
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: started with the victimology. Right. The last call killer exclusively
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: targeted gay men, and he picked them up at specific
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: gay bars in Manhattan. Benjamin, on the other hand, was
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: last seen leaving a standard neighborhood dive bar with a
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Hispanic man in his 30s, and his family was completely
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: adamant that he was not gay.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: So the victim profile didn't match at all.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Not at all. And then you look at the forensic mechanics,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: which are grisly but incredibly illuminating. In the last call
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: killer cases, the killer was actually disarticulating the limbs.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Wait, disarticulating, that means... They knew exactly how to, like,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: slip a blade between the joints, right? Taking the body
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: apart rather than just hacking at it.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It demonstrates real anatomical knowledge. A doctor, a nurse,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: a butcher. Someone who understands how the human skeletal structure
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: connects and uses a methodical, precise technique to separate it.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: And Benjamin's killer?
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Benjamin's killer possessed zero anatomical knowledge. The autopsy showed that
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: whoever did this used massive, exhausting physical force, to inefficiently
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: chop directly through the thickest parts of the bone.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Jeez. It's like looking at two identical car crashes, but
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: when you look under the hood, you realize one driver
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: intentionally cut the brakes, and the other just fell asleep
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: at the wheel. The end result is a wreck, but
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the intent and the mechanics are entirely different.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And that intent is further exposed by the geography of
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the dump sites. The last call killer was a highly
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: mobile offender. He was driving across state lines to drop
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: remains right off major highways.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: He wanted distance.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Benjamin's body parts were scattered along Seaview Avenue, the local overpass,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: and Pleasure Beach. Every single drop site was within walking
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: distance of his home and his local bar.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: So Why do local killers dump bodies so close to home? Like,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to get away with a horrific crime,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you want the evidence as far away as possible?
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: You would, logically.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: But a disorganized killer, someone acting out a sudden rage
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: rather than a calculated psychopathic ritual, they lack the executive
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: function in the aftermath of a murder to plan a
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: long-distance transport.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: They're just freaking out.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: They are in a state of sheer panic. The local
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: neighborhood acts as a psychological tether. They drop evidence in
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: their own comfort zones because they either lack a vehicle,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: they lack the confidence to travel with that kind of cargo,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: or they simply want the exhausting, terrifying ordeal of moving
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: the body to be over as quickly as possible.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Which means the monster wasn't passing through on the interstate.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: The monster lived in the neighborhood.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to Benjamin himself. The sources paint
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a picture of a guy who was, by all accounts,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: completely harmless. He was 45. He lived on a fixed
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: income from disability benefits. and he spent his days just
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: sitting on his front porch singing Spanish love songs to
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: anyone walking by.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: He had no known enemies. Early in the investigation, police
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: looked into Jamaican gangs operating in the East End, but
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: even Nellie admitted Benjamin got along with absolutely everybody.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't a gang thing?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: No. And the statistical reality of familial homicides is fascinating here.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: We are culturally obsessed with the stranger danger narrative, you know,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: the drifter in the night, but the overwhelming majority of
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: homicides involve a known relationship.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Right. It's almost always someone you know.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yep. The crude, agonizingly difficult bone-chopping dismemberment points to a
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: crime of intense passion, deep-seated rage, or profound personal animosity.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: It's a furious, messy attempt to literally erase someone you know.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: So investigators turn their gaze inward, directly at the people
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: living under Benjamin's roof. A reporter, Dan Tepper, decides to
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: go knock on the door of the Rosario apartment.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Just to see what's going on.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And he's met on the cement stoop by Nellie,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: who is now displaying appropriate distress since the police are
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: heavily involved, and Nellie's nephew, a man named Henry Robles,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: who also lived with him.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: And Henry makes quite an impression.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, man. Henry comes out wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: proudly showing off a tattoo on his shoulder of two
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: crossed swords. And he tells the reporter his street name is, fittingly, Swords.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: And Henry's behavior during this informal interview is just staggering
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: for an investigator to read.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: He acts completely devoid of grief. Tepper notes that Henry
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: is posturing, playing the tough guy. He looks at a reporter,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: a complete stranger taking notes for a newspaper, and bluntly
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: states that he is glad Benjamin is dead.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: He actually says that out loud. Yes.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: He calls him a good-for-nothing who never should have married
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: his aunt. I mean, it is pure hypocrisy. unadulterated venom,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: aired right out in the open.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And he doesn't stop at verbal venom either. Henry is
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: known around the city as an artist, and in the
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: days following the murder, Henry takes spray paint and creates
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: this elaborate R.I.P. mural dedicated to Benjamin.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Which sounds nice, until you hear where it is.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Right. The location he chooses for this memorial. The exact
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: spot at the local dump site where some of Benjamin's
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: body parts were recovered.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, wait. This changes the entire timeline for me. If
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: we look at the physical evidence left at the dump
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: site alongside Henry's behavior, things shift from arrogant to, like,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: actively incriminating.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: How do you mean?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Because those heavy dark jeans with the airbrush star and
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the SD that were found in the trash bag with
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the severed leg, they did not belong to Benjamin. The
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: sources revealed those were Henry's pants.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: The very same pants that Nellie and Brick specifically named
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: in their initial missing person report.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The bartender at SideFX didn't remember Benjamin wearing those
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: highly distinct pants. Nobody in the neighborhood saw him in them.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So if nobody else saw him in those jeans, were
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: they ever actually on his body?
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Probably not.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Based on the case files, it looks like a deliberate
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: framing tactic. Like, what if the family used Henry's heavy
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: denim pants to wrap or transport the severed leg, maybe
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to stop blood from leaking through the trash bag?
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: That's a very common utility in these types of disorganized crimes. Right.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And then realizing the pants were accidentally or carelessly left
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: at the scene, they deliberately planted that specific clothing description
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: into the initial missing person report to cover their tracks.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: It is a highly plausible interpretation of the evidence, and
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: it speaks to a severe level of calculated staging. It's
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: a desperate attempt to explain away why Henry's custom clothing
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: is sitting in a garbage bag with a severed limb.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: while simultaneously confusing the timeline for the detectives.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: And when you view Henry's mural at the dump site
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: through that lens, it's just chilling.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: From a psychological standpoint, painting that mural isn't a memorial
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: at all. It is a way of inserting oneself into
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: the crime scene. It's marking territory. Wow.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: The killer is hiding in plain sight, flaunting control over
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: the environment and the investigation, fueled by this narcissistic belief
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: that they are fundamentally smarter than the police.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Well, the maddening part of this entire file is that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: for three decades, it worked.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really did.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: The case went completely cold. With so many red flags
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: pointing directly at the people eating dinner in Benjamin's house,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the real culprit slipped away. The sheer volume of deliberate
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: obfuscation in this case file is wild.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: It's intense. Shortly after the murder, Henry Robles vanishes from
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: the jurisdiction. He flees down to Florida.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: And years later, A reporter and a translator actually managed
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: to track him down and get him on the phone
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: to ask about the 1994 murder.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: And what does he do?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Henry plays completely dumb. He claims to be someone else.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: He denies knowing who Benjamin Rosario is. He denies knowing
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: who Henry Robles is. And he just hangs up the phone.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Classic evasion. Meanwhile, back in Bridgeport, the investigation is actively
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: spinning its wheels. There are rumors of domestic abuse swirling
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: around the Rosario home, but there's nothing the police can
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: solidly document. Investigators execute a search warrant on the stepson,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Brick's house, which is just down the street. They seize
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: a trash bag looking for trace evidence or tools, but
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: they find absolutely nothing usable.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And then you have the phantoms.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, the fake leads.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: The case file is just littered with these bizarre, hyper-specific,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: totally fabricated leads. Like, Someone called in a tip claiming
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Benjamin's father was in jail and that this entire dismemberment
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: was a gangland revenge killing.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Right, and trying to make it sound like a mob hit.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: But when police looked into it, they couldn't even find
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: a name for Benjamin's father on any registry anywhere, let
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: alone prove he was incarcerated.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: It was entirely made up.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Another tipster insisted Benjamin was secretly working as a building
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: superintendent over on Boston Avenue. And maybe a disgruntled tenant
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: killed him. Detective Holtz, the investigator currently working the cold case,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: spent valuable time checking that out, only for Benjamin's own
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: grandson to laugh and confirm Benjamin was never a super
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: anywhere in his life.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: So we really have to ask who benefits from feeding
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: these highly specific, completely fabricated stories into the investigative machinery.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: It's honestly like, you know how a squid shoot ink?
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as a defense mechanism. Right.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: When a squid is threatened, it blasts a thick cloud
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: of dark ink into the water. It's not an attack.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: It's a defensive maneuver to completely blind the predator while
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the squid darts away into the dark.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to look at it.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: These fake leads operate the exact same way. It's a
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: deliberate tactic by someone very close to the investigation to
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: blind the police. You exhaust the detectives' resources. You send
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: them on these wild goose chases, knocking on doors at
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: apartment buildings on Boston Avenue. And while they are totally
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: distracted by the ink... The real culprit quietly relocates to Florida.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: It is an incredibly effective countermeasure that really preys on
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: a police department's obligation to follow every single lead they receive.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: And it highlights the tragic reality of cold cases that
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: are built on community silence.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the silence is deafening.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Today, Nellie is deceased. She passed away in 2014. And
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: the surviving family members absolutely refuse to speak to reporters
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: or cooperate with new inquiries. Their stated reason is that
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: they are terrified of... quote, someone in the community.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: But who in the community is so terrifying that you
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: won't help solve the butchering of your own stepfather 30
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: years later? I mean, come on.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: And that is the psychological crux of community silence right there.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Is the fear genuine? Are they truly terrified of a
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: violent local who forced them into silence back in 1994
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: and still hold sway?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: It's possible, I guess.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Or is this a psychological projection? Saying, You know, we
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: can't talk because the community is dangerous is a very convenient,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: universally understood narrative crafted to mask their own familial complicity.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: It is an impenetrable shield against answering the hard questions
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: like how Henry's pants ended up in that bag.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: So where does Benjamin Rosario's case stand today? Well, the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: current investigator, Detective Jeffrey Holtz, he refuses to let the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: ink settle. He is pushing hard to have the original
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: evidence retested.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Which is huge.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: It really is. He wants to utilize modern DNA and
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: fingerprint technology that simply did not exist when Officer Nandori
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: first opened that trash bag. And the primary target for
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: that new testing? Henry's custom airbrushed pants.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: The evolution of forensic science is honestly the greatest enemy
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: of a cold case killer. We are talking about touch
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: DNA and microscopic trace evidence here. Heavy denim is highly porous.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: So it holds on to things.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If whoever stuffed those pants into that bag left
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: even a few skin cells behind, a 30-year-old secret could
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: unravel on a laboratory slide in a matter of days.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: But the past isn't just sitting quietly in an evidence
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: locker waiting for a swab. It is still alive out
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: there in the streets of the East End. When you
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: read through the source material, there's a detail that is
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: just impossible to shake.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: A reporter recently went back to visit the Pacific Highway
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: underpass where one of the bags of Benjamin's remains was found.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: She looked up at the concrete piling. And spray-painted there,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: in fresh black paint, was a single word. Sword.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Wow. That is a haunting reminder. It really functions as
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: a signature. A sign that the ego of the killer
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: remains totally intact decades later.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: It leaves you with a deeply unsettling thought to mull over. Honestly.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: If the serial killer theory was completely wrong, and the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: killer truly is local, living comfortably and unpunished in that
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: exact same community since 1994, what does that do to
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the psychology of a neighborhood?
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It has to poison it. Right.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: The surviving family claims they are paralyzed by their fear
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: of the community. But if modern DNA on those airbrushed
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: jeans finally breaks three decades of silence, will the dangerous
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: community they claim to fear turn out to be the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: people sitting right at their own dinner table? It just
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: goes to show, sometimes you really do have to pull
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that loose thread, no matter how terrifying the unraveling might be.