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OnlyFans Model Turned Killer Makes Sickening Demand from Prison · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: So I want you to just picture this in your
0:02
Speaker 1: mind for a second. Okay. It is a beautiful, crisp
0:06
Speaker 1: morning in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. This is in Ohio.
0:10
Speaker 2: Right. Gorgeous area.
0:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And you have hikers out on the trails.
0:13
Speaker 1: They're just out there enjoying the quiet woods, the, you know,
0:16
Speaker 1: incredible views, the natural canopy of the trees.
0:20
Speaker 2: It's a total escape. It is.
0:22
Speaker 1: It's the kind of place you go when you just
0:23
Speaker 1: want to get away from the concrete, the traffic, the noise.
0:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
0:27
Speaker 1: You want to immerse yourself in something untouched.
0:29
Speaker 2: Just completely surrounded by nature. Right.
0:32
Speaker 1: And the ground there, it's uneven. It's really muddy in spots,
0:35
Speaker 1: super rocky in others. But then as you're coming down
0:38
Speaker 1: the trail, you cross paths with a woman who looks, well,
0:42
Speaker 1: just entirely out of place.
0:44
Speaker 2: Glaringly out of place.
0:45
Speaker 1: Exactly. Because she's wandering through this rugged, muddy terrain and
0:50
Speaker 1: she's wearing knee-high fashion boots.
0:52
Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Yeah.
0:53
Speaker 1: Not hiking boots. Not even like sturdy sneakers. Knee-high fashion boots.
0:59
Speaker 2: It's a bizarre sight. It is.
1:00
Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing you'd probably just chuckle at
1:02
Speaker 1: with your hiking partner, right? You'd assume someone just, I
1:05
Speaker 1: don't know, took a wrong turn leaving a Sunday brunch spot. Right.
1:08
Speaker 2: You'd think it was a mistake.
1:09
Speaker 1: But things go from bizarre to completely horrifying when, just
1:13
Speaker 1: a little while later, a single gunshot echoes through those
1:17
Speaker 1: quiet trees.
1:18
Speaker 2: You know, that specific detail, the echo of the gunshot
1:21
Speaker 2: in a national park, it is the exact moment the
1:25
Speaker 2: illusion of safety just shatters.
1:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
1:28
Speaker 2: Because we associate places like Cuyahoga Valley with preservation, right?
1:32
Speaker 2: With peace. So the intrusion of a really violent, calculated
1:36
Speaker 2: act into a space that is literally federally protected to
1:39
Speaker 2: be pristine, it's jarring.
1:41
Speaker 1: It really is.
1:42
Speaker 2: It forces anyone hearing this to instantly reconcile safety. to
1:46
Speaker 2: completely incompatible images, you know, the serenity of the woods
1:50
Speaker 2: and then the cold reality of a murder.
1:52
Speaker 1: And that jarring image, that collision of the natural world
1:55
Speaker 1: and a violent crime, it's really just the absolute tip
1:58
Speaker 1: of the iceberg of what we are looking at today.
1:59
Speaker 2: It goes so much deeper. It really does. We are
2:02
Speaker 2: going deep into the sprawling, twisted, and frankly, just shocking
2:07
Speaker 2: case of Chelsea Perkins.
2:08
Speaker 1: Also known by her online persona, Selena Savage.
2:11
Speaker 2: Right, Selena Savage. So she was a Coast Guard veteran.
2:14
Speaker 2: She later transitioned into creating explicit content online, and she
2:18
Speaker 2: ended up becoming the absolute center of a case involving
2:21
Speaker 2: the cold-blooded murder of a 31-year-old musician named Matthew Dunmire.
2:25
Speaker 1: A really tragic loss.
2:27
Speaker 2: It is. But I want to be really clear right
2:29
Speaker 2: off the bat for you listening. This deep dive is
2:32
Speaker 2: not just about what happened in those woods.
2:34
Speaker 1: No, not at all.
2:35
Speaker 2: It's about a horrifying web of vigilante justice, catastrophic mistaken identity.
2:42
Speaker 2: And these post-conviction legal battles that are literally still playing
2:46
Speaker 2: out in the courts. Yeah.
2:47
Speaker 1: And to break this all down, we are relying today
2:49
Speaker 1: on a stack of highly detailed sources. We've got primary
2:53
Speaker 1: and secondary materials.
2:54
Speaker 2: Lots of documents.
2:55
Speaker 1: Tons of them. We've combed through federal legal transcripts, court documents,
2:59
Speaker 1: outlining the sentencing and restitution fees, and an incredibly insightful
3:03
Speaker 1: breakdown from the Law and Crime Network.
3:05
Speaker 2: That breakdown is so good. It really is. It features
3:08
Speaker 2: Mark Weaver, who is a Former Ohio deputy attorney general.
3:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.
3:12
Speaker 2: His analysis of the legal mechanics at play here is
3:15
Speaker 2: just invaluable.
3:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
3:17
Speaker 2: These sources give us this incredible vantage point, not just
3:21
Speaker 2: on the crime itself, but on the bureaucratic machinery that
3:24
Speaker 2: just grinds into motion the second a crime of this
3:27
Speaker 2: nature occurs.
3:28
Speaker 1: And that is really the mission for this deep dive.
3:30
Speaker 1: We want to look at those very gears. We're not
3:33
Speaker 1: just recounting a true crime narrative just for the shock.
3:36
Speaker 2: Value of it.
3:37
Speaker 1: We want to show you the invisible architecture of the
3:40
Speaker 1: justice system.
3:41
Speaker 2: Stuff happening behind the scenes. Right.
3:42
Speaker 1: We're going to look at the massive, honestly, sometimes really
3:46
Speaker 1: confusing implications of federal jurisdiction versus state jurisdiction.
3:50
Speaker 2: Which is a huge factor here.
3:51
Speaker 1: Massive. And we're going to break down the cold, hard
3:54
Speaker 1: mechanics of how plea deals are actually negotiated. Like, why
3:57
Speaker 1: do prosecutors trade away years for certainty?
3:59
Speaker 2: It's a math equation.
4:00
Speaker 1: It is. And finally, we're going to explore the deeply
4:04
Speaker 1: uncomfortable actuarial math of how our courts attempt to calculate
4:08
Speaker 1: the financial value of a human life through restitution.
4:11
Speaker 2: It's a really heavy topic.
4:12
Speaker 1: Very heavy. We are going to see how the system works,
4:15
Speaker 1: and in one tragic instance, how it catastrophically breaks down. So, okay,
4:20
Speaker 1: let's unpack this.
4:21
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
4:22
Speaker 1: We have to start with the timeline of that fateful weekend,
4:25
Speaker 1: and specifically, the logistical footprint of the crime.
4:30
Speaker 2: Right, because the court records establish a very clear, very
4:33
Speaker 2: deliberate timeline here. It all begins on March 6th, 2021. Okay,
4:38
Speaker 2: March 6th. Chelsea Perkins gets behind the wheel and she
4:41
Speaker 2: drives to Ohio. And her specific target is Matthew Dunmire.
4:46
Speaker 1: And a really crucial piece of context we need to
4:49
Speaker 1: add here is that they are not strangers.
4:52
Speaker 2: Not at all.
4:52
Speaker 1: They have a history together that goes all the way
4:55
Speaker 1: back to high school. There is this deeply rooted pre-existing
4:58
Speaker 1: familiarity between them.
5:00
Speaker 2: And that familiarity is essentially the weapon here.
5:02
Speaker 1: Right.
5:03
Speaker 2: He isn't some random person she just met on the
5:04
Speaker 2: internet that week. Yeah. Because they have history, his guard
5:07
Speaker 2: is totally down.
5:08
Speaker 1: He trusts her.
5:09
Speaker 2: Exactly. The sources note that Dunmire actually told a friend
5:12
Speaker 2: he was going to meet up with a woman who
5:14
Speaker 2: was in town for the weekend.
5:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we even know that Dunmire's boss actually saw
5:18
Speaker 1: him get into a white vehicle with a woman.
5:20
Speaker 2: Which brings us to the first major piece of the
5:22
Speaker 2: logistical puzzle. Perkins had driven to Ohio using her husband's
5:27
Speaker 2: white vehicle.
5:28
Speaker 1: Her husband's car.
5:29
Speaker 2: Yes, and she had also rented an Airbnb for this trip.
5:32
Speaker 1: Which, I mean, the logistics are just fascinating from a
5:35
Speaker 1: forensic standpoint.
5:36
Speaker 2: They really are. Because when someone commits a crime, they
5:39
Speaker 2: often try to avoid leaving a physical trail. But in
5:42
Speaker 2: the modern era, the digital logistics are honestly far more damning. Oh, 100%.
5:47
Speaker 2: Think about it. Reserving an Airbnb requires a registered account.
5:51
Speaker 2: It needs a linked credit card, an IP address, pinging
5:55
Speaker 2: the server when the booking is actually made. and GPS
5:58
Speaker 2: data routing the user to the physical location.
6:01
Speaker 1: It's a massive digital footprint.
6:03
Speaker 2: And using a vehicle, even if it belongs to a spouse,
6:05
Speaker 2: involves license plate readers on the highways, toll booth cameras,
6:10
Speaker 2: gas station surveillance footage.
6:11
Speaker 1: So she isn't operating invisibly at all?
6:13
Speaker 2: Not even close. She is leaving a massive, indisputable digital
6:16
Speaker 2: wake behind her.
6:18
Speaker 1: Which is what makes the actual execution of the crime
6:21
Speaker 1: so chilling, you know?
6:22
Speaker 2: Because of the premeditation.
6:24
Speaker 1: Right, because she went through all that traceable modern bureaucracy
6:27
Speaker 1: just to get him into the woods.
6:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
6:29
Speaker 1: So on March 9th, around 11 in the morning, hikers
6:33
Speaker 1: find Matthew Dunmire dead in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
6:37
Speaker 2: Just a horrific discovery.
6:38
Speaker 1: He had been killed by a single gunshot wound to
6:41
Speaker 1: the back of the head. And as investigators swarm the
6:44
Speaker 1: scene and start speaking to anyone in the general vicinity,
6:47
Speaker 1: they find hikers who remember hearing that gunshot.
6:51
Speaker 2: And more importantly, they remember the woman.
6:53
Speaker 1: Yes. They remember seeing a woman who seemed lost or
6:57
Speaker 1: at least highly out of place in the woods.
6:59
Speaker 2: The woman in the knee-high fashion boots.
7:01
Speaker 1: Exactly. And I want you... listening right now to really
7:05
Speaker 1: visualize this because it is just such a bizarre anomaly.
7:08
Speaker 2: It stands out so much.
7:09
Speaker 1: It's like wearing thigh-high or knee-high fashion boots into a rugged,
7:13
Speaker 1: muddy national park. It's like wearing a full tuxedo to
7:16
Speaker 1: participate in a mud run.
7:18
Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy.
7:20
Speaker 1: It's a detail that is so glaringly, absurdly out of
7:23
Speaker 1: place that it practically begs to be remembered by anyone
7:27
Speaker 1: who sees it.
7:28
Speaker 2: You don't just glance at that and forget it.
7:29
Speaker 1: No, your brain registers it as a literal error in
7:33
Speaker 1: the environment. It is the absolute opposite of blending in.
7:36
Speaker 2: It really is a remarkable failure of preparation, especially when
7:40
Speaker 2: you consider the level of premeditation involved in literally everything
7:44
Speaker 2: else she did.
7:45
Speaker 1: Right, the Airbnb, the driving.
7:47
Speaker 2: Exactly. But beyond the footwear, we really have to look
7:50
Speaker 2: at what this entire scenario says about the nature of
7:53
Speaker 2: the crime itself. Mark Weaver makes a brilliant observation here
7:58
Speaker 2: that we definitely need to highlight.
7:59
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. This is a great point.
8:01
Speaker 2: He points out that if you spend time talking to prosecutors,
8:04
Speaker 2: they will tell you that the vast majority of violent
8:07
Speaker 2: crimes they prosecute are completely spur of the moment.
8:10
Speaker 1: Right. They are reactive. Like two people get into a
8:12
Speaker 1: screaming match at a bar. Someone loses their temper. A
8:15
Speaker 1: physical fight escalates. A weapon gets drawn and a tragedy
8:18
Speaker 1: happens in a matter of seconds.
8:20
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's terrible, but it's fueled by immediate adrenaline or alcohol.
8:25
Speaker 1: It's a flashpoint.
8:27
Speaker 2: But what's fascinating here is the stark contrast. This crime
8:31
Speaker 2: requires a sustained, genuinely terrifying level of cold-blooded intent.
8:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, sustained is the word.
8:39
Speaker 2: Think about the psychological chilling effect of what Perkins had
8:42
Speaker 2: to do. She had to coax Dunmire into a very remote,
8:46
Speaker 2: very specific location within a massive national park.
8:50
Speaker 1: Right.
8:51
Speaker 2: You were walking alongside someone you've known for years. You
8:54
Speaker 2: are likely making small talk, reminiscing about high school, navigating
8:59
Speaker 2: the uneven terrain together.
9:00
Speaker 1: Luring him deeper and deeper in.
9:02
Speaker 2: Bring him into an isolated area. And the entire time,
9:05
Speaker 2: you know exactly what you are about to do.
9:07
Speaker 1: You are maintaining a mask of normalcy for perhaps an
9:11
Speaker 1: hour or more, just walking side by side with a
9:13
Speaker 1: man whose execution you have fully planned out.
9:16
Speaker 2: It's chilling.
9:16
Speaker 1: It really is. And the fact that she lured him
9:18
Speaker 1: there while wearing those fashion boots, it honestly makes you
9:21
Speaker 1: wonder what on earth she said to convince him this
9:23
Speaker 1: was just a casual hike.
9:24
Speaker 2: Right. He had to have noticed.
9:25
Speaker 1: He had to have looked at her footwear and thought,
9:28
Speaker 1: you are not dressed for a hike in the Cuyahoga Valley.
9:30
Speaker 1: To suppress his natural suspicion, to keep him walking forward
9:34
Speaker 1: into the woods, it requires an immense amount of manipulation.
9:38
Speaker 2: It demonstrates a total, complete detachment from empathy.
9:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
9:43
Speaker 2: It is the literal definition of malice of forethought. She
9:46
Speaker 2: didn't snap. She executed a highly detailed plan.
9:50
Speaker 1: But this brings up a massive paradox that just leaps
9:53
Speaker 1: right off the page of the source material.
9:55
Speaker 2: The timeline of the arrest.
9:56
Speaker 1: Right. Because if you have a body and you have hikers,
10:00
Speaker 1: who can describe this incredibly distinct woman in the woods
10:03
Speaker 1: and you have Dunmire as boss who can place him
10:06
Speaker 1: getting into a white car.
10:07
Speaker 2: You have a lot of pieces.
10:08
Speaker 1: Yeah. You would think this entire case would be wrapped
10:11
Speaker 1: up in like a 48 hour television procedural window.
10:14
Speaker 2: Like an episode of Law and Order.
10:15
Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. But she wasn't caught immediately. The trail actually
10:19
Speaker 1: went cold for a really substantial amount of time.
10:21
Speaker 2: And that's because she got out of the park. And
10:24
Speaker 2: her immediate movements post-murder show that exact same continued cold
10:29
Speaker 2: presence of mind.
10:30
Speaker 1: She didn't panic?
10:31
Speaker 2: No, she didn't call the police in hysterics, claiming it
10:34
Speaker 2: was some sort of accident, and she didn't freeze up.
10:36
Speaker 1: So what did she do?
10:37
Speaker 2: She got in the car, drove out of Ohio, crossed
10:40
Speaker 2: state lines into Michigan, and actually made a stop at
10:43
Speaker 2: a tattoo parlor.
10:44
Speaker 1: A tattoo parlor?
10:45
Speaker 2: Yes. And then eventually she drove all the way back
10:48
Speaker 2: to her home in Virginia, right back to the husband
10:50
Speaker 2: who owned that white car.
10:52
Speaker 1: She just assimilates right back into her domestic life like
10:55
Speaker 1: nothing happened.
10:55
Speaker 2: Completely.
10:56
Speaker 1: And this is where the timeline becomes so agonizing for
10:59
Speaker 1: anyone watching this unfold. Yeah. She commits this murder in
11:04
Speaker 1: March of 2021. Right. She's not arrested until December 10th
11:08
Speaker 1: of 2021. Nine months later.
11:10
Speaker 2: That is a nine month gap.
11:14
Speaker 1: Now, hold on. If the system has all these clues,
11:16
Speaker 1: the boots, the specific white car, the high school connection,
11:20
Speaker 1: why does it take three quarters of a year to
11:22
Speaker 1: put handcuffs on her? Are the police just dragging their
11:24
Speaker 1: feet on this?
11:25
Speaker 2: It is entirely natural to look at a nine-month gap
11:28
Speaker 2: like that and feel incredibly frustrated.
11:31
Speaker 1: It feels way too slow.
11:32
Speaker 2: It does. When we look at a case in hindsight,
11:35
Speaker 2: all the pieces are already connected on the board for us.
11:37
Speaker 2: We see the whole picture. But we have to fundamentally
11:40
Speaker 2: break down the prosecutor's dilemma. And the reality of an
11:44
Speaker 2: active investigation.
11:45
Speaker 1: Okay, let's look at that.
11:46
Speaker 2: In those initial weeks of March and April, what did
11:49
Speaker 2: law enforcement actually possess?
11:51
Speaker 1: Well, they had the body.
11:52
Speaker 2: They had a body in the woods. But they did
11:55
Speaker 2: not have a suspect from his current day-to-day circle. Chelsea
12:00
Speaker 2: Perkins was a ghost from his distant past, living multiple
12:03
Speaker 2: states away.
12:04
Speaker 1: So they pull his phone records, but she's not a roommate,
12:06
Speaker 1: she's not a current girlfriend, she's not a co-worker. They
12:09
Speaker 1: can just go interview on a Tuesday morning.
12:11
Speaker 2: Precisely. And while an eyewitness seeing a woman in boots
12:15
Speaker 2: is a fantastic clue for a detective to follow, it
12:18
Speaker 2: is absolutely not proof for a prosecutor.
12:20
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
12:21
Speaker 2: The justice system is built on an architectural foundation that
12:25
Speaker 2: requires law enforcement to build a case capable of surviving
12:28
Speaker 2: the highest standard in our legal system.
12:30
Speaker 1: Proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
12:32
Speaker 2: Exactly. Beyond a reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury. To
12:36
Speaker 2: cross that threshold, investigators cannot just rely on circumstantial hunches.
12:41
Speaker 2: They have to wait for incontrovertible digital and forensic evidence.
12:45
Speaker 1: Let's break down what waiting for that evidence actually entails,
12:48
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of us have a super
12:50
Speaker 1: warped view of forensics from watching CSI. You don't just
12:53
Speaker 1: swab a water bottle, put it in some neon-lit machine,
12:57
Speaker 1: and get a holographic projection of the killer's face 30
13:01
Speaker 1: seconds later.
13:02
Speaker 2: The reality of forensic science is methodical, highly bureaucratic, and
13:07
Speaker 2: excruciatingly slow.
13:09
Speaker 1: Let's take the DNA in this case.
13:11
Speaker 2: OK, so investigators found Perkins's DNA on Matthew's body and
13:15
Speaker 2: on a water bottle left near the crime scene.
13:17
Speaker 1: Which is huge.
13:18
Speaker 2: It is. But first, an evidence technician has to properly
13:21
Speaker 2: collect and log that bottle to maintain the chain of custody.
13:25
Speaker 1: So it goes into an evidence locker. Yes.
13:28
Speaker 2: Then it has to be securely transported to a state
13:30
Speaker 2: or federal crime lab.
13:31
Speaker 1: And those labs aren't just sitting empty waiting for this
13:34
Speaker 1: one specific water bottle from Cuyahoga Valley.
13:36
Speaker 2: Not at all. They are dealing with massive backlogs. Thousands
13:40
Speaker 2: of evidence kits from across the entire jurisdiction are in
13:43
Speaker 2: a queue. When a forensic biologist finally gets to this bottle,
13:47
Speaker 2: they have to swab it, run a process called PCR amplification,
13:51
Speaker 2: to make enough copies of the microscopic genetic material to
13:55
Speaker 2: actually test.
13:56
Speaker 1: Because there's usually just a tiny amount.
13:58
Speaker 2: Right. And then they run it through a sequencer to
14:01
Speaker 2: get a DNA profile. But even then, If the suspect
14:05
Speaker 2: isn't already in the national database, CODIS, that profile just
14:09
Speaker 2: gives investigators a string of numbers belonging to an unknown female.
14:12
Speaker 1: It doesn't just print out Chelsea Perkins' name on a screen.
14:15
Speaker 2: Exactly. So the DNA is really just half the puzzle.
14:18
Speaker 1: They still need a name to match it to.
14:20
Speaker 2: Which is where the digital forensics come in. Investigators had
14:23
Speaker 2: to subpoena Airbnb for the records of who rented the
14:26
Speaker 2: property that Meyer was seen at.
14:28
Speaker 1: And subpoenaing a major tech company takes time.
14:30
Speaker 2: It takes a lot of time. Legal departments review the requests.
14:33
Speaker 2: Once they finally get the account information, they have to
14:36
Speaker 2: align that with the cellular data.
14:37
Speaker 1: Right.
14:38
Speaker 2: They have to get warrants for cell tower dumps to
14:41
Speaker 2: see which phones were pinging the towers near the Airbnb
14:44
Speaker 2: and the National Park at the specific times in question.
14:46
Speaker 1: They are looking for the intersection.
14:48
Speaker 2: Yes. The intersection of the cell phone data, the Airbnb rental,
14:53
Speaker 2: and the DNA. Okay. Gathering, processing, and legally securing that
14:57
Speaker 2: matrix of evidence literally takes months.
15:00
Speaker 1: But while the gears of that methodical slow machine are turning,
15:03
Speaker 1: there is a massive vacuum in the real world.
15:06
Speaker 2: A very dangerous vacuum.
15:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, because for a grieving family, that nine-month gap is
15:11
Speaker 1: not just a necessary delay for the sake of legal rigor.
15:14
Speaker 1: It is an open, bleeding wound.
15:16
Speaker 2: Every day must feel like an eternity.
15:18
Speaker 1: Every single day that goes by without an arrest feels
15:20
Speaker 1: like the system is just failing them. And when the
15:23
Speaker 1: justice system moves too slowly for a family utterly consumed
15:26
Speaker 1: by grief, it can lead to unimaginable catastrophic consequences.
15:31
Speaker 2: Which brings us to the events of November 2021.
15:33
Speaker 1: Right. This is just one month before the forensic and
15:36
Speaker 1: digital evidence finally allowed police to arrest Perkins.
15:39
Speaker 2: And this is where the narrative fractures into a secondary tragedy.
15:43
Speaker 2: It is a sequence of events that is deeply disturbing
15:46
Speaker 2: because it shows exactly what happens when grief mutates into desperation.
15:50
Speaker 1: Let's lay out exactly what happened here. Matthew's mother, Tommy
15:54
Speaker 1: Lynn Dunmire, and her longtime partner, a man named John McQuillan,
15:58
Speaker 1: they are just watching the calendar.
16:00
Speaker 2: Day after day.
16:01
Speaker 1: Spring turns to summer, summer turns to fall. The person
16:05
Speaker 1: who executed their son in the woods is still out there,
16:08
Speaker 1: just living her life.
16:09
Speaker 2: And they grow entirely disillusioned by the lack of an arrest.
16:13
Speaker 1: They genuinely believe, likely through their own digging or maybe
16:17
Speaker 1: information Matthew had shared before his death, That Chelsea Perkins
16:21
Speaker 1: is the killer.
16:21
Speaker 2: Right.
16:22
Speaker 1: And they decide they can no longer wait for the
16:24
Speaker 1: system to do its job. They take matters into their
16:27
Speaker 1: own hands.
16:28
Speaker 2: They make the catastrophic decision to cross the boundary from
16:31
Speaker 2: being grieving, victimized parents to becoming active vigilantes.
16:36
Speaker 1: It's just awful.
16:37
Speaker 2: According to the Justice Department records, Tommy Land and John
16:41
Speaker 2: McQuillan drove all the way from their home to Washington, D.C.,
16:44
Speaker 2: where they believe Chelsea Perkins was currently living.
16:46
Speaker 1: And they didn't just drive there to confront her. No.
16:49
Speaker 2: They drove there with the explicit, premeditated intent to murder her.
16:53
Speaker 1: The level of planning they put into this ambush is staggering, honestly.
16:58
Speaker 1: And it mirrors the premeditation of the original crime in
17:01
Speaker 1: a really eerie way. They don't just show up and
17:03
Speaker 1: knock on the door. They create a disguise to lower
17:07
Speaker 1: the target's guard.
17:08
Speaker 2: They acquire a brown vest, a brown baseball cap, and
17:12
Speaker 2: they carry a plain cardboard box.
17:14
Speaker 1: And they walk up to the door of this residence
17:16
Speaker 1: and they shout UPS to trick the person inside into
17:20
Speaker 1: opening the door for a delivery.
17:21
Speaker 2: It is a highly calculated ambush entirely designed to bypass
17:25
Speaker 2: the safety of a locked door.
17:27
Speaker 1: But this exposes the horrific, chaotic reality of amateur vigilantism.
17:33
Speaker 2: Because Chelsea Perkins did not live at that address anymore.
17:36
Speaker 1: She was gone.
17:37
Speaker 2: When the door opened, Tommy Lynn Dunmire immediately opened fire.
17:41
Speaker 2: But the person standing in the doorway was a completely
17:43
Speaker 2: innocent woman.
17:44
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
17:45
Speaker 2: She had absolutely nothing to do with Matthew Dunmire. She
17:48
Speaker 2: had no connection to Chelsea Perkins. She just happened to
17:51
Speaker 2: be the current resident of that house.
17:53
Speaker 1: It is genuinely like something out of a Greek tragedy.
17:56
Speaker 2: It is.
17:56
Speaker 1: This blind monster of grief just mutates and ends up
17:59
Speaker 1: destroying everything in its path. They shot an innocent woman. Now, thankfully,
18:05
Speaker 1: by some absolute miracle... The woman survived the gunshot.
18:09
Speaker 2: Yes, thank goodness.
18:10
Speaker 1: But she was still gunned down at her own front
18:13
Speaker 1: door by total strangers. So Tommy Lynn and McQuillan realize
18:17
Speaker 1: their mistake, or at least they realize they need to flee.
18:20
Speaker 2: Right, they panic.
18:21
Speaker 1: They try to escape. They even try swapping their license
18:24
Speaker 1: plates to evade capture. But the police catch up to them.
18:27
Speaker 2: And the fallout is devastating.
18:29
Speaker 1: John McQuillan was arrested, and he eventually pleaded guilty in
18:32
Speaker 1: 2022 to the shooting and was sentenced to three years
18:35
Speaker 1: in federal prison.
18:36
Speaker 2: But Tommy Lynn.
18:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. As the police closed in on her, she tragically
18:40
Speaker 1: took her own life.
18:41
Speaker 2: If we connect this event to the broader cultural picture,
18:45
Speaker 2: it serves as just the ultimate indictment of the Hollywood
18:47
Speaker 2: myth of revenge.
18:48
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
18:49
Speaker 2: We are so saturated with media movies, television shows, books,
18:53
Speaker 2: where a wronged family member goes outside the law, hunts
18:56
Speaker 2: down the villain who hurt their family. And it is
18:59
Speaker 2: portrayed as this neat, satisfying, almost righteous act of cosmic balancing.
19:04
Speaker 1: The hero gets closure. The bad guy pays the ultimate price,
19:08
Speaker 1: the music swells, and the credits roll.
19:11
Speaker 2: Exactly. It feels good to watch.
19:13
Speaker 1: But reality is profoundly messy and chaotic and brutal.
19:19
Speaker 2: In the real world, vigilantism doesn't end in neat closure.
19:24
Speaker 2: It results in sloppy second crimes. Right. It results in
19:27
Speaker 2: completely innocent people being caught in the crossfire. It shatters
19:31
Speaker 2: the very families that were already broken, and it creates
19:33
Speaker 2: new victims— through tragic misidentifications.
19:37
Speaker 1: And Mark Weaver speaks very pointedly about this dynamic from
19:40
Speaker 1: his time as a prosecutor, right?
19:42
Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is his perspective on the emotional toll
19:45
Speaker 2: this takes on law enforcement. He points out that one
19:47
Speaker 2: of the most agonizing parts of working in that field
19:50
Speaker 2: is sitting across a table from a heartbroken, desperate family.
19:54
Speaker 1: You just desperately want to give them some kind of comfort.
19:56
Speaker 2: Exactly. You want to tell them, we have her, we
19:58
Speaker 2: know where she is, we just need a few more
20:00
Speaker 2: weeks for the DNA.
20:01
Speaker 1: But you absolutely cannot do that.
20:02
Speaker 2: No, you can't.
20:03
Speaker 1: Because if you tell a grieving mother... Hey, we are
20:06
Speaker 1: tracking this woman in Virginia. We are just waiting on
20:09
Speaker 1: the DNA sequencer to finish. You risk exactly this happening.
20:13
Speaker 2: Or worse, the family confronts the suspect and the suspect
20:17
Speaker 2: destroys evidence or flees the country entirely.
20:19
Speaker 1: Exactly. The paramount directive is to preserve the integrity of
20:23
Speaker 1: the investigation.
20:24
Speaker 2: You cannot share covert details with civilians, no matter how
20:27
Speaker 2: much you sympathize with their pain.
20:29
Speaker 1: But the devastating collateral damage of that necessary silence is
20:33
Speaker 1: that the family feels completely abandoned by the system.
20:36
Speaker 2: They feel like the police have just forgotten their child.
20:38
Speaker 1: And here, that intense feeling of abandonment led a mother
20:42
Speaker 1: to destroy her own life, end up dead, put her
20:46
Speaker 1: partner in a federal penitentiary, and deeply traumatize an innocent stranger.
20:50
Speaker 2: It is a complete systemic compounding of tragedy.
20:53
Speaker 1: The ripples of the initial murder just keep expanding and
20:56
Speaker 1: drowning more people.
20:57
Speaker 2: They do.
20:58
Speaker 1: So while Matthew's mother destroyed her own life seeking vengeance
21:01
Speaker 1: for her son, it forces us to turn the lens
21:04
Speaker 1: back to the origin.
21:05
Speaker 2: The initial spark. Yeah.
21:07
Speaker 1: What was the actual spark that ignited this entire cycle
21:10
Speaker 1: of violence in the first place? Why did Chelsea Perkins
21:13
Speaker 1: pack a gun, drive to Ohio, and execute Matthew Denmeier?
21:18
Speaker 2: While the court records provide clarity on her stated motive,
21:21
Speaker 2: though it is a deeply difficult subject to discuss.
21:23
Speaker 1: Let's stick strictly to what's in the legal sources.
21:27
Speaker 2: According to Perkins, the murder in the woods was a
21:29
Speaker 2: revenge killing. She claimed that years earlier, in 2017, Matthew
21:35
Speaker 2: Dunmire raped her in Virginia Beach.
21:38
Speaker 1: Now, this is an area where we must tread carefully
21:40
Speaker 1: and rely strictly on the objective facts presented in the documents.
21:44
Speaker 2: Agreed.
21:44
Speaker 1: She makes this highly serious allegation in 2017. What does
21:48
Speaker 1: the record actually show happened at that time?
21:51
Speaker 2: According to the reports cited by the Law and Crime
21:53
Speaker 2: Network and the court documents, the local police in Virginia
21:56
Speaker 2: Beach were made aware of the claim. And they did
21:58
Speaker 2: look into it.
21:59
Speaker 1: Okay.
22:00
Speaker 2: However, they officially stated they did not have sufficient evidence
22:03
Speaker 2: to support bringing criminal charges against Dunmire at that time.
22:07
Speaker 1: So the investigation did not result in an arrest or
22:10
Speaker 1: a prosecution. This raises an incredibly uncomfortable, heavy reality that
22:14
Speaker 1: exists in our society. How does the legal system, how
22:18
Speaker 1: do we as a society... handle a situation where an
22:22
Speaker 1: individual feels entirely profoundly failed by the justice system?
22:26
Speaker 2: It's a huge question.
22:27
Speaker 1: If we look at this from her perspective in 2017,
22:31
Speaker 1: she feels she was a victim. She went to the
22:33
Speaker 1: authorities and they essentially told her they couldn't help her. Right.
22:36
Speaker 1: And again, we are not endorsing her actions in any way,
22:39
Speaker 1: but you can see the dangerous psychological trajectory here.
22:42
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
22:42
Speaker 1: She feels the system refused to protect her or validate
22:45
Speaker 1: her trauma. And four years later, that unresolved trauma metastasizes.
22:50
Speaker 1: And she transforms into a cold-blooded murderer.
22:53
Speaker 2: It is a profound tension in modern society. Because we
22:57
Speaker 2: know the justice system is not omniscient. It relies on evidence.
23:00
Speaker 2: And sometimes evidence is just impossible to gather, leaving genuine
23:04
Speaker 2: victims without legal recourse.
23:05
Speaker 1: Which is heartbreaking.
23:06
Speaker 2: But the legal framework surrounding this is extremely rigid. And
23:10
Speaker 2: it's rigid for a very specific reason.
23:12
Speaker 1: Right.
23:12
Speaker 2: As Mark Weaver outlines, if you are a victim of
23:15
Speaker 2: a crime or believe you are a victim of a crime,
23:18
Speaker 2: The architecture of the system provides you with two and
23:22
Speaker 2: only two avenues.
23:23
Speaker 1: Let's break those down.
23:25
Speaker 2: First, you can press criminal charges, which relies on the
23:29
Speaker 2: state to investigate and prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
23:33
Speaker 1: Or you can file a civil lawsuit against the individual
23:36
Speaker 1: for monetary damages.
23:38
Speaker 2: Exactly. Because civil court has a much lower burden of proof.
23:42
Speaker 1: Right. You don't have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
23:44
Speaker 1: You just have to prove a preponderance of the evidence,
23:46
Speaker 1: meaning it is just more likely than not that it happened.
23:49
Speaker 2: Exactly. Those are the only two authorized lanes for justice.
23:53
Speaker 2: The justice system absolutely cannot and will not accommodate or
23:57
Speaker 2: excuse vigilante murder, regardless of the severity of the alleged
24:01
Speaker 2: past trauma.
24:02
Speaker 1: It just can't.
24:03
Speaker 2: This isn't just a matter of policy. It is the
24:05
Speaker 2: bedrock of civilization. If society allows people to bypass the courts,
24:09
Speaker 2: bypass juries, and execute those they personally believe have wronged them,
24:13
Speaker 2: the entire foundation of the rule of law collapses instantly.
24:16
Speaker 1: It's anarchy.
24:17
Speaker 2: The state maintains a strict monopoly on violence and punishment,
24:21
Speaker 2: precisely to prevent the kind of chaotic, escalating bloodshed we
24:25
Speaker 2: just witnessed with the mother's retaliatory shooting in Washington, D.C.
24:29
Speaker 1: If you excused Kirken's vigilantism because you sympathize with her
24:32
Speaker 1: unproven 2017 claim.
24:35
Speaker 1: Then logically you also have to excuse Tommy Lynn's vigilantism
24:39
Speaker 1: because you sympathize with her very real grief over her
24:41
Speaker 1: murdered son.
24:42
Speaker 2: Right.
24:43
Speaker 1: And suddenly it's just the Wild West. Everyone is armed.
24:45
Speaker 1: Everyone is shooting everyone else based on their own internal
24:48
Speaker 1: subjective scales of justice. And innocent people are caught in
24:52
Speaker 1: the crossfire.
24:53
Speaker 2: Precisely. The law cannot deal in subjective emotional justice. It
24:57
Speaker 2: can only deal in procedural justice.
24:59
Speaker 1: Procedural justice. Yes.
25:01
Speaker 2: And because Perkins chose the illegal lethal path, And critically,
25:06
Speaker 2: because she executed her plan in a very specific geographical location,
25:10
Speaker 2: the legal mechanics of her prosecution shifted entirely.
25:13
Speaker 1: It moved completely out of the hands of the local
25:15
Speaker 1: Ohio police and the county prosecutors.
25:17
Speaker 2: And it fell directly into the massive crosshairs of the
25:19
Speaker 2: federal government.
25:20
Speaker 1: So let's transition into the legal fallout of this, because
25:23
Speaker 1: the federal aspect of this case is where the invisible
25:27
Speaker 1: architecture we talked about really comes into focus.
25:30
Speaker 2: Fast forward to May 27th, 2025.
25:33
Speaker 1: The evidence is just overwhelming at this point.
25:35
Speaker 2: It is. Chelsea Perkins pleads guilty to second degree murder.
25:40
Speaker 2: And by September of 2025, a judge sentences her to
25:43
Speaker 2: 22 and a half years in a federal prison in
25:46
Speaker 2: West Virginia.
25:47
Speaker 1: And the sentencing guidelines for her specific charge and criminal
25:51
Speaker 1: history were 20 to 25 years, right?
25:53
Speaker 2: Yes. So the judge basically looked at the guidelines and
25:56
Speaker 2: split the difference right down the middle.
25:58
Speaker 1: But the fundamental question a lot of people have when
26:00
Speaker 1: looking at this case is, why is this a federal
26:03
Speaker 1: case at all?
26:04
Speaker 2: A great question.
26:05
Speaker 1: If I commit a crime in the state of Ohio,
26:07
Speaker 1: usually the state of Ohio prosecutes me. Why are federal
26:10
Speaker 1: prosecutors involved in a single homicide?
26:14
Speaker 2: There are two distinct triggers for federal jurisdiction in this
26:17
Speaker 2: specific case, and either one of them would have been
26:20
Speaker 2: enough to involve the federal government.
26:22
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the first one?
26:23
Speaker 2: First, we have the interstate element. She crossed state lines
26:27
Speaker 2: to commit the crime. She drove over 300 miles, originating
26:31
Speaker 2: from out of state, bringing a vehicle and intent across
26:35
Speaker 2: the border into Ohio to commit a felony.
26:38
Speaker 1: This goes back to the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, right?
26:41
Speaker 2: It does.
26:41
Speaker 1: Once you start moving illicit goods or weapons or criminal
26:45
Speaker 1: plots across state borders, the federal government has the authority
26:48
Speaker 1: to step in.
26:49
Speaker 2: Correct. The federal government oversees interstate activity. But the second
26:53
Speaker 2: trigger is even more absolute and territorial.
26:56
Speaker 1: The park.
26:56
Speaker 2: Exactly. She committed the murder physically inside the boundaries of
27:00
Speaker 2: Cuyahoga Valley National Park. That land is federal property.
27:04
Speaker 1: Wow.
27:05
Speaker 2: It is essentially an enclave of the United States government
27:07
Speaker 2: sitting within the state of Ohio.
27:09
Speaker 1: Mark Weaver used a great relatable analogy to explain the
27:12
Speaker 1: absolute unyielding nature of this jurisdiction.
27:16
Speaker 2: Oh, the parking ticket story. Yeah.
27:18
Speaker 1: He mentioned that he once got a simple parking ticket
27:20
Speaker 1: while visiting a national park. And to fight that minor,
27:23
Speaker 1: everyday traffic violation, he couldn't just go down to the
27:26
Speaker 1: local municipal courthouse.
27:28
Speaker 2: He was required to go to federal court.
27:30
Speaker 1: Which is wild to think about. You get a parking
27:33
Speaker 1: ticket because your tire is over the line at a trailhead,
27:36
Speaker 1: and suddenly you are standing in the exact same judicial system,
27:40
Speaker 1: possibly in front of the exact same federal judge, who
27:43
Speaker 1: deals with international terrorism, treason, and massive interstate drug trafficking rings.
27:48
Speaker 2: It highlights just how fiercely territorial the law is. If
27:52
Speaker 2: you commit a crime on federal land, the crime belongs
27:55
Speaker 2: to the federal government, period.
27:58
Speaker 1: Now, it is worth noting that there is a complex
28:00
Speaker 1: legal concept at play here called the dual sovereign theory, right? OK,
28:05
Speaker 1: let's explore that, because I know the Constitution has the
28:07
Speaker 1: double jeopardy clause, which says you can't be tried twice
28:10
Speaker 1: for the same crime. How does that work if both
28:13
Speaker 1: the state and the feds want a piece of you?
28:16
Speaker 2: The dual sovereign theory is the major exception to double jeopardy.
28:20
Speaker 2: It dictates that the state government and the federal government
28:22
Speaker 2: are considered separate, distinct sovereigns. Okay. They're entirely separate entities
28:27
Speaker 2: with their own separate laws.
28:29
Speaker 1: So it's essentially like if I steal money from the
28:31
Speaker 1: cash register at my job, my boss fires me. That
28:36
Speaker 1: is one authority punishing me under company policy. Right. But
28:40
Speaker 1: then the police arrive and arrest me for theft. That
28:43
Speaker 1: is a separate authority punishing me under criminal law. I
28:46
Speaker 1: am being punished twice for the exact same action, but
28:49
Speaker 1: by two completely different rule books and authorities.
28:52
Speaker 2: That is an excellent analogy. Theoretically, she could be prosecuted
28:56
Speaker 2: and sentenced by the federal government for the federal aspects
28:59
Speaker 2: of the crime murder on federal land and the state
29:02
Speaker 2: of Ohio. could also decide to indict her locally for
29:05
Speaker 2: violating state murder statutes.
29:06
Speaker 1: Though in practice, if a defendant is looking at over
29:09
Speaker 1: two decades in a federal penitentiary, the local state prosecutor
29:12
Speaker 1: usually just steps back and lets the feds handle it.
29:15
Speaker 2: It saves local taxpayer money on a completely redundant trial.
29:18
Speaker 1: Speaking of that time, 22 and a half years. The
29:22
Speaker 1: sources indicate that in the federal system, with good behavior
29:25
Speaker 1: and factoring in that she is a first-time offender, she
29:27
Speaker 1: won't actually serve every single day of that 22 years.
29:29
Speaker 2: Right. The federal system abolished traditional parole years ago, but
29:34
Speaker 2: they do have good time credit. OK.
29:36
Speaker 1: How does that work?
29:37
Speaker 2: With recent changes in federal sentencing calculations, an actuary of
29:41
Speaker 2: the prison system would estimate she might actually serve closer
29:45
Speaker 2: to 15 to 18 years of that sentence before being
29:47
Speaker 2: eligible for supervised release.
29:49
Speaker 1: And this is where I just have to step in
29:51
Speaker 1: and challenge this outcome. Because the math feels entirely disproportionate
29:56
Speaker 1: to the crime.
29:57
Speaker 2: Many people feel that way.
29:58
Speaker 1: If you are a federal prosecutor and you have built
30:01
Speaker 1: this airtight case, you have the cell phone location data
30:06
Speaker 1: pinging off the towers, you have the Airbnb subpoena, you
30:08
Speaker 1: have her DNA on the victim's body, you have this
30:11
Speaker 1: incredibly calculated, cold-blooded, premeditated execution where she lured a man
30:16
Speaker 1: into the woods. Why on earth do you offer a
30:20
Speaker 1: plea deal for second-degree murder?
30:22
Speaker 2: It's a tough pill to swallow.
30:24
Speaker 1: Why do you agree to a sentence that effectively puts
30:26
Speaker 1: her back on the street in 15 to 18 years?
30:29
Speaker 1: Shouldn't a calculated execution like this be a first-degree murder
30:32
Speaker 1: charge with a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole?
30:35
Speaker 2: It is one of the most difficult, grueling balancing acts
30:38
Speaker 2: a prosecutor faces. And it is a reality of the
30:41
Speaker 2: system that frustrates the public endlessly.
30:43
Speaker 1: It really does.
30:44
Speaker 2: But Mark Weaver lays out exactly why this happens in
30:48
Speaker 2: almost every single major case. We have to look at
30:52
Speaker 2: what a plea bargain actually is.
30:54
Speaker 1: Okay.
30:54
Speaker 2: At its core, a plea bargain is a contract between
30:57
Speaker 2: the government and the defendant. And for any contract to
31:00
Speaker 2: be valid and enforceable, both sides must receive something of value.
31:05
Speaker 1: I understand the value for the killer. That's obvious. She
31:08
Speaker 1: gets a capped sentence. Yes. She avoids the very real
31:11
Speaker 1: risk of a jury finding her guilty of first-degree murder
31:14
Speaker 1: and the judge locking her in a concrete box for
31:16
Speaker 1: the rest of her natural life. She buys herself a
31:18
Speaker 1: lay at the end of the tunnel.
31:19
Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly.
31:20
Speaker 1: But what does the government get that is worth trading
31:24
Speaker 1: away a life sentence?
31:25
Speaker 2: The government, and by extension the victim's surviving family, gets
31:30
Speaker 2: two incredibly valuable things. Absolute certainty and total finality.
31:35
Speaker 1: Certainty and finality.
31:36
Speaker 2: Because if you take this case to trial, even with
31:38
Speaker 2: the DNA, even with the cell phone data, juries are
31:41
Speaker 2: inherently unpredictable.
31:43
Speaker 1: Human beings are unpredictable.
31:45
Speaker 2: Exactly. There is always a risk, however mathematically small, of
31:50
Speaker 2: a defense attorney confusing a key witness, a piece of
31:53
Speaker 2: evidence being thrown out on a technicality, or just a
31:56
Speaker 2: single juror holding out and causing a hung jury.
31:59
Speaker 1: Which means starting all over again.
32:01
Speaker 2: Yes. A plea deal completely removes the burden of proving
32:05
Speaker 2: the case to 12 strangers. It is a guaranteed conviction.
32:09
Speaker 1: But even if they win at trial, the trial isn't
32:11
Speaker 1: the end of the story, right?
32:12
Speaker 2: Exactly. And this is the crucial part that TV shows
32:15
Speaker 2: completely skip over. If she goes to trial and is convicted...
32:19
Speaker 2: She has the automatic constitutional right to appeal that conviction.
32:22
Speaker 1: And appeals take forever.
32:24
Speaker 2: The appeals process in the federal system is not measured
32:26
Speaker 2: in months. It is measured in years and sometimes decades.
32:29
Speaker 2: It moves from the district court to the circuit court
32:32
Speaker 2: of appeals, potentially all the way up to the Supreme Court.
32:35
Speaker 1: Which means the victim's family is never allowed to heal.
32:38
Speaker 1: Every year, they get a notice in the mail saying, hey,
32:41
Speaker 1: Chelsea Perkins has filed a new brief. We are going
32:43
Speaker 1: back to court. They are dragged back into the trauma
32:46
Speaker 1: over and over again.
32:48
Speaker 2: Over and over. To be fair, federal appeals are notoriously
32:52
Speaker 2: difficult for a defendant to win. Okay. Weaver explains the
32:55
Speaker 2: legal standard required. An appellate court won't overturn a conviction
32:59
Speaker 2: just because they find a minor procedural mistake, what the
33:03
Speaker 2: courts call a plain error.
33:05
Speaker 1: So what do they need?
33:06
Speaker 2: The defense has to prove what is known as a
33:08
Speaker 2: reversible error.
33:10
Speaker 1: Meaning a mistake made by the judge or prosecution that
33:13
Speaker 1: was so structurally massive, it actually altered the outcome of
33:17
Speaker 1: the trial. Yes.
33:18
Speaker 2: You have to prove that if the judge hadn't made
33:21
Speaker 2: this one specific error, say, allowing a certain piece of
33:24
Speaker 2: testimony in the jury would have definitively found you not guilty.
33:27
Speaker 1: Wow, that is a high bar.
33:28
Speaker 2: It is a massive, almost insurmountable legal hurdle. But even
33:33
Speaker 2: though it is hard for a defendant to win an appeal,
33:35
Speaker 2: the process itself is agonizing, expensive, and time-consuming.
33:39
Speaker 1: The plea stops that.
33:41
Speaker 2: Yes. A plea deal requires the defendant to waive almost
33:44
Speaker 2: all of their rights to appeal. The gavel falls, and
33:47
Speaker 2: it is legally over. It's done. The prosecutor has to
33:49
Speaker 2: weigh their own desire to secure a maximum life without
33:53
Speaker 2: parole sentence against the emotional toll of a decade-long legal
33:57
Speaker 2: battle on a family that has already been utterly destroyed
34:00
Speaker 2: by grief and vigilante violence.
34:03
Speaker 1: So it's a bitter, pragmatic pill. The state trades a
34:06
Speaker 1: longer sentence for a guaranteed final conviction to protect the
34:10
Speaker 1: family from further trauma.
34:11
Speaker 2: That's the reality.
34:12
Speaker 1: The criminal penalty is settled by this contract. She accepts
34:15
Speaker 1: the 22 1⁄2 years. But the criminal penalty is only
34:19
Speaker 1: half the justice system's response.
34:21
Speaker 2: Right.
34:21
Speaker 1: The civil and financial penalties. That is a whole different arena.
34:26
Speaker 1: And here's where it gets really interesting.
34:28
Speaker 2: Because Chelsea Perkins decided she was not going to quietly
34:31
Speaker 2: accept the terms here.
34:32
Speaker 1: No, she decided to put up a fight and it
34:34
Speaker 1: led to a truly astounding demand from behind bars.
34:37
Speaker 2: When the federal judge handed down the prison sentence, there
34:40
Speaker 2: was a mandatory additional component attached to it. The judge
34:44
Speaker 2: ordered Perkins to pay $ 596, 000 in restitution to Matthew Dunmire's family.
34:50
Speaker 1: Let's break down the anatomy of that number. Because it's
34:52
Speaker 1: not just a random fine pulled out of thin air
34:55
Speaker 1: by a judge to punish her.
34:57
Speaker 2: No, it's very calculated.
34:59
Speaker 1: Restitution is meant to make the victim's family whole in
35:02
Speaker 1: a purely financial sense. It covers the out-of-state travel expenses
35:06
Speaker 1: for the family to attend the court proceedings. It covers
35:09
Speaker 1: his funeral and burial expenses.
35:11
Speaker 2: But a massive, overwhelming chunk of that nearly $ 600, 000 is
35:17
Speaker 2: for the estimated future lifetime earnings of the victim.
35:20
Speaker 1: Because Matthew was a musician. Yes.
35:23
Speaker 2: And this money is legally meant to go to his estate,
35:25
Speaker 2: which will eventually belong to his minor children.
35:28
Speaker 1: But in December 2025, sitting in a federal prison, Perkins
35:33
Speaker 1: officially files legal documents disputing this specific amount.
35:37
Speaker 2: This is where it gets incredibly dark and, frankly, confusing.
35:39
Speaker 2: Kind of sickening to read.
35:41
Speaker 1: It really is. She doesn't just ask the judge for
35:43
Speaker 1: a recount or a payment plan. She demands that the
35:46
Speaker 1: court produce, and I quote from the filings, pay stubs,
35:49
Speaker 1: tax filings, sworn affidavits, or expert analyses to definitively prove
35:53
Speaker 1: that Matthew had consistent employment.
35:55
Speaker 2: She wanted proof of his exact hours.
35:57
Speaker 1: Yes, what his exact hours were and what his reasonable
36:00
Speaker 1: living expenses would have been.
36:02
Speaker 2: It is a demand for meticulous bureaucratic proof of the
36:07
Speaker 2: financial worth of the life she extinguished.
36:10
Speaker 1: It is breathtakingly audacious. Let's put this into perspective for
36:14
Speaker 1: a second. It is exactly like an arsonist deliberately pouring
36:18
Speaker 1: gasoline on your house, burning it down to the foundation,
36:22
Speaker 1: and then standing in the literal ashes demanding that you
36:25
Speaker 1: produce the original paper receipts for your television, your couch,
36:28
Speaker 1: and your refrigerator before they agree to pay you for
36:31
Speaker 1: the damage.
36:31
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is.
36:33
Speaker 1: She completely destroyed his ability to ever earn another paycheck.
36:37
Speaker 1: And now she is aggressively arguing from a prison cell
36:40
Speaker 1: that he probably wouldn't have made that much money anyway
36:42
Speaker 1: because he was just a musician.
36:43
Speaker 2: The federal prosecutors fired back immediately, as you would expect
36:47
Speaker 2: them to. Good. They defended the nearly $ 600, 000 figure, calling
36:52
Speaker 2: it a highly conservative calculation.
36:54
Speaker 1: Right.
36:54
Speaker 2: They argued vehemently that she should not be allowed to
36:57
Speaker 2: avoid paying into his estate money designated for the children
37:01
Speaker 2: who lost their father simply by claiming he didn't make
37:04
Speaker 2: a corporate salary.
37:05
Speaker 1: Which is insane.
37:06
Speaker 2: As the prosecutors put it in their filings, to lower
37:09
Speaker 2: the restitution amount just because he was an artist would
37:12
Speaker 2: be to give the defendant a financial windfall despite her crime.
37:16
Speaker 1: So the two sides met over a Zoom conference in
37:19
Speaker 1: early December 2025 to try and negotiate this number. But surprise, surprise,
37:26
Speaker 1: the negotiations fell apart in a matter of days.
37:28
Speaker 2: Shocking.
37:29
Speaker 1: The government attorneys basically threw their hands up, went back
37:31
Speaker 1: to the court and said, We can't reach a deal
37:34
Speaker 1: with her, just order her to pay the full $ 596, 000.
37:37
Speaker 2: And the court has tools to calculate that.
37:40
Speaker 1: Right, but it raises a really fascinating mechanical question. How
37:44
Speaker 1: do the courts even come up with a firm number
37:46
Speaker 1: for the future earnings of a musician? It's not like
37:49
Speaker 1: he had a salary with a guaranteed 3% annual raise.
37:53
Speaker 2: This brings us into the highly specialized world of the
37:56
Speaker 2: actuarial math of restitution. Mark Weaver notes that there is
38:00
Speaker 2: an entire industry of forensic economists and actuaries whose sole
38:05
Speaker 2: job is to project career paths for the courts.
38:08
Speaker 1: OK.
38:09
Speaker 2: When they assess a musician or a gig worker or
38:12
Speaker 2: a freelancer, they don't look at them and assume they
38:15
Speaker 2: were going to be the next Taylor Swift making tens
38:17
Speaker 2: of millions of dollars.
38:18
Speaker 1: Sure.
38:19
Speaker 2: But they also don't assume they would make nothing. They
38:21
Speaker 2: rely on standard conservative industry tables.
38:24
Speaker 1: So how does the math actually work? What are they
38:26
Speaker 1: looking at?
38:27
Speaker 2: They look at average incomes for working musicians in that
38:30
Speaker 2: specific geographic region. They factor in mortality tables, how long
38:34
Speaker 2: the average 31-year-old male is expected to live and work.
38:38
Speaker 1: That feels so cold.
38:39
Speaker 2: It is cold. They project a reasonable trajectory over that lifespan.
38:43
Speaker 2: And then they apply a discount rate to calculate the
38:45
Speaker 2: present value of all those future earnings.
38:47
Speaker 1: This is expenses, right?
38:49
Speaker 2: Yes. Minus what he would have likely spent on his
38:52
Speaker 2: own personal consumption. Food, rent, taxes. It is cold. It
38:58
Speaker 2: is deeply mathematical. But it is an absolute necessity for
39:01
Speaker 2: the court to function. They have to put a number
39:03
Speaker 2: on the ledger.
39:04
Speaker 1: But let's step back and look at the absolute elephant
39:06
Speaker 1: in the room regarding this ledger. She is sitting in
39:09
Speaker 1: a federal penitentiary in West Virginia.
39:11
Speaker 2: Right.
39:12
Speaker 1: How on earth does an inmate who is maybe earning
39:15
Speaker 1: 15 to 40 cents an hour wiping down tables in
39:19
Speaker 1: the cafeteria or working in the prison laundry ever pay
39:22
Speaker 1: off a $ 600, 000 legal bill?
39:24
Speaker 2: The simple answer is they almost certainly don't.
39:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
39:27
Speaker 2: Mark Weaver refers to this massive restitution. figure as a
39:30
Speaker 2: legal fiction. The justice system requires the judge to order
39:34
Speaker 2: this massive sum, knowing full well the inmate cannot simply
39:38
Speaker 2: stroke a check for it.
39:38
Speaker 1: So what is the point of the exercise? Is it
39:40
Speaker 1: just monopoly money? Is it just to make the court
39:43
Speaker 1: feel like it did something?
39:44
Speaker 2: It serves two purposes, really. First, it is symbolic accountability.
39:48
Speaker 2: The court is stamping a prominent, unerasable financial record of
39:51
Speaker 2: the damage done to the family. It is a formal
39:53
Speaker 2: acknowledgment of the loss.
39:55
Speaker 1: And the second purpose.
39:56
Speaker 2: Second, it does have practical, albeit very slow, teeth. While
40:01
Speaker 2: she is in prison, she won't be writing a $ 600, 000 check,
40:05
Speaker 2: but a percentage of whatever meager money she makes from
40:08
Speaker 2: those prison jobs or any money her family puts into
40:11
Speaker 2: her commissary account so she can buy candy or better
40:14
Speaker 2: toothpaste or phone time It is siphoned off by the
40:17
Speaker 2: Bureau of Prisons and sent directly to the victim's family.
40:20
Speaker 1: It's a trickle. It's pennies on the dollar.
40:23
Speaker 2: It is.
40:23
Speaker 1: But it is a constant, inescapable reminder every single time
40:27
Speaker 1: she tries to buy a candy bar that she owes
40:29
Speaker 1: a debt for a life she took.
40:31
Speaker 2: Exactly. And the financial tether does not end when her
40:34
Speaker 2: sentence ends.
40:35
Speaker 1: It follows her out.
40:36
Speaker 2: If she is released in 15 or 18 years, that
40:39
Speaker 2: debt follows her right out the prison gates. It won't
40:42
Speaker 2: be managed by a judge anymore. It will be overseen
40:44
Speaker 2: by federal probation or parole officers.
40:47
Speaker 1: So she has to keep paying.
40:48
Speaker 2: Paying restitution will be a mandatory condition of her supervised release.
40:52
Speaker 2: Whenever she gets a job in the free world, a
40:54
Speaker 2: portion of her paycheck will be automatically garnished.
40:57
Speaker 1: What if she inherits money?
40:58
Speaker 2: If she inherits money, it can be seized. Her financial
41:02
Speaker 2: life will be permanently tethered to the family of the
41:05
Speaker 2: man she killed until the day she dies, where the
41:08
Speaker 2: debt is fully paid.
41:09
Speaker 1: It is a stark, sobering reminder that the ripples of
41:12
Speaker 1: a murder do not end when the judge's gavel falls
41:15
Speaker 1: and the prison doors slide shut.
41:17
Speaker 2: No, they don't.
41:18
Speaker 1: The bureaucratic, the financial, and most importantly, the emotional toll
41:23
Speaker 1: of that single gunshot in the woods goes on for decades,
41:26
Speaker 1: long after the true crime headlines fade away.
41:28
Speaker 2: If we synthesize everything we have explored today from these sources,
41:33
Speaker 2: it reveals the true unvarnished architecture of the justice system.
41:37
Speaker 2: True crime, as a genre of entertainment, so often focuses
41:40
Speaker 2: entirely on the who-do-nit. It focuses on the mystery, the boots,
41:44
Speaker 2: the rental car.
41:45
Speaker 1: Flashy stuff.
41:45
Speaker 2: But the reality of justice is so much more complex
41:48
Speaker 2: and bureaucratic. It is about the invisible borders of federal
41:51
Speaker 2: versus state jurisdiction. It is about the agonizing, months-long wait
41:55
Speaker 2: for underfunded forensic laboratories to process DNA sequences.
41:59
Speaker 1: It's a grind.
42:00
Speaker 2: It is about the cold calculus of plea contracts. where
42:04
Speaker 2: prosecutors are forced to trade away years of a sentence
42:08
Speaker 2: in exchange for certainty and finality for a traumatized family.
42:11
Speaker 1: And it is about the actuaries who sit at desks,
42:14
Speaker 1: away from the blood and the grief, trying to put
42:16
Speaker 1: a numerical price tag on a human life. It is
42:19
Speaker 1: a massive, grinding, imperfect machine. And I think for you,
42:24
Speaker 1: listening to this deep dive, it is incredibly easy to
42:26
Speaker 1: look at that machine and judge it.
42:27
Speaker 2: Very easy.
42:28
Speaker 1: It is easy to judge it for being too slow
42:30
Speaker 1: or too bureaucratic or too reliant on plea deals that
42:33
Speaker 1: feel totally inadequate. But when you look at the chaotic, bloody,
42:37
Speaker 1: devastating tragedy of what happened when Matthew's mother put on
42:40
Speaker 1: that UPS disguise, drove across state lines, and tried to
42:44
Speaker 1: speed up the process with a gun, it shows exactly
42:46
Speaker 1: why the system, as flawed and agonizingly slow as it is,
42:49
Speaker 1: demand a rigorous methodical proof.
42:51
Speaker 2: It really does.
42:52
Speaker 1: The slow grind of the law is the only thing
42:54
Speaker 1: standing between civilization and absolute retaliatory chaos.
42:57
Speaker 2: It is a profoundly flawed system, built and operated by
43:00
Speaker 2: flawed humans, designed to contain human nature at its absolute
43:04
Speaker 2: most extreme.
43:05
Speaker 1: And as we wrap up this deep dive, I want
43:06
Speaker 1: to leave you with one final thought.
43:08
Speaker 2: Okay.
43:09
Speaker 1: It is a philosophical question that really builds on what
43:11
Speaker 1: we just discussed about those forensic actuaries and the mechanics
43:14
Speaker 1: of restitution. If a significant portion of a killer's financial
43:19
Speaker 1: restitution is based purely on a victim estimated future earnings, well,
43:23
Speaker 1: does our justice system inadvertently assign a higher financial penalty
43:28
Speaker 1: to the murder of a wealthy corporate CEO than it
43:31
Speaker 1: does to the murder of a struggling freelance artist or
43:34
Speaker 1: a minimum wage worker?
43:35
Speaker 2: That's a profound question.
43:37
Speaker 1: And if that is how the math actually works on paper,
43:39
Speaker 1: what does that say about our society's concept of equal
43:42
Speaker 1: justice under the law? Do we value lives equally? Or
43:45
Speaker 1: do we only value the tax brackets they occupy? Think
43:48
Speaker 1: about that. Keep questioning the invisible structures of the world
43:51
Speaker 1: around you, and we will catch you next time.