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Abandoned Car Leads Cops to Serial Killer’s Torture Cabin · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know, usually when we think of a crime scene,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: there is this expectation of chaos, like a hurricane just
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: swept through the place.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: You picture a broken window or, you know, overturned furniture,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: a blaring security alarm. It is loud even when it's
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: completely empty.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. It is a disruption of order, a violent interruption
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: that leaves an obvious, undeniable physical scar on the environment.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: In criminology, we often look at the physical space to
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: tell us the immediate emotional state of the offender.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like what's going through their head in that exact moment.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A chaotic scene usually implies a chaotic, disorganized, or
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: panicked mind.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: But then you step into the dense, humid woods of Tallahassee, Florida.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You walk up to this secluded, heavily overgrown cabin on
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Monday Road, and the scene is not loud at all.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: It is chillingly quiet.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Very quiet.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: But something is immediately viscerally wrong. There is a white
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Toyota Camry sitting outside, and it is hopelessly stuck in
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the thick, wet mud.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: And it is the minutia around that vehicle that begins
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: to tell a very specific story of desperation.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Someone has taken a heavy wooden board and wedged it
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: violently under one of the tires. It is a classic
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: panicked attempt to gain traction, you know.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Right. Like flooring the gas pedal but just spinning the wheel.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And a random white canvas sheet has been haphazardly
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: draped over the rear of the vehicle.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And the license plate itself is physically bent upward.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Like someone took their bare hands and folded the metal
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: to hide the numbers. That feels so intimately desperate.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: You walk a few feet away and there's a standard
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: outdoor trash can just sitting there.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: And inside, a discarded cell phone and a woman as ID.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Then the tactical team approaches the cabin itself. They breach
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the door, weapons drawn, anticipating a potential firefight or a
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: hostage situation. Right.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: They have no idea what is waiting for them on
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the other side of that door.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Precisely. But instead of visual chaos, they are hit with
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: an olfactory detail, the lingering, unmistakable smell of fresh cigarette smoke.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Wow. So the air in the kitchen is still heavy
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: with it, which means whoever was just standing there smoking
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that cigarette has not been gone for hours or days. No,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: not at all. They vanished into the tree line mere
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: moments before law enforcement breached the perimeter.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's unpack this. Because we're looking at a puzzle
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: that starts with an abandoned car in the mud, but
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: rapidly sharpens into a massive investigative undertaking.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And what is fascinating about this specific moment in the
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: timeline is the sheer velocity of the escalation for the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: officers on the ground.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: What do you mean?
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Well, this did not begin as a manhunt. The officers
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: who arrived at that cabin were executing a routine welfare
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: check for a missing 75-year-old grandmother.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Just a standard knock and talk.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Right. But the moment they registered that fresh smoke, the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: abandoned ID, and the concealed license plate, the stakes became existential.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: They realized they had stumbled into a predator's sanctuary.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: I want to walk you, the listener, through exactly how
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: we arrived at that cabin door because it involves the
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: tragic intersection of Of two completely different lives.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Two lives that never should have crossed paths in this way. Exactly.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: We have this 75-year-old grandmother known in her neighborhood for
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: her boundless charity. And we have a 19-year-old activist fiercely
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: advocating for her community.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: To understand how their paths collided, we have to start
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: by pulling on the very first thread. We have to
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: rewind to June 13th at roughly 5 in the evening
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: at an apartment complex across town.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: This is when the Tallahassee Police Department receives a call
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: from a middle-aged man reporting his friend missing. Her name
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: is Victoria Sims.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: She has not answered her phone for several days. Her
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: calls are going straight to voicemail. For someone like Victoria,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: who is deeply tethered to her community, her church, and
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: her daily routines, this kind of silence isn't just unusual.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: It is an immediate red flag.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: It is an immediate indicator of a crisis, yes.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Her family is already mobilized at this point. Victoria's friend
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and her granddaughter actually go over to her apartment to
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: check on her physically. They knock on the front door
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and it simply pushes open. It is ajar.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Which is deeply concerning.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Because the source material notes she was meticulous about
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: her safety, right? Yeah. She even had a neighbor install
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: a custom measured peephole so she would not have to
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: open the door to strangers.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Precisely. In victimology, we look at the baseline behavior of
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: the individual. Yeah. A deviation this extreme, like leaving a
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: front door unlatched, suggests one of two things. Either forced
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: entry or an interruption so sudden she could not secure
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: her home.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: So they walk inside and Victoria's gone. Her white Toyota
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Camry is missing from the parking lot. But it's the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: physical state of the apartment that I want to dig
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: into because I am having a hard time categorizing it.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It is a strange scene.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Right, because if you walk into a home invasion, you
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: expect to see drawers pulled out, mattresses flipped, glass shattered everywhere.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: But that is not what they find here.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: No, the scene is not wildly ransacked. In forensic terms,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: it is selectively tossed.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Selectively tossed.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Yes. The living and dining areas have been deliberately searched,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: but the rest of the home is relatively undisturbed. The
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: television stand is knocked over and the TV itself is gone.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Victoria's laptop is missing.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: And then there's the cash. The family realizes that an
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: envelope Victoria kept containing roughly $ 750 is also gone.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: But here's the detail that confused me when I was
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: reading the sources. There is a heavy safe under Victoria's bed,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: presumably holding valuables or important documents, and it is completely untouched. Yep.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: If this is a robbery, why would a burglar ignore
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: a safe?
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: That is the exact question profilers ask. If we look
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: at the psychology of a typical break-in... A safe under
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: a bed is exactly what a random, frantic burglar is
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: hunting for.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Because that is where the good stuff is.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They want the high-value items. The fact that the
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: intruder ignored the safe but managed to locate a specific
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: envelope of cash tells us something crucial about the psychology
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: of the person who was in that apartment.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: So my theory here, tell me if I am off base,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: but this does not look like a frantic home invasion
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: at all. It looks almost like a shopping trip.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: A shopping trip, yes. That is a good way to
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: put it.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Does this imply the intruder had inside knowledge? Like they
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: knew what they were looking for and they knew they
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: did not have the time or the heavy tools required
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to mess with a secure safe.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: You are exactly right. It points to a targeted extraction.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: The offender knew about the envelope. Wow. And when police
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: arrived to process this scene, they start looking for the timelines.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: When exactly did this targeted extraction happen?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Because there are no signs of forced entry on the doorframe.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Right. There is no blood, no weapons, no obvious signs
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: of a physical struggle in the apartment.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And her family was adamant in their interviews. If someone
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: broke in and threatened Victoria, she would not have fought back.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: She would have gladly handed over her car, her TV,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: her money.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: She was a pragmatist.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she would have prioritized her life over her material
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: possessions every single time.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Which introduces a chilling variable for the investigators. If she
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: would have complied with a robbery, why abduct her?
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Right, why take her from the scene?
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: To answer that, they first have to establish a rigid
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: timeline of when she vanished. And they do this through
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: a brilliant piece of forensic deduction using the most mundane
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: objects imaginable. The daily newspapers.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: OK. This is the part of the source material that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: really fascinated me. Yeah. Because it is so analog. We
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: always expect digital forensics, you know, cell phone pings, router logs,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. But this relies on print.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: It is the forensic timeline locked in physical routine. When
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: investigators look around the apartment, they find the newspaper dated
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: June 12th, which is the previous day, sitting inside on
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: the dining room table.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: But the newspaper for the morning of June 13th is
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: still sitting outside her front door.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, that is incredibly smart. So he gives you an
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: indisputable window. Victoria was alive and well on the morning
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: of June 12th to open her door, pick up a paper,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and bring it inside.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: But by the time the delivery person dropped off the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: paper on the morning of June 13th, she was either
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: gone or incapacitated.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: It narrows the window of her disappearance to the hours
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: following the morning of June 12th. But the core question remains,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: who had the inside knowledge to execute this targeted robbery,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: and why take Victoria?
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And that is when the family provides a critical clue.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. They mention a text message they had seen on
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Victoria's phone recently from a young man she was trying
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: to help out.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: They did not know his name offhand, but they knew
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Victoria had a habit of taking people under her wing.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: She thought he was a good guy who was just
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: down on his luck.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: This inside knowledge points directly to this unknown man. But
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: to truly understand the sheer scale of the danger Victoria
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: was in on June 12th, we have to pause her timeline.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: We have to step back. We do.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: We have to rewind the clock exactly one week earlier
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: to June 5th and look at a completely different missing
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: person case that Tallahassee police were actively trying to solve.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: This brings us to Alotoyin Salau, who went by Toyin.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: She was a 19-year-old woman, fiercely passionate, and a very
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: visible community advocate.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, she was very active.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: She had been attending local demonstrations, speaking out about systemic issues. Now,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I want to pause here and state very clearly for you,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the listener, that while the source material explicitly notes Twain
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: was an active protester for the Black Lives Matter movement,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: this deep dive remains entirely neutral on all political affiliations.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. We are strictly examining the facts of the investigation.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We are just focusing on the factual timeline of
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: her tragic disappearance. But her activism is an important context
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: because it establishes her location, her physical exhaustion.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Her timeline begins on the evening of Friday, June 5th.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Toyn is at a gathering with several of her friends
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: following a demonstration.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: At some point during the evening, she tells them she
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: needs to, quote, get some air. She steps away from
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: the group, and she simply never comes back. Her friends
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: realize she is gone, and they immediately start looking. They
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: search the area for about two hours that night, but
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: there is no sign of her.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: The next morning, Saturday, June 6th, at around 8 in
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: the morning, The panic really sets in. One of her
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: friends goes down to the police department in person to
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: report her missing. And this is where we hit a
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: wall of bureaucratic friction that is incredibly frustrating to read about.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: It is a systemic hurdle that we see repeatedly in
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: these types of cases. According to the accounts in the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: source material, the police inform the friend that because they
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: are not an immediate family member, they cannot file an
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: official missing person report on Twain's behalf.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I really struggle to understand the logic here. A 19-year-old
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: is missing. Her friends are standing right there saying her
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: disappearance is completely out of character. And they are essentially
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: told they do not have the right blood relation to
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: start the engine of a police investigation.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: It sounds absurd on the surface.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Why does a rule like that even exist? It feels
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: designed to fail people.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: It is a very valid frustration. But if we look
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: at the historical context of law enforcement procedures... the immediate
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: family-only rule was not actually designed to be obstructionist.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: It wasn't?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: No, it was originally implemented as a safeguard. Decades ago,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: police departments found that estranged domestic abusers, stalkers, or aggressive
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: debt collectors would walk into a precinct and file a
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: missing person report on someone who is actively hiding from them.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. I had not thought of that. So the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: police would unknowingly act as a tracking service For the abuser.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The police would find the individual and the individual
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: would say, I am not missing. I am hiding from
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: the person who filed that report.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: That is terrifying.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: So to protect people's privacy and safety, departments instituted rigid criteria.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: You must be a parent, a spouse, or a legal
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: guardian to file.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: But the unintended consequence of that rule is staggering when
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: applied to modern, transient, or activist communities.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: If you are a 19-year-old who might have a strained
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: relationship with your biological family, your primary support network is
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: your friends. They are your chosen family.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: By barring them from sounding the alarm, the system leaves
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: you completely unprotected.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Which is exactly what happened to Twine. It forces her
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: friends and the local community action committee to organize their
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: own grassroots search parties.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: They are essentially doing the police work themselves. Yes.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: They are canvassing, putting up flyers, utilizing social media. It
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: is not until the next day, June 7th, that Toyin's
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: biological family is able to officially file the missing person report.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: But the timeline of Saturday, June 6th, is where things
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: get incredibly convoluted. Because on the exact same morning, her
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: friend was being turned away from filing a missing person report.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Toyin herself actually made contact with the Tallahassee police.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: This is the tragic overlap that haunts this entire case.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: On that Saturday morning, Toyin contacted the police to report
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: that she had been sexually assaulted earlier that day.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Here is where it gets really interesting but also incredibly frustrating.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: She is actively engaging with law enforcement about a severe trauma.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, she is in the system.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: And the source material notes that while the police were
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: actively following up on that sexual assault report, her family
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: eventually informed them That Toyn had disappeared again.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: How do these wires get crossed? How does a vulnerable
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: 19-year-old navigating the immediate aftermath of an assault slip through
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the cracks of the system while she is literally speaking
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: to the police?
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: It highlights a devastating vulnerability in how different divisions within
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: a police department communicate or fail to communicate.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: is doing.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Right. You have a young woman who has just experienced
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: a profound trauma. The psychological toll of an assault often
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: results in geographic displacement. Victims flee the area of the attack.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: They just need to get away.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: They are exhausted, frightened, and their immediate priority is survival,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: not necessarily updating their location with authorities.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: So she interacts with the system to report the assault,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: but simultaneously, the system's own rules about immediate family are
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: preventing her friends from officially sounding the alarm that she
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: has not returned to her safe space.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: It creates this brief, catastrophic window. She is out in
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: the world, untethered from her support network, heavily traumatized and
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: exceptionally vulnerable.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And the police have no idea.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: And the Tallahassee police are now unknowingly working two distinct
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: timelines that they have not connected yet. They have the
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: 19-year-old activist who vanished into thin air after reporting an assault.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And a week later, they have the 75-year-old grandmother whose
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: apartment was selectively robbed.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Two completely separate case files sitting on two different desks.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: And they probably would have stayed separate if it was
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: not for a neighbor of Victoria Sims stepping forward with
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: a tip.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: This neighbor used to run a property nearby as a
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: short-term rental and was currently flipping it. She contacts the
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: police and tells them about a man who had been
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: consistently hanging around Victoria's property.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: The neighbor explains that Victoria had this incredible soft spot
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: for a man she referred to as her grandson's friend.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: She was giving him food. helping him with rent money,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: giving him rides. She was basically serving as a one-woman
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: support system for him.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: But the neighbor's instincts were sharp. She tells police a
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: specific story about how she once had guests staying at
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: her rental property, and they called her in a panic
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: because they found parole papers left sitting on a bench outside.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: That is a pretty jarring thing to find outside your Airbnb.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Right. Another time, there was a medical marijuana container left out.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: The neighbor had explicitly warned Victoria, saying... Do not let
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: him up on my property.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Victoria, ever the caretaker, promised she would not let him
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: bother the neighbors, but she continued to help him privately.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: He just couldn't turn him aware.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Using the details provided by the neighbor, including the crucial
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: fact that he lived in a specific cabin on Monday Road,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: police are finally able to put a name to the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: phantom text messages on Victoria's phone. His name is Aaron
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Lee Glee Jr.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: And the moment they run his name through the National
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Crime Information Center database... The threat level of this investigation skyrockets.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Because he is already in the system.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Because Aaron Legley Jr. is not an unknown entity to
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: law enforcement. His recent history is defined by extreme, escalating
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: violence against women in public spaces.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Let's look at his immediate history. Because less than two
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: weeks prior to Victoria's disappearance, in late May, Glee was arrested.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: And he was not arrested based on a tip. A
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: police officer literally witnessed him attacking a woman.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: The environmental context of that attack is vital for understanding
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: his methodology.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Break that down for us.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: While the officer witnessed Glee approach a young woman at
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: a public bus stop, he made aggressive sexual advances toward her.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: When she verbally rejected him, Glee did not just hurl
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: an insult and walk away. He physically attacked her, kicking
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: her directly in the stomach.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: In broad daylight. Yes.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: And when the officer intervened, Glee assaulted the police officer
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: OK, I have to stop here because this is where
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: my understanding of the legal system completely breaks down.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I know where you're going with this.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: We have a guy who targets a woman at a
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: bus stop, kicks her in the stomach and then physically
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: fights a cop. And yet the source material states he
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: bonded out of jail almost immediately.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: He was back on the streets in less than two weeks.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, we have a guy who is escalating his
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: violence against women in public spaces and literally assaulting an officer,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: and yet he's out on bond. It was like leaving
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: a lit match next to a powder keg. How does
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: a judge or magistrate look at a guy assaulting a
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: police officer and say, yeah, he's safe to go back
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: into the community?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: It is a systemic failure rooted in how bail and
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: risk assessment algorithms operate.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Algorithms. They use computers for this.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: In many jurisdictions, yes. Pretrial release is determined by a
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: point system. The algorithms look at factors like failure to
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: appear in court, ties to the community, and prior felony convictions.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: So they're not necessarily looking at the nature of the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: immediate violence.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Often they weigh the classification of the charge over the
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: behavioral red flags. If the assault on the woman was
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: charged as a misdemeanor battery and the scuffle with the
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: officer was framed as resisting arrest rather than a high-level
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: felony assault, the algorithm might spit out a low to
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: moderate risk score.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: That is just wild to me.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: The system is designed to alleviate jail overcrowding, but it
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: frequently fails to recognize rapid escalating patterns of predatory behavior.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: It essentially treats each incident in a vacuum, rather than
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: seeing a timeline of a guy whose restraint is completely deteriorating.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And as detectives dig deeper into his file, they
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: realize the bus stop incident was not an isolated flare-up.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: They find another recent police report involving a woman named
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Ara Castro.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Officers actually rush out to do a welfare check on
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Ora Castro once Glee's name comes up in connection to Victoria.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And the body cam footage described in the sources is
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: incredibly tense.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: She is terrified.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She has an active restraining order against Glee. She
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: tells the officers that he violently beat her. And where
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: did this previous attack happen? At another bus stop.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: The officers asked her if she has heard from him recently,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: and she says no because she is operating under the
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: logical assumption that he is still sitting in a jail
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: cell for assaulting the police officer.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't she assume that?
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Right. The officers have to break the news to her
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: that he is out on bond. He is completely free.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: We have a predator who is establishing a terrifyingly specific
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: hunting ground. He is targeting women at transit hubs, places
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: where people are stationary, waiting, and often alone. He is
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: escalating his violence. The system catches him and then releases
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: him right back into his preferred environment. It is a
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: catastrophic failure of public safety.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: In environmental criminology, we use something called routine activity theory
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: to understand why crimes happen in specific locations.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Routine activity theory.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Okay. A crime requires three elements to intersect in time
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: and space. A motivated offender, a suitable target, and the
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: absence of a capable guardian.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: A capable guardian being like a police officer or even
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: just an observant bystander?
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A bus stop is a liminal space. It is transient.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: People are focused on their phones or looking for their bus.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: They are not acting as guardians for one another. It
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: is the perfect environment for a motivated offender like Glee
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: to find a suitable target.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the horrific intersection of this entire timeline.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: The evening of Saturday, June 6th, the potter cake finally explodes.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: We know from the timeline that Toyin Salau, reeling from
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: the trauma of her sexual assault earlier that day, was
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: navigating the city alone. And where did she end up?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: She was sitting at a bus stop, specifically a bus
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: stop near a Walmart on Apalachee Parkway. She is exhausted,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: she is traumatized, and she needs a safe place to rest.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: And who spots her at this bus stop? Aaron Lee
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Lee Jr.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: It makes my stomach turn. He approaches her, but he
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: does not use physical force initially, does he?
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: No, he changes his tactic. He plays the role of
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: a good Samaritan, he initiates a conversation, and he listens
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: to her.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: He just pretends to be a nice guy.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Yes. Toyin, likely desperate for kindness and support in that moment,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: confides in him that she had been assaulted and has
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: nowhere safe to stay for the night.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: He weaponizes her vulnerability. He tells her she can come
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: back to his place, take a shower, and get some rest.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And she accepts. She trusts him.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: She has no reason not to, based on his facade.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: But logistically, Glee has a problem. He does not own
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: a car. He has this young woman at a bus
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: stop on Apalachee Parkway, and he needs to transport her
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: back to his isolated cabin on Monday Road. So what
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: does he do?
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: He picks up his phone and he calls his benefactor.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: He calls Victoria Sims, the 75-year-old woman who has a
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: soft spot for him. He asks her for a ride.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: We know this happened because investigators pulled surveillance footage from
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the area. At exactly 7.07 in the evening on June 6th,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a camera captures the moment when Glee and Toyin get
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: into the back of Victoria's white Toyota Camry.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: This is the moment the two threads cross.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: It is surreal to think about.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: By answering that phone call, By doing a favor for
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: a man she thought was just a struggling kid in
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: need of help, Victoria unknowingly became the last independent witness
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: to see Torren Salau alive, and crucially, in the company
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: of Aaron Glee.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: She is the linchpin. Victoria drives them to the cabin
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: on Monday Road and drops them off. She drives away,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: completely unaware of the nightmare she has just left this
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: 19-year-old girl in.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: And once inside the cabin, Glee's demeanor completely flips.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Mask comes off.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: He drops the Good Samaritan Act entirely. He attempts to
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: initiate a sexual encounter with Toyin, but Toyin, who has
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: already survived an assault that very day, fights back fiercely.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: She refuses him.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: And this is where Glee makes a cold, calculated decision.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: He overpowers her. He ties her up. And as he
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: later admits to police, he knew with absolute certainty that
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Toyin was going to report him if he let her go.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: She was a vocal activist.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly. She had already reported an assault that morning. She
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: was not going to stay quiet. So To avoid going
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: back to the jail cell he had just bonded out of,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: he decides he has to kill her.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: In behavioral analysis, we distinguish between expressive violence and instrumental violence.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: What is the difference?
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Expressive violence is driven by anger or sadism. It is emotional.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Instrumental violence is used as a tool to achieve a goal,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: like eliminating a witness. Glee's decision to kill Toyin was
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: highly instrumental.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: So it was functional for him.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. He holds her captive in that cabin for at
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: least a day, possibly overnight, before ultimately suffocating her. He
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: then disposes of her body in the woods behind his property,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: covering her with leaves to conceal the crime.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: So for almost a week, Glee is sitting in that cabin,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: knowing what he has done. The community is searching frantically
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: for Toyin. Her friends are putting up flyers. The police
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: are looking for her regarding her assault report. And Glee
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: realizes the walls are going to close in.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: He knows it is only a matter of time. Right.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: He needs to run. But again, he has no car
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and he has no money.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to Friday, June 12th, the day Victoria
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: brought her newspaper inside for the final time. Glee picks
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: up his phone and calls Victoria again. Phone records pulled
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: by investigators show it was a brief call lasting only
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: about two minutes.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: We do not know exactly what lie he told her.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe he said he was sick. Maybe he said he
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: was facing eviction and needed help with rent again. But
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: whatever manipulation he used, it worked.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Her charity was her downfall.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Victoria, practicing her everyday charity, gets into her white Camry
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and drives back to 2110 Monday Road.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: When she arrives, Glea's instrumental logic takes over again. He
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: realizes two fundamental things. First, he needs her car to
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: escape the state, and he needs her money to fund
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the trip.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Second, and far more importantly, Victoria is the only person
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: on Earth who can place him with Toyin Salau on
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: the night she vanished. She is the ultimate loose end.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: According to the source material, when Victoria realizes the danger
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: she is in inside that cabin, she is terrified. She
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: desperately tries to barter for her life. She tells him
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: about the envelope of cash back at her apartment.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: $ 750?
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: She explicitly tells him it is there, hoping that offering
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: him the money will satisfy him and he will let
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: her go.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: And this completely demystifies the crime scene at Victoria's apartment.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: It explains exactly why the apartment was selectively tossed and
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the envelope was taken while the heavy safe was ignored.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It makes perfect sense now.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Glee was not a burglar searching for valuables. He was
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: executing a targeted extraction because Victoria told him exactly where
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: the cash was in a desperate bid to survive. But
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: the offer was not enough. He could not leave a
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: witness behind.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: It is a staggering, heartbreaking irony. So what does this
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: all mean? It means Victoria's boundless empathy was weaponized against her.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: She literally provided the transportation for Toyin's abduction, completely unaware
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: of what she was facilitating. And then she was murdered
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: to cover up the very crime she unknowingly helped put
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: in motion.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: By the evening of June 13th, the police have finally
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: connected the dots. They have the missing person report for Victoria.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: They know what the neighbors tip regarding Aaron Glee. And
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: they secure an emergency ping on Victoria's cell phone.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: They finally have a location.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: They pull the live location data. And it leads them
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: away from her apartment complex and straight into the wooded
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: residential area of Monday Road.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: The search pivots immediately. They pull the K-9 units away
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: from her apartment and redirect a full tactical team to
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: a 2110 Monday Road. The officers arrive at this dense,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: overgrown property.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: It is Florida in June.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Right. The vegetation is thick. The humidity is high, which
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: traps scents close to the ground. And there, sitting northeast
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of the cabin, is Victoria's white Camry.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: The state of the car tells a story of immediate
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: frantic panic. It is hopelessly stuck in the mud. You
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: can see the chaotic physical evidence of a killer realizing
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: his escape plan has failed.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: It is a total mess.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: The tire changing tools are thrown about. A wooden board
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: is wedged under the tire. He tried to hide the
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: car with a canvas sheet and bent the license plate,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: but it was useless. The getaway vehicle was grounded.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: While the officers are securing the perimeter around the car,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: they hear a phone ringing.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, the discarded phone.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: The sound is coming from a trash can outside the house.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: They look inside and find Victoria's phone and her ID
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: just tossed away.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: At this point, the tactical team breaches the cabin. They
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: announce themselves, Tallahassee Police Department, come out with your hands up.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: They clear the kitchen. And as we mentioned at the
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: very beginning of this deep dive, they are hit with
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: the smell of fresh cigarette smoke. It means he was
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: just there.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: They move down the narrow hallway to the northwest bedroom.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: And that is where they find Victoria.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: The scene they encounter is devastating. Victoria is lying face down.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: She is covered with a white blanket that is heavily
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: soaked in blood. The officers immediately notice the restraints. Her
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: hands and her feet have been bound behind her back.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And the autopsy later confirms the brutal reality of how
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: she died. Her throat had been cut. The medical examiner
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: noted a wound measuring seven inches wide and nearly two
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and a half inches deep.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: It was horrific.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: She died from massive blood loss. It was an execution-style murder.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: It is a profound escalation of violence. But the horror
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: of Monday Road was not contained to just that bedroom.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Because as the officers are securing the cabin, the K-9
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: units are still pushing through the thick brush outside, searching
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: for any scent trail left by Glee.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: The K-9 team pushes about 35 yards away from where
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the Camry is stuck in the mud. And they find
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a $ 10 bill just lying on the ground. A dropped
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: piece of evidence from a man fleeing in a panic.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: He is getting careless.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: The dogs pick up the scent. and pull the officers deeper.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: They go to their hundred yards into the dense woods
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: behind the property.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And under a pile of leaves, hidden from view, they
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: discover the decomposing body of Twain Salau. She had been
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: dead for roughly a week. But what strikes the investigators immediately,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: beyond the sheer tragedy of finding this 19-year-old girl, is
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: the methodology of her restraints.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: The source material is very specific about this, and it
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: is deeply disturbing. She was not just tied up. Her
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: hands and her feet were tied behind her back, just
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: like Victoria's. Yes. But Glee took it a step further
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: with Toyne. He connected the bindings on her wrists and
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: ankles to a restraint around her neck.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: In forensic pathology, this is known as a specific type
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: of ligature restraint designed to induce positional asphyxia.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Positional asphyxia?
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Yes. It is a form of restraint designed to cause
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: maximum suffering. If the victim struggles, if they try to
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: straighten their legs to relieve the muscle cramping or lower
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: their arms to relieve the shoulder strain, the physical tension
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: tightens the cord around their neck.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: That is just evil.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: The medical examiner later determined that Toyin died from asphyxiation
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: caused precisely by this configuration.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: This detail completely changes how I view this guy. This
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: isn't just a robbery gone wrong or a spontaneous act
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of violence. The specific way these women were restrained, it
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: is a gruesome signature.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: It adds the difference between a crime of opportunity and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: a predator who has a terrifyingly specific methodology. It implies
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: he had thought about this. He knew exactly what he
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: was doing with those ropes to inflict psychological and physical torture.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: It demonstrates a chilling level of sadism and control. In
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: profiling terms, we separate the modus operandi, which is what
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: an offender needs to do to accomplish the crime, from
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: the signature, which is what an offender does to satisfy
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: their psychological needs. The complex bindings were not strictly necessary
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: to kill her. They were necessary to satisfy his need
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: for absolute domination. The officers standing in those woods realize
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: they are dealing with an individual capable of unimaginable cruelty
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: who is currently loose in the community.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Tallahassee police are now in a full-blown race against time.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: They have two bodies. They have an abandoned, stuck getaway car.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: And they have a serial killer who knows they are
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: onto him.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: So how does Glee escape? He realizes the car is useless.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: He abandons his phone to avoid GPS tracking. He abandons
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: his luggage.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: He's traveling light.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Very light. He leaves Tallahassee with nothing but the clothes
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: on his back and whatever cash he managed to steal
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: from Victoria's apartment. He makes his way to the Greyhound
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: bus station.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Public transit again. He buys a one-way ticket to West
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Palm Beach, paying in cash to avoid leaving a digital
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: footprint with a credit card. He knows he has family
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: down there. The bus leaves Tallahassee, it makes a stop
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: in Ocala, and it continues south.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: But law enforcement is moving faster. They track his movements
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: to the transit system. Historically, interstate bus lines have been
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: frequent vectors for fleeing fugitives because they do not require
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: the strict identification of air travel.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Investigators coordinate with Orlando police because they know his specific
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: bus is scheduled to route through their terminal. And at
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: roughly 1230 in the morning on Sunday, June 14th, Orlando
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: police spot him.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: And talk about a close call. The bus is scheduled
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: to depart Orlando and continue to West Palm Beach at 1245. Yes,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: very close. The police grab him inside the terminal with
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: just 15 minutes to spare. 15 minutes later, and he
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: would have been gone, vanishing into the sprawl of South Florida.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: But once he is in custody, Glee employs a malingering
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: tactic we see quite often with individuals like this when
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: they are finally cornered.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: What does he do?
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: He claims he is having a medical emergency. He complains
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: of chest pains and difficulty breathing, likely as a ploy
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: to avoid being taken directly to an interrogation room or
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: a jail cell.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: He wants the comfort of a hospital bed. But this
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: decision to go to the hospital ends up cementing the
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: case against him. Because while he is lying in that
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: hospital bed, guarded by police officers who have their body
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: cameras actively rolling, Glee asks to make a phone call
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to his mother and his stepfather.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: And it is during these phone calls, captured perfectly on
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: police audio, that Aaron Glee casually, almost conversationally, admits to
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: the murders. He outlines his cold, brutal logic, For anyone listening.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: He actually tells his family, and by extension the officers
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: guarding him, exactly why he did it. He says Toyin
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: was going to report him for the sexual assault, so
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: she had to die. It was a purely transactional decision
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: in his mind. She was a liability to his freedom.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: And as for Victoria, he admits that she had a
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: car he needed, she had money he wanted, and crucially
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: she could place him with Toyin, so she had to
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: die too.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: He confesses to the specific details, like tying Toyin up
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: in that horrific manner, cutting Victoria's throat. He lays it
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: all out without a shred of remorse.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I look at this guy and I see this extreme,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: baffling contradiction. He has the cunning to manipulate two entirely
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: different women's vulnerabilities playing on Toyin's trauma and Victoria's charity.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: He is meticulous enough to use a complex, torturous, binding method.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Yet he lacks the basic foresight to execute his own getaway.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: That contradiction is the hallmark of a deeply disorganized personality
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: masked by brief moments of predatory calculation.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: He is arrogant enough to believe he can get away
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: with a double homicide, but incompetent enough to get his
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: stolen getaway car stuck in the mud in his own
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: front yard.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: The irony is astounding.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: He leaves his victim ID in his own trash can.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: He drops money in the woods. And he flees on
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: a public Greyhound bus where his movements are entirely predictable.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: He was not a criminal mastermind. He was just a
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: brutal opportunist. And eventually the legal system caught up to
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: that brutality. In June of 2023, Aaron Lee Glee Jr.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to the murders. He did this to avoid
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: facing the death penalty. And on September 22nd of that year,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: possibility of parole.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: The sentence ensures he will never breathe free air again.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: It permanently removes him from the public. But as the
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: source material rightly points out, It came three years too
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: late for two women who deserved so much better from
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: the systems designed to protect them.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: We look at the core tragedy here, and it is
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: just devastating. You have two women from completely different generations.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Toyin Salau, a 19-year-old with her whole life ahead of her,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: fighting for systemic justice out in the streets.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: And Victoria Sims, a 75-year-old practicing quiet, everyday charity in
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: her own neighborhood.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: They did not know each other. They walked completely different
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: paths in life. but they were both fundamentally driven by
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: a desire to make the world around them better. And
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: they both lost their lives because a predator recognized their
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: willingness to trust and exploited it with absolute ruthlessness.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Which leaves me thinking about something much larger than just
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: this case. We've talked a lot today about bust-offs, these
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: transient spaces where glee hunted.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: The liminal spaces. Right.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: We live in an era where we have endless digital tracking.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: We have cell phone pings, surveillance cameras, algorithms that determine bail.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Yet our physical liminal spaces, like a bus stop at night,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: have never been more isolated.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: It is a stark contrast.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: We are engineering cities where public transit hubs are devoid
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: of capable guardians. In our rush to digitize public safety,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: have we completely abandoned the architectural and communal design that
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: actually keeps vulnerable people safe in the physical world?
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: That is a very profound question.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Because in a world where we are constantly told to
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: look out for one another, to offer a ride, to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: lend a few dollars, to trust our neighbors, how do
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: we protect the virtue of community compassion without exposing ourselves
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: to the predators hiding in plain sight? It is a
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: dark line to walk between self-preservation and losing our humanity entirely.