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The Cop Suspected of Murdering Josh Davis · Crime Night

0:00
Speaker 1: So I want you to just transport yourself for a second. Here. Okay,
0:02
Speaker 1: it's January two thousand and four, we're just a few
0:05
Speaker 1: days past New Years, and you're in Garner, North Carolina.
0:07
Speaker 2: Right.
0:07
Speaker 3: So you've got that crisp, kind of heavy post holiday
0:11
Speaker 3: chill in.
0:11
Speaker 2: The air exactly.
0:12
Speaker 1: And we're standing on Hall Boulevard, which is just this
0:15
Speaker 1: totally ordinary, slow paced suburban street, and there's this classic
0:21
Speaker 1: teenage scene unfolding. You've got sixteen year old Josh Davis
0:26
Speaker 1: and his buddy Michael, and they're just hanging out on
0:28
Speaker 1: the shoulder of the road, you know, killing.
0:29
Speaker 2: Time, doing what teenagers do.
0:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're practicing the lyrics to the latest rap hit.
0:34
Speaker 1: I mean, if you remember the radio back in early
0:37
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, it was probably outcast. Hey yah,
0:40
Speaker 1: just bouncing around in their heads.
0:41
Speaker 2: It's definitely was everywhere.
0:43
Speaker 1: Right. So, as they're standing there, Josh's thirteen year old
0:46
Speaker 1: sister Alyssa, actually drives past with a friend. They're heading
0:50
Speaker 1: out to do some shopping. She rolls down the window,
0:52
Speaker 1: casually waves goodbye to her brother and just keeps driving.
0:56
Speaker 1: Just a completely normal day, a completely mundane, totally forgettable interaction.
1:01
Speaker 1: I mean, she has absolutely no idea that is the
1:03
Speaker 1: last time she will ever see her brother alive.
1:06
Speaker 2: Wow.
1:07
Speaker 3: And you know, the human brain really struggles with that
1:11
Speaker 3: kind of jarring transition. It does, going from a completely
1:14
Speaker 3: ordinary afternoon in suburbia to just a catastrophic reality in
1:19
Speaker 3: a matter of minutes. It creates a very specific type
1:23
Speaker 3: of psychological shock. I mean, one moment you're waving at
1:26
Speaker 3: your sibling. In the next, the entire foundation of your
1:29
Speaker 3: world collapses.
1:30
Speaker 1: And that collapse it happens incredibly fast here, because Alissa
1:35
Speaker 1: is barely at the store before her phone buzzes and
1:37
Speaker 1: it's a text message from her dad. Okay, and the
1:39
Speaker 1: message is so out of left field, so just completely
1:42
Speaker 1: incongruous with this sunny afternoon that her brain actually refuses
1:46
Speaker 1: to process it at first. Her dad says, Josh has
1:48
Speaker 1: been hit by a car and they are rushing to
1:50
Speaker 1: the hospital. Oh my gosh, and Alyssa assumes it's a
1:52
Speaker 1: sick joke, like she actually finishes checking out at the
1:55
Speaker 1: cash register before heading back to.
1:56
Speaker 2: Hall Boulevard because you just don't want to believe it exactly.
2:00
Speaker 1: The reality only really crashes down on her when she
2:03
Speaker 1: turns down her street. I mean, your stomach drops just
2:05
Speaker 1: picturing it. Her quiet neighborhood is suddenly this sea of
2:09
Speaker 1: flashing red and blue police lights. The streets are barricaded
2:12
Speaker 1: with yellow tape. There's an ambulance idling there. But the final,
2:17
Speaker 1: just devastating blow comes the moment she steps inside her house.
2:20
Speaker 1: In the phone rings. It's her nana and she tells
2:23
Speaker 1: her Josh.
2:23
Speaker 3: Is dead, which is just I mean, the immediate grief
2:26
Speaker 3: there is heavily compounded by this massive, glaring void of information. Yeah,
2:31
Speaker 3: because logically, a listen, no, she just saw him walking
2:34
Speaker 3: down a twenty five mile per hour residential street in broad.
2:37
Speaker 1: Daylight, right with his best friend.
2:39
Speaker 3: Exactly, so the window of time was minuscular. The mechanics
2:44
Speaker 3: of a fatal hit and run happening in that tiny gap,
2:47
Speaker 3: it simply doesn't make sense to a grieving family.
2:49
Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense at all. And that's why
2:51
Speaker 1: we're doing this. What we're doing in this deep dive
2:53
Speaker 1: is pulling apart the files of a twenty two year
2:56
Speaker 1: old mystery that, for literally decades was written off as
3:00
Speaker 1: a tragic traffic accident in a sleepy small town.
3:03
Speaker 2: But that's not the whole story is it.
3:05
Speaker 1: No, not at all, because this case was just blown
3:08
Speaker 1: wide open by a shocking search warrant that was executed
3:12
Speaker 1: in March of twenty twenty six.
3:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, the new developments are wild.
3:16
Speaker 1: They really are. So our mission in this deep dive
3:19
Speaker 1: is to walk you through this impossible timeline, examine the
3:23
Speaker 1: severe psychological toll this took on a grieving family, and
3:26
Speaker 1: ultimately break down the behavioral anomalies of a suspect that
3:30
Speaker 1: literally nobody saw coming.
3:33
Speaker 3: It really serves as a phenomenal case study in how
3:36
Speaker 3: initial assumptions by law enforcement can just completely derail an
3:39
Speaker 3: investigation for decades one hundred percent. But on the flip side,
3:43
Speaker 3: it also demonstrates how modern digital forensics, you know, when
3:46
Speaker 3: applied with fresh eyes, can finally trap as us back
3:48
Speaker 3: to who really thought they had beaten the system.
3:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's unpack this official accident timeline first, because
3:54
Speaker 1: the physics of a vehicle strike here just do not
3:56
Speaker 1: align with the witness statements.
3:58
Speaker 2: At all, not even a little bit.
3:59
Speaker 1: Right. So, according to Michael, this is the friend who
4:02
Speaker 1: is with Josh. They're walking down Hall Boulevard when they
4:04
Speaker 1: realized they forgot the rap CD they wanted to listen to.
4:07
Speaker 1: So Michael says to Josh, hang tight, real quick, I'll
4:11
Speaker 1: be right back, Okay. He leaves Josh on the side
4:13
Speaker 1: of the road and jogs back to his house. He's
4:16
Speaker 1: gone for single digit minutes, but when he returns, Josh
4:19
Speaker 1: is lying on the ground bleeding. In just a few minutes,
4:23
Speaker 1: just a few minutes, and there is no car in sight.
4:26
Speaker 1: There were no screeching tires, there was no sound of
4:28
Speaker 1: a collision, just silence.
4:31
Speaker 3: And the environment is crucial here too. I mean, Hall
4:34
Speaker 3: Boulevard is a quiet residential zone. It has a twenty
4:38
Speaker 3: five mile per hour speed limit. Yeah, sound travels easily in.
4:41
Speaker 2: A place like that.
4:42
Speaker 3: A vehicle accelerating, breaking hard, or making an impact of
4:46
Speaker 3: that magnitude, it would generate significant acoustic signatures that someone
4:51
Speaker 3: just a few houses away would undeniably hear exactly.
4:54
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like a poorly executed magic trick. You
4:57
Speaker 1: cannot dissipate the kinetic energy and the noise of a
5:00
Speaker 1: fatal collision in a twenty five mile per hoor zone
5:02
Speaker 1: in mere.
5:03
Speaker 2: Seconds, right, Physics just doesn't work that way.
5:05
Speaker 1: Well, A car going fast enough to cause fatal trauma
5:08
Speaker 1: doesn't just vanish without a sound, and the family they
5:11
Speaker 1: recognize this.
5:12
Speaker 2: Immediately, which is totally understandable.
5:14
Speaker 1: So their first instinct, naturally was to look at Michael.
5:17
Speaker 1: I mean, they brought him into their home, sat him down,
5:20
Speaker 1: and really pressure tested his story.
5:22
Speaker 2: They had to know for sure.
5:23
Speaker 1: But Michael was completely forthcoming with Josh's dad. He cooperated
5:27
Speaker 1: fully with the police, and his timeline never wavered. The
5:32
Speaker 1: family genuinely believed he was telling the truth, that he
5:35
Speaker 1: really just went back for that CD.
5:37
Speaker 3: And what's fascinating here is that once the primary witness
5:40
Speaker 3: is cleared by both the police and the victim's family,
5:43
Speaker 3: you're left with this phantom vehicle.
5:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, this ghost car.
5:47
Speaker 3: Right, So the family put up a massive billboard offering
5:50
Speaker 3: a ten thousand dollars reward for information on the driver
5:53
Speaker 3: because they were operating under the assumption that someone made
5:56
Speaker 3: a terrible mistake, panicked and fled.
5:58
Speaker 1: But then the funeral happened, and this is where the
6:00
Speaker 1: narrative completely fractures. I want you to picture being thirteen
6:05
Speaker 1: year old Alissa. You're walking up to an open casket
6:08
Speaker 1: to say goodbye to your big brother.
6:09
Speaker 2: That's just incredibly heavy.
6:11
Speaker 1: It is, and she's bracing her mind, you know, to
6:13
Speaker 1: see the horrific mangled damage that's caused by a speeding
6:18
Speaker 1: two ton vehicle. But she looks down into the casket
6:21
Speaker 1: and Josh looks immaculate. Wow, he looks exactly like himself.
6:25
Speaker 1: The only thing out of place is a small single
6:29
Speaker 1: patch of makeup on his temple, covering one isolated mark.
6:33
Speaker 3: And see the visual evidence in that casket is the
6:35
Speaker 3: thread that unravels the entire hit and run theory. How so,
6:39
Speaker 3: what we really need to look at the mechanism of
6:41
Speaker 3: energy transfer in an automotive pedestrian collision. A vehicle traveling
6:45
Speaker 3: at twenty five miles per hour carries an immense amount
6:48
Speaker 3: of kinetic energy. Right when two tons of steel strike
6:51
Speaker 3: a human body, that energy disperses violently across multiple points.
6:56
Speaker 3: You expect to see lower extremity fractures where the bumper
6:58
Speaker 3: hits the legs.
6:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
7:00
Speaker 3: You expect blunt force trauma to the torso from the hood,
7:03
Speaker 3: secondary impacts with the windshield as the body is thrown,
7:06
Speaker 3: and severe road rash from skiding across the asphalt.
7:09
Speaker 1: But Josh didn't have any of that. And the police, honestly,
7:13
Speaker 1: they tried to wave that away. When the autopsy report
7:16
Speaker 1: confirmed the cause of death was a single traumatic blunt
7:19
Speaker 1: force hit to the head near the temple, investigators pitch
7:22
Speaker 1: this totally freak scenario.
7:24
Speaker 2: Oh, the side mirror theory.
7:26
Speaker 1: Yes, they told the family Josh might have been leaning
7:28
Speaker 1: down to tie his shoe and a passing car's side
7:31
Speaker 1: mirror clipped him perfectly in the head, killing him instantly
7:35
Speaker 1: without bruising the rest of his body.
7:37
Speaker 3: I mean, the statistical probability of a side mirror causing
7:41
Speaker 3: a fatal, isolated strike to the temple while leaving the
7:44
Speaker 3: rest of the body completely untouched vanishingly small.
7:47
Speaker 1: It's basically impossible.
7:48
Speaker 3: Right, The physical evidence dictates a completely different reality. A
7:52
Speaker 3: single fatal traumatic strike to the temple with no other
7:55
Speaker 3: bodily injuries suggests a targeted.
7:58
Speaker 2: Strike with a weapon.
7:59
Speaker 3: A weapon, Yes, it points to someone swinging a heavy
8:02
Speaker 3: object directly at his head with lethal intent.
8:05
Speaker 1: And that shift the realization that this was a planned killing.
8:08
Speaker 1: It completely changes the landscape of the investigation. You're no
8:11
Speaker 1: longer looking for a reckless, panicking driver.
8:14
Speaker 3: No, you're looking for a killer with a specific motive exactly,
8:18
Speaker 3: and finding a motive requires dissecting the victim's life, investigators
8:22
Speaker 3: have to look for enemies, hidden conflicts, or secret lives.
8:26
Speaker 3: And this raises an important question because in a town
8:29
Speaker 3: like Garner, that kind of inquiry acts as a catalyst
8:32
Speaker 3: for community paranoia.
8:34
Speaker 1: Oh. Absolutely, Garner is a town with just one high school.
8:38
Speaker 1: It's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and
8:40
Speaker 1: if everyone knows everyone, secrets don't really exist.
8:43
Speaker 2: Right.
8:43
Speaker 1: But when the community couldn't make sense of Josh's murder,
8:46
Speaker 1: this really malicious gossip filled the vacuum. I mean, imagine Alissa,
8:51
Speaker 1: just weeks after burying her brother, gathering the courage to
8:55
Speaker 1: return to eighth grade.
8:56
Speaker 2: Gosh, that had to be so hard.
8:58
Speaker 1: She walks onto campus carrying this immense, suffocating grief, and
9:01
Speaker 1: a girl walks right up to her and says, your
9:04
Speaker 1: brother got what he deserved.
9:05
Speaker 3: That is just awful. But psychologically, people use gossip like
9:09
Speaker 3: that as a defensive coping mechanism.
9:11
Speaker 1: Really, how does that work?
9:13
Speaker 3: Well, If the community can convince themselves that Josh was
9:15
Speaker 3: involved in something dark, it means their own children are
9:18
Speaker 3: safe from.
9:19
Speaker 2: A random killer. Ah.
9:20
Speaker 1: I see.
9:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. The rumor circulating was that Josh had recently gone
9:23
Speaker 3: to the movies and gotten into a severe secret altercation.
9:27
Speaker 1: And so Alyssa was suddenly confronted with this terrifying idea
9:31
Speaker 1: that her brother had a hidden life. I mean, teenagers
9:34
Speaker 1: live deeply compartmentalized lives, right, They keep massive secrets from
9:38
Speaker 1: their parents always. So if Josh was targeted for a
9:40
Speaker 1: reason the family didn't know, they had absolutely no idea
9:43
Speaker 1: who was coming next. And that uncertainty bread this absolute
9:48
Speaker 1: physical terror inside the Davis home.
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Speaker 3: Because living with an unidentified threat in a small town
9:54
Speaker 3: is quite literally psychological warfare. You were breathing the same air,
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Speaker 3: shopping at the same stores, and driving the same streets
10:02
Speaker 3: as the person who murdered your family member.
10:04
Speaker 1: Let me paint a picture for you of how that
10:06
Speaker 1: terror physically manifested. Because the youngest sister, Lauren, she was
10:10
Speaker 1: only two years.
10:11
Speaker 2: Old when Josh was murdered, just a toddler.
10:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as she grew up, her core childhood memories
10:16
Speaker 1: consisted of watching her mother pace the hallways of their
10:19
Speaker 1: home clutching a heavy metal pipe wrench. Oh my goodness,
10:22
Speaker 1: her mother would just grip this tool, terrified, listening to
10:25
Speaker 1: the quiet hum of the house because the house phone
10:28
Speaker 1: would ring and anonymous voices would whisper through the receiver.
10:33
Speaker 1: You next or we know who did it.
10:35
Speaker 3: The trauma just layers upon itself. I mean, the family
10:38
Speaker 3: is living in a perpetual state of siege, armed with
10:40
Speaker 3: hand tools in their own living room, while the official
10:43
Speaker 3: police investigation stagnates. It totally stalled, right, Detective cycle in
10:47
Speaker 3: and out, every tip, every cruel high school rumor is
10:51
Speaker 3: handed over, and just nothing materializes.
10:54
Speaker 1: Nothing. For over two decades, the only update the family
10:58
Speaker 1: received was an occasional just Daryl Facebook post from the
11:01
Speaker 1: Garner Police Department on the anniversary of Josh's death asking
11:04
Speaker 1: the public for tips. But then we fast forward through
11:07
Speaker 1: twenty two years of silence and the case suddenly moves
11:10
Speaker 1: in March of twenty twenty six.
11:12
Speaker 2: This is where it gets crazy.
11:13
Speaker 1: It really does. A new case. Detective Michael Hammerstein takes
11:16
Speaker 1: over and he brings fresh eyes and a modern understanding
11:20
Speaker 1: of digital forensics to this file that's just been gathering dust.
11:23
Speaker 2: Thank goodness for that.
11:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hammerstein calls the family completely out of the blue,
11:29
Speaker 1: and he doesn't just have a minor update. He tells
11:31
Speaker 1: them they're serving a search warrant and he wants to
11:34
Speaker 1: brace them for the name on that.
11:36
Speaker 2: Warrant, because it's a huge shock.
11:37
Speaker 1: The suspect is Megan Potter, and the twist, Megan Potter
11:42
Speaker 1: is a sworn police officer in the nearby town of
11:44
Speaker 1: Ford Oaks.
11:45
Speaker 2: See.
11:45
Speaker 3: Introducing a suspect who wears a badge fundamentally alters the
11:50
Speaker 3: dynamic of a homicide investigation. I can imagine you're dealing
11:53
Speaker 3: with an individual who understands the internal machinery of the
11:56
Speaker 3: justice system. They know how evidence is collected, how interviews
11:59
Speaker 3: are conducted, and exactly how to manipulate the investigative blind spots.
12:03
Speaker 1: And the family is sitting in their living room utterly stunned.
12:07
Speaker 1: Megan Potter was four years older than Josh. They were
12:10
Speaker 1: not in the same social circles. Her name had never
12:12
Speaker 1: once come up in any of the nasty small town
12:15
Speaker 1: rumors or those threatening phone.
12:16
Speaker 2: Calls, so they're wondering, how does she.
12:18
Speaker 1: Connect to this exactly Desperate for a connection, the family
12:21
Speaker 1: goes digging through their attic. They pull out these old
12:23
Speaker 1: boxes and find the dusty, velvet bound guest book from
12:27
Speaker 1: Josh's two thousand and four funeral. They flip through the
12:30
Speaker 1: pages of signatures and the blood just drains from their
12:33
Speaker 1: faces when they see it in black and white ink.
12:35
Speaker 1: Megan Potter attended the funeral.
12:37
Speaker 3: Oh wow, and you know we see this behavioral marker
12:40
Speaker 3: in organized defenders.
12:41
Speaker 2: Quite a bit.
12:42
Speaker 1: Really, why do they do that?
12:44
Speaker 3: Inserting oneself into the aftermath of a crime serves multiple
12:48
Speaker 3: psychological functions. While sometimes it's driven by a twisted sense
12:52
Speaker 3: of remorse, an offender with a law enforcement mindset usually
12:56
Speaker 3: attends a funeral for intelligence gathering, So.
12:58
Speaker 1: She was running counter surveillance exactly. She treated a teenager's
13:02
Speaker 1: funeral like a reconnaissance mission to see if anyone was
13:04
Speaker 1: looking her way. She needed to gauge the police presence,
13:08
Speaker 1: listen to the family's whispers, and assert this silent, invisible
13:12
Speaker 1: dominance by standing over the casket of the person she killed.
13:15
Speaker 3: It is the ultimate display of control. The question investigators
13:19
Speaker 3: had to answer in twenty twenty six, though, was how
13:21
Speaker 3: someone with that level of calculated control actually managed to
13:25
Speaker 3: slip up.
13:26
Speaker 1: Well, the breakthrough came from an old tip that was
13:28
Speaker 1: honestly just bafflingly ignored. According to the search warrant, Megan
13:32
Speaker 1: Potter's ex husband called the Garner police back in twenty ten,
13:36
Speaker 1: and he pointed the finger directly at her for Josh's homicide.
13:40
Speaker 1: But for reasons we still don't fully understand, that twenty
13:43
Speaker 1: ten tip completely stalled. The original detectives never took action.
13:47
Speaker 3: Which is incredibly frustrating.
13:49
Speaker 1: It is, but when detective Hammerstein took over the cold case,
13:52
Speaker 1: he recognized the value of reinterviewing that witness fifteen years later,
13:57
Speaker 1: and the ex husband's story was per consistent.
14:01
Speaker 2: And that is huge.
14:02
Speaker 3: Consistency over a fifteen year gap is an incredibly powerful
14:05
Speaker 3: tool for an investigator.
14:07
Speaker 1: Why is that so important.
14:08
Speaker 3: Because human memory naturally degrades over time, right, But a
14:12
Speaker 3: fabricated story usually shatters completely when tested a decade and
14:15
Speaker 3: a half later. The fact that his narrative held up
14:18
Speaker 3: gave detective Hammerstein the leverage needed to confront the suspect directly.
14:22
Speaker 1: And Megan's story, on the other hand, facted Because the
14:26
Speaker 1: warrant notes that detectives originally spoke to her back in
14:28
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. We don't know what her initial
14:30
Speaker 1: alibi was, but when detectives called her in September of
14:33
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, her new statement completely contradicted her two
14:38
Speaker 1: thousand and four statement.
14:39
Speaker 2: Oh that's a massive red flag.
14:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, and her behavior during this twenty twenty five phone
14:43
Speaker 1: call is basically a masterclass in panic masking as arrogance.
14:48
Speaker 2: It really is.
14:49
Speaker 3: We see a collision here between an offender's fear of
14:51
Speaker 3: discovery and a police officer's ingrained sense of superiority.
14:56
Speaker 1: Right off the bat, completely unprompted, Megan tells the homicide detective,
15:00
Speaker 1: I know my ex husband implicated me.
15:02
Speaker 2: Wow.
15:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, she is volunteering crucial information, trying to show them
15:06
Speaker 1: she's already a step ahead. The detectives play it cool
15:09
Speaker 1: and ask her to come in for a standard in
15:11
Speaker 1: person interview. She flat out refuses, just says no, just
15:14
Speaker 1: says no. She becomes totally uncooperative and issues a demand.
15:18
Speaker 1: She tells the detectives investigating her for murder that she
15:21
Speaker 1: will only be interviewed at her own police department in
15:23
Speaker 1: four oaks.
15:24
Speaker 3: See, she's attempting to control the venue in the power dynamic.
15:27
Speaker 3: She's treating homicide detectives like rookies. She can just order
15:30
Speaker 3: around right by demanding the interview happen on her terse
15:34
Speaker 3: surrounded by her own colleagues, She's trying to intimidate the investigators,
15:39
Speaker 3: but suspects, even those with badges, do not get to
15:43
Speaker 3: dictate terms to homicide detectives.
15:45
Speaker 1: And the detectives inform her of that reality, but her
15:48
Speaker 1: response is just dripping with attitude. She says, I'll think
15:51
Speaker 1: about it and call you back, and then she ghosts them.
15:54
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
15:55
Speaker 1: She stops responding to all calls and text messages. She
15:58
Speaker 1: operates under the assumption that if she ignores the problem,
16:01
Speaker 1: they'll eventually go away, just like the detectives did in
16:04
Speaker 1: twenty ten.
16:05
Speaker 3: But ignoring a homicide detective in twenty twenty five is
16:07
Speaker 3: a fatal miscalculation. It really is because the digital footprint
16:11
Speaker 3: is evolved immensely since twenty ten. Investigators now have tools
16:15
Speaker 3: to track behavior silently.
16:16
Speaker 1: And they use those tools perfectly. The detectives set a
16:19
Speaker 1: brilliant digital trap when she goes dark. They run an
16:23
Speaker 1: audit on her CJ leads account.
16:25
Speaker 2: Okay, let's explain what that is.
16:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, CJ leads is a strict law enforcement only
16:30
Speaker 1: database in North Carolina. It holds highly sensitive information, addresses,
16:35
Speaker 1: criminal records, emergency contact info.
16:38
Speaker 3: All of it right stuff the public can't just.
16:40
Speaker 1: Google exactly, and you are only legally allowed to use
16:43
Speaker 1: it for active cases you are officially assigned to the
16:46
Speaker 1: system is actually designed as a digital trip wire. Every
16:50
Speaker 1: single keystroke leaves an indelible fingerprint.
16:53
Speaker 2: That's right.
16:53
Speaker 1: And the audit revealed that right after the homicide detectives
16:56
Speaker 1: contacted her officer, Megan Potter logged in to this secure
17:00
Speaker 1: database and illegally ran a search on her ex husband.
17:03
Speaker 3: And if we connect this to the bigger picture, legally,
17:07
Speaker 3: that unauthorized search gives investigators what we call a predicate.
17:10
Speaker 1: Offense predicate offen Yeah, and break it down.
17:12
Speaker 3: But predicate offense is a smaller, easily provable crime that
17:16
Speaker 3: acts as illegal stepping stone. The tekas might not have
17:19
Speaker 3: had enough physical evidence to convince a judge to sign
17:22
Speaker 3: a murder warrant for a twenty two year old cold case. However,
17:26
Speaker 3: abusing a secure police database is a clear documented cybercrime
17:30
Speaker 3: committed today.
17:31
Speaker 1: Oh that makes sense.
17:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, that illegal digital search provided the exact undeniable probable
17:37
Speaker 3: cause a judge needed to sign a search warrant for
17:40
Speaker 3: her property.
17:41
Speaker 1: She thought she was running counter surveillance on her accuser,
17:44
Speaker 1: trying to see what the police knew about him. Instead,
17:47
Speaker 1: she triggered the very alarm she was trying to avoid.
17:50
Speaker 2: It's poetic justice, really it is.
17:52
Speaker 1: And that digital misstep culminated. On March thirty first, twenty
17:55
Speaker 1: twenty six, detectives executed a search warrant on Meghan Potter's home.
18:00
Speaker 1: He sees an iPhone and Adele laptop as potential evidence.
18:03
Speaker 2: Big day for the case, Huge day.
18:05
Speaker 1: The Fort Oaks Police Department immediately placed Megan on administrative
18:09
Speaker 1: leave pending the outcome of the criminal investigation. Now, while
18:13
Speaker 1: she hasn't been formally charged with murder yet, Detective Hammerstein
18:16
Speaker 1: has confirmed this is a hot, active investigation moving rapidly
18:20
Speaker 1: behind the scenes.
18:21
Speaker 3: And investigators enter a crucial waiting period now. As digital
18:25
Speaker 3: forensics experts image those seased devices.
18:28
Speaker 1: What exactly are they looking for?
18:29
Speaker 3: They'll scour the hard drives for hidden evidence, perhaps old emails,
18:33
Speaker 3: deleted journal entries, or archive communications that corroborate the ex
18:37
Speaker 3: husband's tip or tie her directly to Josh's life in
18:41
Speaker 3: two thousand and four.
18:42
Speaker 1: And if you are listening to this and you know anything,
18:44
Speaker 1: I mean, if you lived in Garner in two thousand
18:46
Speaker 1: and four, if you heard the rumors about the movie theater,
18:49
Speaker 1: fight or if you know Meghan Potter, the Garner police
18:52
Speaker 1: desperately want to hear from you. Their tip line is
18:54
Speaker 1: nine one nine seven seven two eight one zero. You
18:58
Speaker 1: just ask for a Detective Hammerstein.
19:00
Speaker 3: People should feel safe coming forward now. The veil of
19:03
Speaker 3: invincibility surrounding this suspect has been pierced. When a corrupt
19:07
Speaker 3: authority figure is publicly exposed, it often acts as a beacon,
19:11
Speaker 3: encouraging hesitant witnesses who are previously too terrified to finally
19:14
Speaker 3: speak up.
19:15
Speaker 1: We really have to anchor this story back to the victims, though,
19:17
Speaker 1: because while the police are dealing with search warrants and
19:19
Speaker 1: seizing hard drives, Alyssa and Lauren are still just two
19:22
Speaker 1: sisters missing their brother.
19:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, the human cost is so high.
19:25
Speaker 1: Alissa was actually telling reporters about her vibrant memories of
19:28
Speaker 1: Josh doing crazy tricks on the trampoline in the backyard,
19:31
Speaker 1: you know, just laughing on sunny afternoons, the good times. Yeah.
19:35
Speaker 1: But Lauren, who was just a toddler when the murder happened,
19:38
Speaker 1: she only has one single memory of her brother, just one,
19:42
Speaker 1: just one. She remembers Josh sneaking her out of a window,
19:45
Speaker 1: so they could sit quietly on the roof and just
19:47
Speaker 1: watch the cars go by together. Wow, that is all
19:50
Speaker 1: she has of him. A lifetime of memory is reduced
19:54
Speaker 1: to a single fleeting image.
19:56
Speaker 3: The contrast between the innocence of those memories and the
20:00
Speaker 3: the brutal reality of the crime just really highlights the
20:04
Speaker 3: profound theft that occurred on Haull Boulevard.
20:06
Speaker 1: It really does. And as you picture that little girl
20:09
Speaker 1: sitting on the roof watching cars go by, I want
20:11
Speaker 1: to leave you with the chilling thought to maul over.
20:14
Speaker 2: Okay.
20:14
Speaker 1: For twenty two years, this family lived in absolute terror
20:17
Speaker 1: of anonymous threats. They clutched pipe wrenches in their living room,
20:21
Speaker 1: wondering what monster was hiding in their small town. All
20:24
Speaker 1: the while the prime suspect was a sworn police officer
20:27
Speaker 1: in the next town over. When the person sworn to
20:29
Speaker 1: protect and serve might be the very predator hiding in
20:32
Speaker 1: plain sight, you have to wonder over the last two decades,
20:35
Speaker 1: how many times did Officer Megan Potter drive her patrol
20:38
Speaker 1: car past the Davis family home wearing a badge, knowing
20:41
Speaker 1: exactly what she did on Hall Boulevard.