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The Murder of Jessie Blodgett · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine a town so safe, so thoroughly insulated from the
0:03
Speaker 1: chaos of the outside world, that they have only recorded
0:06
Speaker 1: three homicides in an entire century. Wow. Right. I mean,
0:10
Speaker 1: a town where you don't just leave your doors unlocked,
0:12
Speaker 1: you actually forget where your house keys are.
0:15
Speaker 2: You completely lose the muscle memory for suspicion.
0:18
Speaker 1: Exactly. You lose that instinct. Now, I want you to
0:21
Speaker 1: imagine that while you are sleeping soundly in that unlocked house,
0:25
Speaker 1: a monster is already sitting on your couch.
0:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
0:28
Speaker 1: And it is someone you invited inside.
0:31
Speaker 2: It is a terrifying premise, but, you know, it highlights
0:34
Speaker 2: a profound psychological vulnerability we all have.
0:37
Speaker 1: Okay, how so?
0:38
Speaker 2: Well, we are incredibly adaptable creatures, right? And when our
0:42
Speaker 2: environment provides absolutely no evidence of danger for decades on end,
0:47
Speaker 2: our threat detection systems, they simply shut down. We rely
0:50
Speaker 2: on a collective illusion of safety.
0:53
Speaker 1: And that illusion is exactly what we are going to
0:55
Speaker 1: shatter today. So welcome to this deep dive.
0:58
Speaker 2: Glad to be here.
0:59
Speaker 1: We are exploring a harrowing true story, and we're drawing
1:03
Speaker 1: directly from the transcripts of a documentary that chronicles the
1:06
Speaker 1: life and the incredibly tragic death of 19-year-old Jesse Blodgett
1:10
Speaker 1: in Hartford, Wisconsin.
1:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. And we are pulling from a very intimate stack
1:15
Speaker 2: of sources for this one.
1:16
Speaker 1: We really are.
1:16
Speaker 2: We're synthesizing firsthand accounts from the people who actually lived
1:20
Speaker 2: inside this nightmare. We have the voices of Jesse's parents,
1:24
Speaker 2: Buck and Joy Blodgett.
1:25
Speaker 1: Right.
1:26
Speaker 2: We have insights from her closest friends, like a young
1:28
Speaker 2: man named Ian Knights. We have the terrifying, meticulous testimony
1:33
Speaker 2: of a survivor named Melissa Etzler.
1:35
Speaker 1: Which is just incredible to read. It is.
1:38
Speaker 2: And finally, we have the procedural breakdown from the lead
1:40
Speaker 2: investigator on the case, Detective James Zwicky.
1:43
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Okay. Because I want you, the listener,
1:47
Speaker 1: to know right up front that this deep dive is
1:49
Speaker 1: not just a timeline of a crime.
1:51
Speaker 2: No, definitely not.
1:52
Speaker 1: We aren't just like reading a police blotter, do you?
1:54
Speaker 1: We are on a mission to understand the actual mechanics
1:57
Speaker 1: of a double life.
1:58
Speaker 2: Right. How someone hides in plain sight.
2:00
Speaker 1: Exactly. We want to figure out how a perfectly trusting
2:04
Speaker 1: environment creates these fatal blind spots. And we are going
2:08
Speaker 1: to look at one of the most astonishing displays of
2:11
Speaker 1: radical human forgiveness I have ever encountered.
2:14
Speaker 2: It really is a study in the absolute extremes of
2:17
Speaker 2: the human condition. It is. You have the brightest possible
2:20
Speaker 2: light radiating from a community. And it is suddenly violently
2:24
Speaker 2: intercepted by a darkness that literally no one saw coming.
2:27
Speaker 1: No one.
2:28
Speaker 2: And understanding why no one saw it coming is the
2:31
Speaker 2: crucial first step.
2:33
Speaker 1: Right. So let's start exactly there with the setting. Because Hartford, Wisconsin,
2:37
Speaker 1: isn't just a backdrop in this story.
2:39
Speaker 2: No, it's an active participant.
2:40
Speaker 1: It's an active participant in the psychology of everything that happens.
2:44
Speaker 1: The documentary paints this picture of quintessential small-town America.
2:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, very idyllic.
2:50
Speaker 1: Very idyllic. It's quiet. It's picturesque. It's the kind of
2:53
Speaker 1: place where everyone knows their neighbors. And then Detective Zawicki
2:56
Speaker 1: casually drops that statistic I mentioned earlier.
2:59
Speaker 2: Three homicides.
3:00
Speaker 1: Three homicides in 100 years of the city's history.
3:05
Speaker 2: When you really process that statistic, I mean, you start
3:08
Speaker 2: to understand the cognitive landscape of Hartford.
3:11
Speaker 1: What do you mean by cognitive landscape?
3:13
Speaker 2: Well, when violence only happens three times in a century...
3:17
Speaker 2: It stops being a tangible reality. It becomes a rumor. Right.
3:21
Speaker 1: It's like a myth.
3:22
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's something that happens on the evening news in
3:25
Speaker 2: major cities to people you don't know. So the both-line
3:29
Speaker 2: assumption for every single person you interact with is goodwill.
3:33
Speaker 1: Which is a beautiful way to live, honestly.
3:35
Speaker 2: It is. It fosters immense, deeply ingrained community trust. People collaborate.
3:41
Speaker 2: They look out for each other. They don't second-guess a
3:44
Speaker 2: neighbor's intentions.
3:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
3:45
Speaker 2: But biologically, psychologically, it disables the alarm system.
3:50
Speaker 1: It makes me think about my own hometown. If you're
3:52
Speaker 1: listening to this, just take a second and think about
3:54
Speaker 1: where you grew up or where you live right now. Right.
3:57
Speaker 1: We walk around feeling safe, but is that safety an
4:00
Speaker 1: empirical reality or is it just a really long lucky streak?
4:04
Speaker 2: That is the big question.
4:05
Speaker 1: Because we base our security on the fact that nothing
4:08
Speaker 1: bad happened yesterday.
4:09
Speaker 2: Exactly. The human brain is essentially a prediction machine.
4:13
Speaker 1: Okay. Okay.
4:13
Speaker 2: If the pattern for the last 10,000 yesterdays is everyone
4:17
Speaker 2: is safe and friendly, your brain predicts that today will
4:20
Speaker 2: be the exact same.
4:21
Speaker 1: You just stop looking for the bad stuff.
4:23
Speaker 2: You stop actively assessing for threats entirely.
4:26
Speaker 1: And into this perfectly safe, unlocked door community comes Jessie Blodgett.
4:31
Speaker 1: And the sources make it abundantly clear that Jessie was
4:34
Speaker 1: not just a bright kid. She was like a supernova.
4:37
Speaker 2: She really was exceptional.
4:39
Speaker 1: She was the only child of Buck and Joy Blodgett,
4:41
Speaker 1: who were both local chiropractors. And the anecdotes about her
4:44
Speaker 1: early childhood from the documentary are just wild to me.
4:47
Speaker 2: They speak to a highly unusual level of cognitive development.
4:51
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
4:53
Speaker 2: Her father, Buck, talks about how she essentially taught herself cursive.
4:56
Speaker 1: Which is crazy.
4:57
Speaker 2: Right. Not by sitting down with a workbook and being tutored,
5:01
Speaker 2: but just by studying a placemat at the dinner table
5:03
Speaker 2: before she even started formal schooling.
5:05
Speaker 1: I mean, who does that?
5:07
Speaker 2: Her brain was just absorbing and decoding complex systems on
5:11
Speaker 2: its own.
5:12
Speaker 1: And her first words, I mean, most kids say mama
5:15
Speaker 1: or dada or ball.
5:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:17
Speaker 1: Jessie's first word was anesthesiologist.
5:20
Speaker 2: Which is incredible.
5:21
Speaker 1: And her second word was metamorphosis.
5:23
Speaker 2: It shows a profound natural curiosity and an ear for
5:27
Speaker 2: the rhythm and complexity of language. Right. She wasn't just
5:31
Speaker 2: mimicking simple sounds. You know, she was processing polysyllabic concepts
5:36
Speaker 2: in an age when most kids are just figuring out basics.
5:39
Speaker 1: And as she grew, that intense intellectual curiosity just seamlessly
5:44
Speaker 1: transitioned into this artistic brilliance.
5:46
Speaker 2: Oh, her musical talent was off the charts.
5:49
Speaker 1: The musical prowess is what really stands out when you
5:52
Speaker 1: look at the source material. She could hear a song
5:54
Speaker 1: on the radio, just hear it once.
5:55
Speaker 2: Just once.
5:56
Speaker 1: And immediately sit down at the piano or pick up
5:58
Speaker 1: her violin and play it back perfectly.
6:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, she had perfect pitch.
6:02
Speaker 1: Perfect pitch, perfect recall. She'd even sing along if she
6:05
Speaker 1: caught the words. But you know, what I love most
6:08
Speaker 1: about her is that she wasn't hoarding this talent.
6:10
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
6:11
Speaker 1: She wasn't an isolated prodigy locked in a practice room somewhere.
6:15
Speaker 2: No, she was deeply, deeply integrated into her community.
6:18
Speaker 1: She was giving back.
6:20
Speaker 2: Exactly. She was heavily involved in tutoring younger students. And
6:23
Speaker 2: as one source put it, she wasn't just tutoring them
6:26
Speaker 2: in music. She was tutoring them in life.
6:29
Speaker 1: Like a mentor.
6:30
Speaker 2: She acted as a true mentor. She was deeply passionate
6:34
Speaker 2: about female expression, about empowering other young women, and she
6:38
Speaker 2: genuinely believed she was going to change the world.
6:41
Speaker 1: And you believe her when you hear about her.
6:43
Speaker 2: You do. At 19, she had just won the title
6:47
Speaker 2: role of the fiddler in the local community theater production
6:50
Speaker 2: of Fiddler on the Roof.
6:51
Speaker 1: She is essentially the embodiment of the town's highest ideals. Yes.
6:55
Speaker 1: She's trusting, she's open, she's collaborative. She essentially proves the
7:00
Speaker 1: town's hypothesis that Hartford is this wonderful incubator for goodness.
7:04
Speaker 2: That is a critical point. Her existence reinforces the community's
7:08
Speaker 2: belief in their own safety.
7:09
Speaker 1: Because look what they produced.
7:11
Speaker 2: Exactly. If an environment can produce a Jesse Blodgett, then
7:15
Speaker 2: the environment must be inherently good. Right. Which makes the
7:18
Speaker 2: inherent trust she and her family felt perfectly logical. They
7:21
Speaker 2: had literally no reason to build walls.
7:24
Speaker 1: But tragically, that exact same beautiful trusting environment sets the
7:28
Speaker 1: perfect stage for a predator.
7:30
Speaker 2: It does.
7:31
Speaker 1: Someone who doesn't have to break down a door because
7:33
Speaker 1: He has already been invited inside for dinner. Right. And
7:36
Speaker 1: that brings us to Daniel Bartelt.
7:39
Speaker 2: Daniel Bartelt is a fascinating and just terrifying psychological profile.
7:43
Speaker 1: He really is.
7:44
Speaker 2: He was Jesse's high school classmate. They actually dated briefly
7:47
Speaker 2: for about three months during their freshman year of high school.
7:50
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Just three months.
7:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. Before deciding they were better off as just friends.
7:55
Speaker 2: And on paper, Daniel is the mirror image of Jesse's success.
7:59
Speaker 1: Right. From the outside, he is the absolute archetype of
8:02
Speaker 1: the golden boy.
8:02
Speaker 2: Completely.
8:03
Speaker 1: He's a straight-A student graduating at the top of his
8:05
Speaker 1: academic class. He's an athlete. He's popular with everybody.
8:09
Speaker 2: Book Blodgett even notes that Daniel came from a great,
8:11
Speaker 2: respected family in the town.
8:13
Speaker 1: Right.
8:13
Speaker 2: And he had never been in an ounce of trouble.
8:16
Speaker 2: He was known as stoic, intellectual, you know, the kid
8:20
Speaker 2: who was going places.
8:21
Speaker 1: He and Jesse remained close friends after they stopped.
8:23
Speaker 2: Dating, right? They did. They sat next to each other
8:26
Speaker 2: in the school orchestra for four years. They performed in
8:29
Speaker 2: the musicals together. He was a constant presence in the
8:32
Speaker 2: Blodge at home.
8:33
Speaker 1: So they were tight.
8:34
Speaker 2: They would get together to practice, write music, just hang out.
8:38
Speaker 1: Which means he knew the layout of the house. Yes.
8:40
Speaker 1: He knew their schedules. He would literally just pop over
8:43
Speaker 1: and let himself in.
8:44
Speaker 2: Because he was family, essentially.
8:46
Speaker 1: But when we look closely at the sources, specifically the
8:49
Speaker 1: interviews with their mutual friend Ian Knights, we get a
8:52
Speaker 1: glimpse into a very specific underlying dynamic between Daniel and Jesse.
8:57
Speaker 2: And it's a telling dynamic.
8:59
Speaker 1: Ian describes their chemistry as adversarial. Yes.
9:02
Speaker 2: They were friends, but they frequently clashed in these intense
9:05
Speaker 2: lunchroom debates.
9:07
Speaker 1: Okay.
9:07
Speaker 2: And the subject matter of those debates is a massive
9:09
Speaker 2: psychological indicator when you look at it in retrospect. Right.
9:13
Speaker 1: Ian recalls that one of the big recurring arguments was
9:15
Speaker 1: about how women are perceived based on how they dress.
9:18
Speaker 2: Very specific topic.
9:19
Speaker 1: Very specific. Daniel took this highly conservative, rigid stance. He
9:23
Speaker 1: argued for strict standards of appropriateness, essentially saying women need
9:27
Speaker 1: to moderate their appearance.
9:29
Speaker 2: Okay.
9:30
Speaker 1: Jessie, on the other hand, passionately advocated for free expression.
9:34
Speaker 1: She argued that a woman has the right to dress
9:36
Speaker 1: however she sees fit without being categorized, judged, or blamed.
9:40
Speaker 2: And when we break that down, we aren't just looking
9:42
Speaker 2: at two teenagers having a philosophical disagreement about fashion.
9:46
Speaker 1: What are we looking at then?
9:47
Speaker 2: We are looking at a fundamental clash of worldviews regarding
9:50
Speaker 2: control and autonomy. Oh, okay. When you have a young
9:54
Speaker 2: man who is highly invested in arguing for the restriction
9:57
Speaker 2: of female autonomy, especially against a young woman as vibrant
10:01
Speaker 2: and free-spirited as Jessie, you are looking at a deep-seated
10:05
Speaker 2: desire for dominance.
10:07
Speaker 1: It's that classic archetype of a guy who thinks he
10:09
Speaker 1: is the smartest intellectual in the room trying to put
10:13
Speaker 1: a lid on a woman who refuses to be contained.
10:15
Speaker 2: Exactly.
10:16
Speaker 1: He wants to manage her.
10:17
Speaker 2: Precisely. It suggests a worldview where women are chaotic elements
10:21
Speaker 2: that need to be managed by rules that he, the stoic,
10:25
Speaker 2: rational intellectual, deems appropriate.
10:28
Speaker 1: Right.
10:28
Speaker 2: It is an indicator of a superiority complex, an inherent
10:32
Speaker 2: arrogance that he just knows better.
10:35
Speaker 1: OK, but then the timeline shifts in the documentary and
10:38
Speaker 1: a physical event happens.
10:39
Speaker 2: Yes.
10:40
Speaker 1: Ian Knights recalls that Daniel got into a car accident
10:42
Speaker 1: on the way to school and he suffered a brain concussion.
10:45
Speaker 2: Right.
10:46
Speaker 1: Ian notes that after this concussion, Daniel seemed, quote, a
10:49
Speaker 1: little bit off. He was more agitated and those lunchroom
10:52
Speaker 1: arguments with Jesse became noticeably more heated and aggressive.
10:56
Speaker 2: So from a purely medical standpoint, traumatic brain injuries can
11:00
Speaker 2: indeed cause changes in impulse control, emotional regulation and aggression.
11:04
Speaker 1: Sure.
11:05
Speaker 2: The frontal lobe, which handles our executive functioning and social filtering,
11:09
Speaker 2: is highly susceptible to impact. So it is entirely possible
11:13
Speaker 2: that the concussion reduced his ability to mask his underlying frustrations.
11:17
Speaker 1: OK, I have to jump in here and push back
11:19
Speaker 1: on this pretty hard.
11:20
Speaker 2: OK, let's hear it.
11:21
Speaker 1: Because if you consume a lot of true crime or
11:23
Speaker 1: forensic psychology content, you see this concussion narrative pop up
11:27
Speaker 1: all the time.
11:28
Speaker 2: Oh, constantly.
11:29
Speaker 1: Right. Whenever a seemingly normal guy does something horrific, friends
11:32
Speaker 1: and family always point to a car crash or a
11:34
Speaker 1: football injury or a fall from a tree. Yeah.
11:37
Speaker 2: They need an inciting incident.
11:39
Speaker 1: Exactly. And my question is, is a minor brain concussion
11:43
Speaker 1: a genuine catalyst for a personality shift into sadistic violence?
11:47
Speaker 1: Or is it just a convenient excuse?
11:49
Speaker 2: That's the core question.
11:51
Speaker 1: Doesn't it feel like a narrative that the community latches
11:53
Speaker 1: onto because they desperately need a logical external reason to
11:57
Speaker 1: explain away the monster in their midst?
11:58
Speaker 2: Yes.
11:59
Speaker 1: It is so much easier for a friend to say
12:01
Speaker 1: the car crash changed his brain chemistry than to admit
12:04
Speaker 1: I spent four years eating lunch with a psychopath.
12:06
Speaker 2: That is a phenomenal point. And I think you are
12:09
Speaker 2: absolutely hitting the nail on the head regarding community rationalization.
12:13
Speaker 1: Thank you.
12:14
Speaker 2: Let's separate the medical reality from the psychological narrative. A
12:18
Speaker 2: head injury can absolutely lower inhibitions. It can make someone
12:21
Speaker 2: more irritable or prone to snapping at a friend.
12:23
Speaker 1: Right. He might yell faster.
12:25
Speaker 2: Exactly. But a concussion does not spontaneously generate a highly organized, complex,
12:31
Speaker 2: premeditated desire to commit sadistic violence.
12:34
Speaker 1: Right. It doesn't install a new operating system.
12:37
Speaker 2: That's a perfect way to put it. The code has
12:39
Speaker 2: to already be there. Okay. The seeds of that worldview,
12:42
Speaker 2: the desire to dominate... the underlying hostility toward women, the
12:47
Speaker 2: intense arrogance, that must already be present in his psychological makeup.
12:52
Speaker 1: So the crash just lowered the mask.
12:54
Speaker 2: Exactly. The concussion might have stripped away a thin layer
12:58
Speaker 2: of social polish, making his agitation more visible to Ian,
13:01
Speaker 2: but it did not rewrite his fundamental nature. Wow. The
13:05
Speaker 2: violence was an escalation of his existing pathology, not a
13:09
Speaker 2: symptom of a bumped head.
13:11
Speaker 1: Which makes total sense because what happens next isn't a
13:13
Speaker 1: medical event. It is a massive psychological blow. Yes. Daniel,
13:18
Speaker 1: the golden boy, the genius who is destined for greatness,
13:21
Speaker 1: goes off to college. And he drops out after one
13:24
Speaker 1: single year.
13:24
Speaker 2: This is the critical fracture. This is the moment the
13:28
Speaker 2: facade begins to crack under its own weight.
13:30
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that pressure.
13:32
Speaker 2: We have to analyze the immense pressure of unmet expectations here.
13:36
Speaker 2: Daniel's entire identity was built on being the smartest, most
13:40
Speaker 2: successful person in the room.
13:41
Speaker 1: Right.
13:42
Speaker 2: So when he gets to college and fails to reach
13:44
Speaker 2: his milestones, it creates a profound psychological crisis. His friend
13:49
Speaker 2: Ian brilliantly describes it as a feedback loop of negativity.
13:53
Speaker 1: And guys whose entire ego is wrapped up in being
13:56
Speaker 1: stoic and untouchable do not handle failure with grace.
13:59
Speaker 2: Not at all.
14:00
Speaker 1: When a normal person struggles in college, they might look
14:02
Speaker 1: inward and say, wow, this is harder than I thought,
14:04
Speaker 1: I need to study more, or maybe I need a tutor.
14:07
Speaker 2: Right, they adapt.
14:08
Speaker 1: But a narcissist doesn't do that. They look outward. They say,
14:11
Speaker 1: I am perfect, therefore the world is flawed. The world
14:14
Speaker 1: is failing to recognize my genius, and the world needs
14:17
Speaker 1: to be punished for it.
14:18
Speaker 2: That is the exact mechanism of a narcissistic injury. His
14:22
Speaker 2: ego is deeply wounded, and rather than seeking support or
14:25
Speaker 2: adjusting his expectations, He retreats.
14:28
Speaker 1: He hides.
14:29
Speaker 2: He isolates himself. And that isolation becomes the greenhouse where
14:33
Speaker 2: his darkest impulses are allowed to grow, unchecked by social reality.
14:37
Speaker 1: Because nobody is there to tell him he's wrong.
14:39
Speaker 2: Exactly. His friends might have noticed he was a bit
14:42
Speaker 2: more agitated, but absolutely no one understood that his academic
14:46
Speaker 2: failure was the catalyst for him building a terrifying secret existence.
14:51
Speaker 1: And the details of this secret life are chilling, especially
14:54
Speaker 1: in how mundane the cover-up was.
14:56
Speaker 2: Very mundane.
14:57
Speaker 1: Daniel eventually loses his local job, but he doesn't tell anyone.
15:00
Speaker 1: He doesn't tell his friends, and more importantly, he doesn't
15:02
Speaker 1: tell his parents whom he is living with. Instead, he
15:05
Speaker 1: constructs this elaborate daily performance every single morning for months.
15:11
Speaker 1: He wakes up, gets dressed, and leaves the house at
15:14
Speaker 1: the exact same time, pretending he is going to work.
15:17
Speaker 2: Let's really look at how a mind compartmentalizes that kind
15:21
Speaker 2: of lie.
15:21
Speaker 1: Please.
15:22
Speaker 2: Because hiding a job loss out of temporary shame is common.
15:25
Speaker 2: People do that.
15:26
Speaker 1: Sure.
15:27
Speaker 2: But waking up every single morning, looking your parents in
15:30
Speaker 2: the eye, drinking coffee with them, and then walking out
15:33
Speaker 2: the door to go nowhere, sustaining that requires a massive
15:37
Speaker 2: degree of emotional detachment.
15:39
Speaker 1: He is looking them right in the face and lying flawlessly.
15:42
Speaker 2: And in doing so, he is feeding his own superiority complex.
15:47
Speaker 1: How so?
15:48
Speaker 2: Well, every time his parents believe this lie, it reinforces
15:51
Speaker 2: his internal narrative that he is a mastermind. Oh, wow.
15:55
Speaker 2: He's proving to himself every day that he is smarter
15:59
Speaker 2: than the people around him. They are the naive fools
16:02
Speaker 2: who believe the illusion, and he is the godlike figure
16:06
Speaker 2: controlling their reality.
16:07
Speaker 1: That is so twisted.
16:08
Speaker 2: It gives him a false sense of immense power, precisely
16:12
Speaker 2: when he is actually feeling the most powerless and aimless
16:15
Speaker 2: in his real life.
16:16
Speaker 1: Okay, so if he wasn't going to work, where was
16:19
Speaker 1: he going? Right. He was driving to local parks. He
16:22
Speaker 1: was sitting in his minivan, completely isolated for hours on end,
16:26
Speaker 1: and he was feeding a deranged obsession. When detectives later
16:30
Speaker 1: seized his electronics, the digital footprint they uncovered was staggering.
16:35
Speaker 2: It represents a textbook escalation. His internet search history revealed
16:40
Speaker 2: an all-consuming obsession with violence.
16:43
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just curiosity. No.
16:46
Speaker 2: It wasn't just a passing morbid curiosity. He was actively
16:49
Speaker 2: researching spree killers. He was consuming pornography that specifically focused
16:54
Speaker 2: on sexual assault, sadism, and bondage. He was seeking out
16:58
Speaker 2: snuff films.
17:00
Speaker 1: And the search term that really made the detectives freeze?
17:03
Speaker 1: He was Googling serial killers by body count.
17:06
Speaker 2: That phrase, by body count, is deeply significant.
17:10
Speaker 1: Why?
17:10
Speaker 2: He is not researching the psychology of these killers or
17:13
Speaker 2: the tragedy of the events. He is looking at high scores.
17:17
Speaker 1: Like a video game. Exactly.
17:18
Speaker 2: Exactly. He is studying the metrics of infamy. It is
17:22
Speaker 2: the gamification of violence. As Detective Zywicki noted, Daniel was
17:27
Speaker 2: developing an obsession with wanting to be famous, wanting to
17:30
Speaker 2: be recognized as a supreme, untouchable predator.
17:33
Speaker 1: He wanted on the leaderboard.
17:35
Speaker 2: He was looking at the leaderboard to see what it
17:36
Speaker 2: would take to get his name on it.
17:38
Speaker 1: Okay, here is where this gets really terrifying for me,
17:40
Speaker 1: just as a person living in the modern world.
17:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:43
Speaker 1: Think about the concept of the digital true self. Right.
17:47
Speaker 1: We have this guy, Daniel. He is someone's son. He's
17:50
Speaker 1: someone's friend. He can sit across from you at a diner,
17:53
Speaker 1: pass the ketchup, ask about your weekend, smile politely.
17:56
Speaker 2: Totally normal interactions.
17:57
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, his smartphone browser history is an active crime scene.
18:01
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate compartmentalization of the 21st century.
18:05
Speaker 1: It's like having a computer running two completely separate operating systems.
18:08
Speaker 1: You have the clean, user-friendly interface that the public interacts with,
18:11
Speaker 1: the polite, stoic friend.
18:13
Speaker 2: Right.
18:13
Speaker 1: But partitioned off in the background, hidden behind a firewall,
18:17
Speaker 1: is this dark web operating system that is actively corrupting
18:20
Speaker 1: the hard drive. Yes. And nobody on the outside can
18:22
Speaker 1: see the system failing.
18:23
Speaker 2: That is an excellent analogy. And the tragedy is that
18:26
Speaker 2: the dark partition inevitably bleeds over. It leaks. What Daniel
18:30
Speaker 2: was doing in those parks wasn't just passive digital consumption anymore.
18:35
Speaker 2: Detective Zwicky makes a crucial observation about this period. Daniel
18:39
Speaker 2: was hunting.
18:40
Speaker 1: Wait, explain what you mean by hunting, because he wasn't
18:42
Speaker 1: doing anything yet.
18:43
Speaker 2: Right, but he wasn't just killing time either. He was
18:46
Speaker 2: acclimatizing himself to the physical environment where he intended to
18:51
Speaker 2: act out his fantasies.
18:52
Speaker 1: Okay, so he's prepping.
18:53
Speaker 2: He is moving the fantasy from the screen into the
18:56
Speaker 2: three-dimensional world. By sitting in the park, he is observing
18:59
Speaker 2: the flow of people. He is calculating sight lines.
19:02
Speaker 1: Wow.
19:02
Speaker 2: He is noting when areas are isolated. He is mentally
19:06
Speaker 2: superimposing his violent digital fantasies onto real physical women walking
19:11
Speaker 2: their dogs or jogging.
19:12
Speaker 1: So it's rehearsal.
19:13
Speaker 2: He is actively transitioning his brain from being a consumer
19:17
Speaker 2: of violence to a practitioner. The digital tension has reached
19:21
Speaker 2: a boiling point, and it has to find a physical release.
19:24
Speaker 1: And that release happens.
19:26
Speaker 2: The fantasy demands a physical trial run. And this brings
19:31
Speaker 2: us to the most pulse-pounding part of the transcript. The
19:33
Speaker 2: survival story of Melissa Etzler.
19:36
Speaker 1: It is an incredible story.
19:38
Speaker 2: Melissa is 19 years old. It's a normal day. And
19:41
Speaker 2: she is out walking her dog, a dog named Remy.
19:44
Speaker 2: She is at Richfield Historical Park, which is a nature
19:47
Speaker 2: reserve about 15 miles away from Hartford. Right. It's a
19:51
Speaker 2: route she takes all the time through open meadows and
19:54
Speaker 2: woodsy trails. It's a beautifully mundane, perfectly normal activity. When
19:59
Speaker 2: she arrives and parks her car in the gravel lot,
20:01
Speaker 2: she notices a blue Dodge Caravan parked there. She registers it,
20:06
Speaker 2: but naturally she thinks nothing of it. It's a public
20:09
Speaker 2: park people park their cars right.
20:11
Speaker 1: So she goes for her walk she's out on the
20:13
Speaker 1: trails for about 45 minutes to an hour yeah and
20:16
Speaker 1: when she starts heading back toward the parking lot she
20:19
Speaker 1: notices that the blue van is still there which is
20:21
Speaker 1: a bit odd but it's not just the van she
20:25
Speaker 1: sees a man who we now know is daniel bartelt
20:29
Speaker 1: peering out of the window of the van directly at
20:32
Speaker 1: her staring at her and the second he realizes she
20:35
Speaker 1: has spotted him he quickly ducks down trying to hide.
20:39
Speaker 2: Let's pause and look at the psychology of human intuition
20:41
Speaker 2: here because Melissa's reaction is brilliant.
20:44
Speaker 1: What does she do?
20:45
Speaker 2: Daniel's behavior, staring and then quickly hiding, breaks the social
20:49
Speaker 2: contract of a shared public space. Right.
20:52
Speaker 1: Normal people don't duck.
20:53
Speaker 2: Exactly. Consciously, Melissa might not know exactly what is wrong,
20:57
Speaker 2: but subconsciously, her threat detection system is screaming at her.
21:02
Speaker 2: Her brain is registering predatory behavior.
21:05
Speaker 1: It's that gift of fear instinct.
21:06
Speaker 2: Yes.
21:07
Speaker 1: She immediately alters her behavior. She senses the dangers between
21:11
Speaker 1: her and her car, so she actually drops her dog's leash,
21:15
Speaker 1: knowing that her dog will just run straight to her vehicle.
21:17
Speaker 2: Smart.
21:18
Speaker 1: And she begins to power walk, almost jog, back to
21:21
Speaker 1: the lot, trying to avoid any confrontation.
21:24
Speaker 2: Dropping the leash is a profound survival instinct. She is
21:28
Speaker 2: shedding anything that might entangle her or slow her down.
21:31
Speaker 2: She is prepping for flight.
21:33
Speaker 1: But the flight isn't fast enough. Halfway to her car,
21:36
Speaker 1: she hears heavy, running footsteps coming up fast behind her
21:40
Speaker 1: on the gravel.
21:41
Speaker 2: Terrifying.
21:42
Speaker 1: At first, in a final attempt to normalize the situation,
21:45
Speaker 1: she turns around and nervously says, You scared me.
21:48
Speaker 2: Trying to de-escalate.
21:50
Speaker 1: Hoping maybe he's just a weird guy running to throw
21:52
Speaker 1: a wrapper in a garbage can. But her gut tells
21:55
Speaker 1: her to turn back around, and when she does, Daniel
21:57
Speaker 1: is standing right there, and he lunges at her with
22:00
Speaker 1: a knife.
22:01
Speaker 2: This is the moment Daniel's digital fantasy violently collides with reality.
22:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:06
Speaker 2: In his mind, based on the media he's consumed, he
22:09
Speaker 2: expects total compliance. He views himself as the apex predator,
22:13
Speaker 2: the intellectual mastermind who will easily overpower this unsuspecting target. Right.
22:19
Speaker 2: But he fundamentally miscalculated the human will to survive because
22:23
Speaker 2: Melissa Edsler does not freeze and she does not comply.
22:26
Speaker 1: She fights him like a wild animal.
22:28
Speaker 2: She does.
22:29
Speaker 1: He tackles her. She ends up on her stomach on
22:31
Speaker 1: the ground and she is thrashing, screaming and fighting with
22:34
Speaker 1: everything she has.
22:35
Speaker 2: Total resistance.
22:37
Speaker 1: During the struggle, she physically grabs the raw blade of
22:40
Speaker 1: his knife with her bare hand. She wraps her fingers
22:43
Speaker 1: around the sharp edge. She later required 15 stitches, but
22:46
Speaker 1: in that moment, she absolutely refused to let go. She
22:50
Speaker 1: stated she would have let that knife sever her fingers
22:53
Speaker 1: before she ever let him take control of it again.
22:55
Speaker 2: It is a stunning display of sheer primal defiance. And
22:59
Speaker 2: frame this encounter from Daniel's psychological perspective.
23:02
Speaker 1: Right.
23:03
Speaker 2: He has built his entire hidden identity. of being a
23:06
Speaker 2: master of control, a superior being. And in his very
23:09
Speaker 2: first real-world attempt, he is completely physically and psychologically thwarted
23:15
Speaker 2: by a 19-year-old woman.
23:17
Speaker 1: He completely breaks. The mastermind can't overpower her. And eventually,
23:21
Speaker 1: he literally stops fighting, gets off her, and asks, can
23:26
Speaker 1: I just go?
23:26
Speaker 2: It's pathetic.
23:28
Speaker 1: It is. He asks his victim for permission to leave
23:31
Speaker 1: his own crime scene.
23:33
Speaker 2: Just unbelievable.
23:34
Speaker 1: And when she yells at him, He turns and runs away.
23:37
Speaker 1: Melissa literally calls him a coward as he flees. And
23:41
Speaker 1: what's incredible is that despite the massive trauma and the adrenaline,
23:44
Speaker 1: Melissa's brain stays locked in.
23:47
Speaker 2: She pays attention.
23:48
Speaker 1: She meticulously catalogs his height, his weight, his clothing, and
23:52
Speaker 1: most importantly, the blue Dodge Caravan.
23:55
Speaker 2: It is a total humiliating defeat for Daniel. His fragile,
24:00
Speaker 2: narcissistic ego suffers a catastrophic injury.
24:03
Speaker 1: Right.
24:03
Speaker 2: He is forced to confront the glaring reality that he
24:07
Speaker 2: is not the invincible, terrifying predator he imagined himself to be.
24:11
Speaker 2: He was bested by someone he deemed weaker.
24:14
Speaker 1: Okay, so this raises a huge question for me. What
24:17
Speaker 1: does a failed, humiliating attack like this do to a
24:21
Speaker 1: budding predator?
24:22
Speaker 2: Okay.
24:23
Speaker 1: If a normal person did something terrible and got fought
24:25
Speaker 1: off like that, they might be scared straight. They'd run
24:28
Speaker 1: away thinking, oh my God, what am I doing? I
24:29
Speaker 1: am not cut out for this. I need to stop
24:31
Speaker 1: before I ruin my life.
24:32
Speaker 2: A normal person, yes.
24:33
Speaker 1: Does encountering that kind of fierce resistance ever serve as
24:36
Speaker 1: a wake-up call, or does it just make them more dangerous?
24:41
Speaker 2: In the vast majority of cases involving this specific pathology,
24:45
Speaker 2: someone who is obsessed with body counts and dominance, a
24:49
Speaker 2: failure like this does not deter them. It educates them.
24:53
Speaker 1: Educates them, wow.
24:54
Speaker 2: It creates a deep, burning sense of frustration. They do
24:57
Speaker 2: not look inward and feel remorse. They look outward. and
25:01
Speaker 2: realized their methodology was flawed.
25:03
Speaker 1: So they don't abandon the goal, they just change the
25:05
Speaker 1: game plan.
25:06
Speaker 2: Precisely. He concludes that a daylight attack in a public
25:10
Speaker 2: park was too risky. He concludes that a stranger has
25:13
Speaker 2: too much fight in them. The failure forces him to
25:16
Speaker 2: pivot to a much more calculated, cowardice approach. He seeks
25:21
Speaker 2: a scenario where he has absolute, uncontested control, and where
25:25
Speaker 2: the victim has zero opportunity to fight back.
25:28
Speaker 1: He realizes he can't overpower a stranger who sees him coming.
25:31
Speaker 1: So he decides to target someone he already knows.
25:35
Speaker 2: Yes.
25:35
Speaker 1: Someone who already trusts him. Someone who is asleep.
25:39
Speaker 2: It is a massive escalation in depravity because it requires
25:43
Speaker 2: the deliberate weaponization of trust. He shifts from a crime
25:47
Speaker 2: of opportunity against a stranger to an intimacy assault against
25:51
Speaker 2: a friend.
25:52
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the weekend of the local play
25:55
Speaker 1: and a sequence of events that contains one of the
25:56
Speaker 1: most heartbreaking psychological red herrings I have ever seen in
26:01
Speaker 1: a true crime case.
26:02
Speaker 2: It's awful.
26:03
Speaker 1: It's Sunday the 14th. Jessie has just finished the opening
26:06
Speaker 1: weekend of Fiddler on the Roof. She is, as her
26:09
Speaker 1: dad describes it, on cloud nine.
26:12
Speaker 2: So happy.
26:13
Speaker 1: She attends a cast pool party that evening to celebrate.
26:16
Speaker 1: She's surrounded by friends, laughing, swimming. But during this party,
26:21
Speaker 1: she has an incredibly uncomfortable encounter.
26:25
Speaker 2: The sources detail that a male cast member, an older
26:28
Speaker 2: man in his 40s, begins acting highly inappropriately toward Jessie.
26:33
Speaker 1: Creepy behavior.
26:34
Speaker 2: He is crossing obvious boundaries. He's making inappropriate, suggestive jokes.
26:39
Speaker 2: He's touching her, hugging her too much. And at one point,
26:43
Speaker 2: he physically pulls her onto his lap.
26:46
Speaker 1: For a 19-year-old girl, having a 40-something man cross physical
26:49
Speaker 1: boundaries like that in front of people is deeply unsettling
26:53
Speaker 1: and violating.
26:54
Speaker 2: Of course.
26:55
Speaker 1: Jessie is very upset. She leaves the party and goes
26:58
Speaker 1: home around 1230 in the morning. Her dad, Buck, is
27:01
Speaker 1: already fast asleep, but her mom, Joy, has stayed up
27:04
Speaker 1: waiting for her.
27:05
Speaker 2: As moms do.
27:06
Speaker 1: Jessie confides in her mom about this creepy older guy
27:09
Speaker 1: at the party. Joy consoles her, validates her feelings, and
27:12
Speaker 1: calms her down.
27:13
Speaker 2: And then Jessie does something that really speaks to her character.
27:17
Speaker 2: She goes to her room, and she processes the entire
27:20
Speaker 2: event by writing in her diary. And she concludes the
27:24
Speaker 2: entry with a definitive, powerful assertion of her own autonomy.
27:28
Speaker 2: She writes, I am not a victim. I'm strong. I
27:32
Speaker 2: can handle these kinds of situations.
27:34
Speaker 1: You're probably thinking the exact same thing I was when
27:37
Speaker 1: I read that transcript. The tragic irony is just crushing.
27:41
Speaker 2: It's unbearable.
27:42
Speaker 1: Jesse spends her final waking hours actively asserting her strength,
27:46
Speaker 1: drawing her boundaries, and mentally defending herself against an overt,
27:50
Speaker 1: obvious creep. She feels empowered.
27:53
Speaker 2: She does.
27:54
Speaker 1: She goes to sleep feeling like she has conquered a threat.
27:57
Speaker 1: She is completely unaware that a lethal threat isn't going
28:01
Speaker 1: to come from the obvious creepy older guy at a party.
28:04
Speaker 1: It's going to come disguised as her familiar intellectual friend.
28:07
Speaker 2: It acts as a powerful psychological red herring, not just
28:10
Speaker 2: for Jesse in that moment, but for us as the audience,
28:13
Speaker 2: and certainly for the family and the initial investigators.
28:16
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
28:17
Speaker 2: It highlights how we are socially conditioned to identify threats,
28:21
Speaker 2: We are trained to look for obvious monsters.
28:23
Speaker 1: The guy in the trench coat.
28:25
Speaker 2: The lurking stranger in the woods. The older man with
28:28
Speaker 2: boundary issues. We pour all of our defensive energy into
28:31
Speaker 2: guarding the front gate against the visible enemy.
28:34
Speaker 1: It's human nature. We want the monster to look like
28:37
Speaker 1: a monster. As soon as I read the detail about
28:39
Speaker 1: the older guy pulling her onto his lap, my true
28:41
Speaker 1: crime brain instantly went, oh, there's the killer. The older
28:44
Speaker 1: guy followed her home. Right.
28:46
Speaker 2: It's a natural assumption.
28:47
Speaker 1: It proves how easily our protective instincts are misdirected. We
28:50
Speaker 1: spend all our energy scanning the horizon, completely blind to
28:54
Speaker 1: the fact that the real danger is already sitting inside
28:56
Speaker 1: the perimeter.
28:57
Speaker 2: Because Daniel Bartelt didn't need to stalk her from a
29:00
Speaker 2: party or break a window. He possessed weaponized knowledge. He
29:05
Speaker 2: knew the Blodgett family's schedule intimately. He knew what Buck
29:08
Speaker 2: and Joy did for a living. He knew exactly what
29:11
Speaker 2: time they left for the chiropractic clinic. And he knew
29:14
Speaker 2: they didn't lock their doors.
29:15
Speaker 1: The timeline of the next morning is agonizingly normal. Buck
29:19
Speaker 1: and Joy wake up early. They get ready for work
29:21
Speaker 1: quietly so they don't wake Jessie up after her late night.
29:24
Speaker 1: Buck peeks his head into her room, sees her sleeping
29:27
Speaker 1: soundly in her bed, and leaves for the clinic. It
29:30
Speaker 1: is a perfectly ordinary, loving, quiet morning. And it's into
29:35
Speaker 1: this quiet, empty house that Daniel Bartold simply opens the
29:38
Speaker 1: door and walks in. It isn't until Joy returns home
29:41
Speaker 1: for her lunch break a few hours later that the
29:43
Speaker 1: reality of the situation shatters the idyllic Hartford bubble forever.
29:48
Speaker 2: The discovery is the absolute worst nightmare of any parent.
29:52
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine.
29:54
Speaker 2: Joy comes home, walks upstairs, and finds Jesse completely unresponsive
29:59
Speaker 2: in her bed. She immediately calls 911 in a panic.
30:03
Speaker 2: EMTs arrive and frantically begin trying to revive her.
30:06
Speaker 1: And Buck is at work.
30:07
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Buck is at his clinic when his assistant bursts
30:10
Speaker 2: into his office looking terrified, saying Joy is on the
30:13
Speaker 2: phone and he needs to pick up immediately.
30:15
Speaker 1: The way Buck describes that phone call in the documentary
30:18
Speaker 1: is haunting. He just hears Joy say, honey, it's Jessie.
30:23
Speaker 1: She's not responding.
30:24
Speaker 2: Just those words.
30:26
Speaker 1: Buck asks the dispatcher, who is also on the line
30:28
Speaker 1: if she's gone, but he doesn't get a clear, direct answer.
30:32
Speaker 1: He just drops everything and races home. He says, time
30:35
Speaker 1: completely stopped. He describes a state of hyper-awareness. He walks
30:40
Speaker 1: into his house and he finds Joyce sitting on the
30:42
Speaker 1: living room couch, flanked by a first responder and a
30:44
Speaker 1: police officer who are holding her hands. And in that
30:48
Speaker 1: exact moment, without a single word being spoken, he knew.
30:52
Speaker 1: He knew his daughter was gone.
30:54
Speaker 2: It is the complete and utter annihilation of their world
30:58
Speaker 2: in a matter of seconds. And as the family is
31:01
Speaker 2: collapsing in grief, Detective Zwicky and his team are moving
31:05
Speaker 2: upstairs to begin processing the scene. And what they find
31:09
Speaker 2: in Jesse's bedroom is deeply disturbing. Not just because of
31:13
Speaker 2: the inherent violence of a murder, but because of the
31:15
Speaker 2: highly calculated, meticulous staging of the scene.
31:19
Speaker 1: Right. So let's walk through what the detectives see. First,
31:22
Speaker 1: they rule out a robbery or a home invasion instantly.
31:25
Speaker 1: There is cash sitting right out in the open on
31:27
Speaker 1: the piano in the breezeway. The intruder walked right past it.
31:31
Speaker 1: When they examine Jessie, they find the terrible evidence of
31:34
Speaker 1: the attack. Her wrists and ankles have been tightly bound
31:37
Speaker 1: with ventilation tape. She has deep ligature marks around her neck.
31:40
Speaker 1: She was strangled with some kind of cord.
31:42
Speaker 2: But it is what the perpetrator did after the murder
31:46
Speaker 2: that speaks volumes to forensic psychologists.
31:49
Speaker 1: Okay, what did he do?
31:50
Speaker 2: Detectives of Wiki notes that the killer didn't just panic
31:53
Speaker 2: and flee the scene once she was dead. He stayed.
31:56
Speaker 1: He stayed in the house.
31:57
Speaker 2: He took the time to meticulously wash Jessie's body. He
32:01
Speaker 2: washed her hair. He redressed her in clean clothes. And
32:05
Speaker 2: then he carefully placed her back into her bed, pulling
32:07
Speaker 2: the covers up to her chin so that she appeared
32:09
Speaker 2: as though she were simply peacefully sleeping.
32:13
Speaker 1: Okay, this is the part that completely baffled me. If
32:16
Speaker 1: I'm a killer, especially a young guy who just committed
32:19
Speaker 1: his first murder and made a massive leap from fantasy
32:22
Speaker 1: to reality, my biological instinct would be sheer panic.
32:26
Speaker 2: Adrenaline's pumping.
32:28
Speaker 1: Adrenaline's pumping. I'm terrified of getting caught. My instinct is
32:32
Speaker 1: to run as fast as humanly possible away from the body.
32:35
Speaker 1: Why on earth would he stick around in a house
32:37
Speaker 1: where the parents could come home at any minute to
32:40
Speaker 1: do laundry and pose a body?
32:43
Speaker 2: It goes against every instinct of a disorganized or panicked offender.
32:48
Speaker 2: In forensic psychology, this behavior, washing and redressing a victim,
32:52
Speaker 2: is known as undoing or staging.
32:55
Speaker 1: Undoing.
32:56
Speaker 2: And it shows a level of depravity, calculation, and emotional
33:00
Speaker 2: detachment that is usually only associated with highly experienced veteran
33:05
Speaker 2: serial offenders.
33:07
Speaker 1: So what triggers that? What is the psychological mechanism behind undoing?
33:12
Speaker 2: It serves two distinct purposes. Practically, yes, it is an
33:16
Speaker 2: attempt at forensic countermeasures, trying to wash away DNA, skin cells,
33:21
Speaker 2: or hair left behind during the struggle.
33:22
Speaker 1: Cleaning up the evidence.
33:24
Speaker 2: But psychologically, it is an act of ultimate godlike control.
33:29
Speaker 2: Daniel couldn't control Melissa Etzler in the park. She fought
33:32
Speaker 2: him off.
33:32
Speaker 1: Right.
33:33
Speaker 2: But here, he has total dominion. By washing and redressing her,
33:37
Speaker 2: he's treating Jesse not as a human being who was
33:40
Speaker 2: his friend, and not even as a corpse he just created,
33:43
Speaker 2: but As a doll.
33:44
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
33:45
Speaker 2: He is posing her. It allows him to manage his
33:48
Speaker 2: own cognitive dissonance, resetting the scene to look peaceful, while
33:52
Speaker 2: simultaneously proving to himself that he possesses the ultimate power
33:55
Speaker 2: to manipulate reality.
33:57
Speaker 1: He posed her like a doll? That is sickening. And
34:03
Speaker 1: the psychopathy of that control is only magnified by what
34:06
Speaker 1: Daniel does the very next day.
34:08
Speaker 2: It really is.
34:09
Speaker 1: Honestly, this is the detail that made my stomach turn
34:11
Speaker 1: more than almost anything else. The day after the murder,
34:15
Speaker 1: Jesse's friends naturally gather at the Blodgett house to mourn.
34:20
Speaker 2: They're a community in shock. They are.
34:22
Speaker 1: And Daniel Bartelt goes to the house. He walks right
34:25
Speaker 1: through the front door. He sits in the living room.
34:28
Speaker 1: He spends hours crying, grieving, and physically hugging Jesse's devastated
34:33
Speaker 1: parents and her sobbing friends.
34:36
Speaker 2: The sheer magnitude of psychopathy required to execute that performance
34:39
Speaker 2: is staggering.
34:40
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable.
34:42
Speaker 2: Think about the timeline. Less than 24 hours prior, he
34:46
Speaker 2: brutally murdered this young woman, watched her, posed her, and
34:49
Speaker 2: walked away. And now he has actively chosen to infiltrate
34:53
Speaker 2: the deepest, most vulnerable sanctum of her family's grief. He
34:57
Speaker 2: is performing empathy.
34:59
Speaker 1: It's a chilling theatrical performance. He's like an actor who
35:03
Speaker 1: thinks the curtain hasn't come down yet.
35:05
Speaker 2: Right.
35:05
Speaker 1: He thought he was playing the role of the devastated
35:08
Speaker 1: best friend flawlessly, but And he did it because he
35:11
Speaker 1: genuinely believed his own hype. He thought he could outsmart everyone.
35:15
Speaker 2: He really did.
35:16
Speaker 1: He assumed he could walk right into the lines den,
35:19
Speaker 1: deliver his lines, and walk away completely clean because he
35:22
Speaker 1: believed he was intellectually superior to everyone in that room.
35:26
Speaker 1: He thought the police were bumbling fools and that Buck
35:28
Speaker 1: and Joy were just naive townspeople.
35:31
Speaker 2: But his extreme arrogance is precisely what blinds him to
35:35
Speaker 2: his own vulnerabilities.
35:36
Speaker 1: Exactly.
35:37
Speaker 2: He thinks he's a mastermind. But he is ultimately undone
35:40
Speaker 2: by a mundane, routine piece of police work that he
35:44
Speaker 2: couldn't possibly have anticipated.
35:46
Speaker 1: I love this part.
35:47
Speaker 2: While Daniel is sitting in the Blodgett's living room, actively
35:50
Speaker 2: performing his grief for the parents, his cell phone rings.
35:53
Speaker 2: It's the police department. They politely ask if he can
35:56
Speaker 2: come down to the station for an interview.
35:58
Speaker 1: But, and this is the brilliant twist, they don't want
36:01
Speaker 1: to talk to him about Jesse Blodgett.
36:03
Speaker 2: No.
36:03
Speaker 1: They haven't connected him to the murder yet. They want
36:06
Speaker 1: to talk to him about Melissa Etzler, the survivor from
36:08
Speaker 1: the park. Right. Because, and this is an incredible stroke
36:12
Speaker 1: of luck mixed with great police work, a deputy had
36:16
Speaker 1: noticed Daniel's blue minivan parked at that park a week
36:19
Speaker 1: or two prior. It just looked a little odd to
36:21
Speaker 1: the deputy sitting there alone, so he casually ran the
36:24
Speaker 1: license plate through his computer system just as routine procedure.
36:28
Speaker 2: Routine data collection.
36:29
Speaker 1: Right. So when the description of the blue Dodge Caravan
36:32
Speaker 1: is broadcasted after Melissa's attack, the detectives do a historical
36:35
Speaker 1: search of their dispatched computer system.
36:38
Speaker 2: Brilliant.
36:38
Speaker 1: They find that a deputy ran a plate on a
36:40
Speaker 1: blue caravan at that exact park recently. They match the
36:44
Speaker 1: plate to the Bartelt family, and suddenly, Daniel is sitting
36:47
Speaker 1: squarely in the crosshairs for the attempted assault.
36:50
Speaker 2: This is the moment the mastermind's grand design begins to unravel.
36:54
Speaker 2: He goes down to the station. He actually brings Ian's
36:57
Speaker 2: sister and his girlfriend with him, completely unaware that the
37:00
Speaker 2: walls are rapidly closing in.
37:03
Speaker 1: He thinks he's just going to check.
37:05
Speaker 2: He sits down in the interrogation room thinking he can
37:08
Speaker 2: talk his way out of whatever they have. But over
37:11
Speaker 2: the course of a two-hour interrogation, the detectives corner him
37:14
Speaker 2: on the park attack. They have the vehicle. They have
37:17
Speaker 2: Melissa's description. The pressure mounts. And he eventually breaks and
37:24
Speaker 2: confesses to attacking Melissa Edsler.
37:26
Speaker 1: And the moment they have him locked into a confession
37:28
Speaker 1: for a violent attack on a woman, the detectives expertly pivot.
37:33
Speaker 2: Such a good interrogation tactic.
37:35
Speaker 1: They transition to their real target. They look at him
37:37
Speaker 1: and ask, where were you yesterday morning? Where were you
37:40
Speaker 1: the morning Jesse Blodgett was killed?
37:43
Speaker 2: You can imagine the internal panic.
37:46
Speaker 1: He realizes he is trapped. His careful compartmentalization has failed. Right.
37:51
Speaker 2: So he scrambles. He desperately needs an alibi. So he
37:55
Speaker 2: gives them one. He claims that on the morning of
37:57
Speaker 2: Jesse's murder, he was nowhere near her house. He says
38:01
Speaker 2: he was just hanging out alone. at another local park
38:04
Speaker 2: called Woodlawn Park.
38:06
Speaker 1: This is a classic misstep by an overconfident liar.
38:09
Speaker 2: Very classic.
38:09
Speaker 1: He provides a highly specific, verifiable location, assuming that because
38:14
Speaker 1: he is the golden boy, his word will simply be
38:16
Speaker 1: accepted as truth. But the detectives immediately send a team
38:20
Speaker 1: to check the surveillance cameras at Woodlawn Park.
38:22
Speaker 2: Because of course they do.
38:23
Speaker 1: And they actually confirm he was there that morning. But
38:26
Speaker 1: the cameras show he wasn't just casually hanging out. He
38:30
Speaker 1: drove in, went straight into the public restrooms, came out,
38:33
Speaker 1: and left.
38:34
Speaker 2: So the police physically go to those specific restrooms. They
38:37
Speaker 2: begin searching the premises. And they start digging through the
38:40
Speaker 2: public garbage cans outside. Right. And here is the detail
38:45
Speaker 2: that the entire case and the entire pursuit of justice
38:48
Speaker 2: hinges upon. A detail of pure structural luck.
38:53
Speaker 1: The trash collection schedule? Exactly.
38:54
Speaker 2: Exactly. The trash at Woodlawn Park is only emptied by
38:58
Speaker 2: the city on Mondays and Thursdays. Oh, wow. If Daniel
39:02
Speaker 2: had committed this murder on a Wednesday, the garbage cans
39:05
Speaker 2: would have been emptied the next morning, and all of
39:07
Speaker 2: the physical evidence would have been buried forever in a
39:10
Speaker 2: municipal landfill.
39:11
Speaker 1: Gone forever.
39:12
Speaker 2: But because of the schedule, the trash is still sitting there.
39:15
Speaker 2: The police dig through it, and they find what prosecutors
39:18
Speaker 2: later call Daniel's kill kit.
39:21
Speaker 1: I want to spend a minute on this kill kit
39:23
Speaker 1: because the banality of it is what makes it so horrifying.
39:26
Speaker 2: It really is.
39:27
Speaker 1: Detective Zwicky describes finding a discarded... frosted mini-wheats cereal box
39:32
Speaker 1: in the trash. And inside this perfectly normal family cereal box,
39:37
Speaker 1: Daniel had meticulously hidden his tools. He hid the ligature
39:42
Speaker 1: cord he used to strangle Jessie. He hid the rolled up,
39:45
Speaker 1: used balls of ventilation tape he used to bind her
39:47
Speaker 1: wrists and ankles. And crucially, he had hidden a bloody
39:51
Speaker 1: alcohol wipe.
39:53
Speaker 2: That alcohol wipe was the forensic goldmine.
39:56
Speaker 1: Why?
39:57
Speaker 2: During the intense physical struggle with Jesse, Daniel had accidentally
40:00
Speaker 2: sliced his own finger. And he'd used the wipe to
40:03
Speaker 2: clean his wound before leaving the scene.
40:05
Speaker 1: The cognitive dissonance of this is just wild. Think about it.
40:08
Speaker 1: He probably ate that cereal for breakfast on a random Tuesday. Probably.
40:12
Speaker 1: And then, when the box was empty, he repurposed it
40:14
Speaker 1: to hold the instruments of absolute evil... This wasn't a
40:18
Speaker 1: crime of passion where he just snapped and grabbed whatever
40:20
Speaker 1: was nearby. He built a kit. He packed a bag.
40:23
Speaker 1: He went to work.
40:25
Speaker 2: It perfectly illustrates the normalization of his dark fantasies. The
40:30
Speaker 2: discovery of this kill kit provides the state with overwhelming
40:33
Speaker 2: physical and DNA evidence. Right. It completely destroys any remaining
40:37
Speaker 2: facade of his innocence. It leaves absolutely no room for
40:40
Speaker 2: doubt or community rationalization. It forces Daniel into the harsh,
40:46
Speaker 2: undeniable light of reality.
40:47
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:48
Speaker 2: But more importantly, it forces the Blodgett family to make
40:51
Speaker 2: an impossible choice about how they are going to carry
40:55
Speaker 2: the crushing, suffocating burden of this betrayal and loss.
40:59
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the trial, and honestly, the true
41:02
Speaker 1: emotional core of this entire deep dive. It is. The
41:05
Speaker 1: trial takes place. With the DNA evidence from the bloody
41:08
Speaker 1: wipe in the cereal box, Daniel Bartelt is found guilty
41:11
Speaker 1: of the murder of Jesse Blodgett. But throughout the entire
41:15
Speaker 1: arduous legal process, Daniel shows evidence Absolutely zero remorse.
41:19
Speaker 2: None.
41:20
Speaker 1: He never breaks down. He never cries for Jesse. And
41:23
Speaker 1: when he is finally given the opportunity to make a
41:25
Speaker 1: statement directly to Buck and Joy in the courtroom before sentencing,
41:29
Speaker 1: he doesn't apologize. He remains perfectly arrogant.
41:33
Speaker 2: It's hard to read.
41:34
Speaker 1: He literally looks at them and says, this jumpsuit that
41:37
Speaker 1: I'm wearing, these shackles that I'm put in, don't make
41:39
Speaker 1: me guilty. Even while standing there, admitting that the physical
41:43
Speaker 1: evidence against him is irrefutable.
41:46
Speaker 2: We have to contrast Daniel's utter lack of humanity in
41:49
Speaker 2: that moment with Buck's profound display of it.
41:52
Speaker 1: Yes, let's do that.
41:53
Speaker 2: But first, why does Daniel refuse to admit guilt, even
41:56
Speaker 2: when the evidence is absolute and his fate is sealed? Why?
42:00
Speaker 2: Because if we look back at his psychological profile, what
42:03
Speaker 2: is in it for him? If he stands up and
42:05
Speaker 2: admits guilt, he must finally admit that his grand intellectual
42:09
Speaker 2: narrative is a pathetic lie.
42:11
Speaker 1: Oh, right.
42:12
Speaker 2: He must admit he is a monster. a failure, and
42:14
Speaker 2: a coward, not a mastermind. His ego, his false sense
42:19
Speaker 2: of superiority, is literally the only thing he has left
42:22
Speaker 2: to cling to in that concrete cell.
42:24
Speaker 1: It's all he has.
42:25
Speaker 2: To confess, to show remorse, would be to psychologically annihilate himself.
42:31
Speaker 1: He is a completely hollow shell. He has nothing left
42:35
Speaker 1: but the mask, even when everyone can see behind it.
42:38
Speaker 1: But then you look at Buck Blodgett.
42:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, Buck.
42:41
Speaker 1: In that exact same courtroom, looking at the Arrogant, remorseless
42:45
Speaker 1: young man who brutally murdered his only child, who sat
42:48
Speaker 1: in his living room and faked tears. Buck Blodgett looks
42:52
Speaker 1: at Daniel and he forgives him.
42:55
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
42:55
Speaker 1: He literally speaks to Daniel and tells him that he
42:59
Speaker 1: loves him.
43:00
Speaker 2: It is a stunning moment. It is a.
43:02
Speaker 1: Display of radical forgiveness that completely defies human instinct. Our
43:07
Speaker 1: biological imperative is revenge, or at the very least, hatred
43:10
Speaker 1: for the entity that destroyed our offspring.
43:13
Speaker 2: So... I have to ask you, and I want the
43:15
Speaker 2: listener to really chew on this too, because radical forgiveness
43:18
Speaker 2: is such a heavy, complex concept. It is. Is Buck's
43:22
Speaker 2: forgiveness actually about Daniel? Does Daniel deserve to be forgiven?
43:27
Speaker 2: Or is this forgiveness a psychological survival mechanism for Buck?
43:32
Speaker 2: Is it his way of ensuring that Daniel's hatred and
43:34
Speaker 2: evil don't infect the rest of his own life?
43:38
Speaker 1: That is a profound perspective. And I think it is
43:41
Speaker 1: the key to understanding Buck's actions. Forgiveness in this extreme
43:45
Speaker 1: context is not absolution.
43:47
Speaker 2: Okay.
43:47
Speaker 1: Buck is not saying what Daniel did was okay or
43:50
Speaker 1: that the pain is gone or that Daniel shouldn't spend
43:53
Speaker 1: the rest of his life in a cage. Forgiveness here
43:56
Speaker 1: is the severing of an emotional tether.
43:58
Speaker 2: Explain that.
44:00
Speaker 1: How does it sever a tether?
44:01
Speaker 2: If Buck holds on to the hatred, if he lets
44:04
Speaker 2: the rage consume him, then Daniel continues to control Buck's
44:07
Speaker 2: emotional state from behind bars. Oh, I see. Daniel gets
44:11
Speaker 2: to keep claiming victims. The hatred would slowly rot Buck
44:15
Speaker 2: from the inside out. By looking at him and offering forgiveness,
44:19
Speaker 2: Buck reclaims his own absolute autonomy.
44:22
Speaker 1: He takes the power back.
44:23
Speaker 2: He takes his power back. He actively refuses to let
44:26
Speaker 2: Daniel's darkness extinguish his own internal light. It is the
44:30
Speaker 2: ultimate defeat of Daniel's desire for control.
44:33
Speaker 1: He refuses to let the monster win the emotional war.
44:37
Speaker 1: And Buck channels that reclaimed light in just an incredible way.
44:41
Speaker 1: A thousand people attend Jesse's funeral.
44:43
Speaker 2: A thousand.
44:44
Speaker 1: The outpouring of love from the community is massive. And
44:48
Speaker 1: out of this unspeakable tragedy, Buck founds the Love is
44:52
Speaker 1: Greater Than Hate campaign.
44:54
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful legacy.
44:56
Speaker 1: He decides that the best possible way to honor his
44:58
Speaker 1: daughter's vibrant life is to make love and forgiveness a daily,
45:02
Speaker 1: highly disciplined practice. And he roots this entire philosophy in
45:06
Speaker 1: the Native American parable of the two wolves.
45:09
Speaker 2: We need to deeply analyze that parable because it perfectly
45:12
Speaker 2: encapsulates the central thesis of this entire story.
45:15
Speaker 1: Go ahead.
45:17
Speaker 2: The parable tells of a grandfather explaining to his grandson
45:20
Speaker 2: that there is a terrible ongoing fight going on inside him.
45:24
Speaker 2: It is a fight between two wolves. Right. One wolf
45:27
Speaker 2: is evil. It represents anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies,
45:38
Speaker 2: false pride, superiority, and ego.
45:41
Speaker 1: That's Daniel.
45:42
Speaker 2: The other wolf is good. It represents joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion,
45:52
Speaker 2: and faith.
45:53
Speaker 1: And that's Jesse.
45:54
Speaker 2: The grandson thinks about it for a minute and asks, grandfather,
45:57
Speaker 2: which wolf will win? And the grandfather replies, the one
46:01
Speaker 2: you feed.
46:02
Speaker 1: The one you feed. I think about that phrase often.
46:05
Speaker 1: Constantly now because it suggests that evil isn't necessarily a
46:08
Speaker 1: permanent inherent state of being that you are just born
46:12
Speaker 1: into and trapped by.
46:13
Speaker 2: Right. It's a choice.
46:16
Speaker 1: It is an appetite. It is a series of choices.
46:19
Speaker 1: Daniel Bartelt actively fed the evil wolf every single day.
46:24
Speaker 1: He fed it when he lied to his parents over breakfast. Yeah.
46:27
Speaker 1: He fed it when he sat in the park watching women.
46:29
Speaker 1: He fed it every single time he opened an incognito
46:32
Speaker 1: browser window and searched for snuff films and serial killer
46:35
Speaker 1: high scores. He systematically starved his own humanity until absolutely
46:41
Speaker 1: nothing but the predator remained.
46:43
Speaker 2: Exactly. And conversely, Jessie, and ultimately her parents, spent their
46:48
Speaker 2: lives consciously feeding the good wolf.
46:51
Speaker 1: They really did.
46:52
Speaker 2: Through tutoring children, through creating music, through building community trust.
46:57
Speaker 2: And incredibly, through practicing radical forgiveness in the face of unimaginable,
47:03
Speaker 2: agonizing pain. They fed the good wolf even when they
47:06
Speaker 2: were starving.
47:07
Speaker 1: We have been on an intense emotional journey today. We've
47:11
Speaker 1: seen how easily a mask can slip over pure darkness.
47:14
Speaker 1: And how an idyllic, trusting bubble like a town with
47:17
Speaker 1: three murders in a century can leave us totally vulnerable
47:20
Speaker 1: to the wolf in sheep's clothing.
47:22
Speaker 2: It's true.
47:23
Speaker 1: But we've also seen the incredible resilient power of a
47:26
Speaker 1: vibrant life like Jesse's and the absolute monumental strength of
47:30
Speaker 1: Buck and Joy Blodgett.
47:32
Speaker 2: We can learn so much from the stark dichotomy of
47:35
Speaker 2: these two lives. It challenges us to examine our own environments.
47:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
47:40
Speaker 2: It forces us to question our own assumptions about safety
47:43
Speaker 2: and to deeply evaluate the daily microscopic choices we make
47:48
Speaker 2: regarding the energies we cultivate within ourselves.
47:51
Speaker 1: And as we close out this deep dive, I want
47:53
Speaker 1: to leave you with a final provocative thought. It's a
47:56
Speaker 1: concept we've touched on, but it is so relevant to
47:58
Speaker 1: how we all live right now. The concept of the
48:01
Speaker 1: digital true self.
48:03
Speaker 2: This is a big one.
48:04
Speaker 1: We live in a society where we spend hours, sometimes
48:07
Speaker 1: our entire lives, curating our public physical personas. We all
48:11
Speaker 1: want to look like the perfect boy next door.
48:13
Speaker 2: Right. The straight-A student.
48:14
Speaker 1: We want to be the straight-A student, the stoic intellectual,
48:17
Speaker 1: the polite coworker, the friendly neighbor. We wear these masks
48:21
Speaker 1: in public to survive and thrive.
48:24
Speaker 2: But our private search history, the data trail we leave
48:27
Speaker 2: in the dark when we think absolutely no one is watching,
48:30
Speaker 2: is often the only place where we take the mask off.
48:34
Speaker 2: It is the purest distillation of our unedited desires. Exactly.
48:39
Speaker 1: If the person we are in the dark, sitting alone
48:41
Speaker 1: with a keyboard and a glowing screen, is who we
48:44
Speaker 1: truly are, then what do our daily secret habits say
48:48
Speaker 1: about us?
48:49
Speaker 2: What do they say?
48:50
Speaker 1: Which wolf are we feeding when the bedroom door is closed,
48:53
Speaker 1: the lights are out, and the screen is glowing?
48:56
Speaker 2: It's a chilling, necessary reflection for all of us.
48:59
Speaker 1: Because remember where we started. We always want a clear x-ray.
49:03
Speaker 1: We want the obvious monster. We want a jagged white
49:06
Speaker 1: line that shows exactly where the break is, exactly where
49:09
Speaker 1: the danger lives.
49:10
Speaker 2: We want it to be easy.
49:12
Speaker 1: But human psychology is murky, dangerous water. The monster might
49:16
Speaker 1: not be the stranger hiding in the woods. It might
49:18
Speaker 1: be the reflection stereotyped. back from a smartphone screen. Thank
49:22
Speaker 1: you for taking this deep dive with us today. Keep
49:25
Speaker 1: exploring the world, keep asking the hard questions, and keep
49:27
Speaker 1: your mind open, but always, always keep it critical. Take
49:31
Speaker 1: care of yourselves.