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Ohio Teen Kills Ex Girlfriend on Myrtle Beach Trip · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: I want you to imagine, just for a moment, a
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Speaker 1: memory you probably have stored away somewhere in your brain.
0:06
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. We all have those core memories. Right.
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Speaker 1: Picture the quintessential teenage milestone, that post-high school graduation trip.
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Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Yeah. That takes me back.
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Speaker 1: It does. Right. Maybe it was to the beach or
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Speaker 1: the mountains or just like a cab in a few
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Speaker 1: towns over with a tight-knit group of friends.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, just trying to get away from everything.
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Speaker 1: Exactly. Think about the feeling of that specific moment in
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Speaker 1: your life. It is supposed to be this ultimate time
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Speaker 1: of celebration, you know?
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Speaker 2: A total bridge between the structured world of childhood and, well,
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Speaker 2: whatever chaotic freedom comes next.
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Speaker 1: Yes. You can probably still see the overpacked suitcases, smell
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Speaker 1: of the chief's sunscreen, and... Hear those really loud, overlapping
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Speaker 1: conversations in the car ride down.
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Speaker 2: The ones where everyone's talking and no one's listening.
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Speaker 1: Totally. It's a transition period filled with this blinding, almost
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Speaker 1: naive optimism.
1:00
Speaker 2: It really is a universal cultural touchstone. I mean, that
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Speaker 2: window of time where you feel like you have absolutely
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Speaker 2: no real responsibilities.
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Speaker 1: You're just invincible.
1:07
Speaker 2: Exactly. And the entire world is just stretching out in
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Speaker 2: front of you. Right.
1:11
Speaker 1: But today we have to pivot incredibly sharply away from
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Speaker 1: that sunlit, optimistic image.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, unfortunately we do.
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Speaker 1: Because we are looking at the chilling reality of what
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Speaker 1: actually happened on one of those exact trips. This was
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Speaker 1: on June 7, 2023, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
1:30
Speaker 2: It's a really heavy one today.
1:33
Speaker 1: It is. Our source material today is something that takes
1:35
Speaker 1: you right into the darkest parts of human nature. We've
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Speaker 1: got our hands on a really harrowing interrogation transcript.
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Speaker 2: And it's incredibly detailed.
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Speaker 1: It is. It details the death of an 18-year-old girl
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Speaker 1: named Natalie Martin. at the hands of her 18-year-old ex-boyfriend,
1:50
Speaker 1: Blake Linkus.
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Speaker 2: Such tragedy.
1:52
Speaker 1: And I want to be clear with you right up front.
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Speaker 1: The mission of this deep dive isn't just to recount
1:57
Speaker 1: a true crime tragedy, like, you know, reading a table
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Speaker 1: of contents. Right.
2:00
Speaker 2: We're not just reading a police report here.
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Speaker 1: No, we aren't just going to tell you a sad story.
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Speaker 2: The real value here is dissecting the psychological machinery at work.
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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
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Speaker 2: We're going to explore the terrifying cognitive dissonance of a
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Speaker 2: perpetrator who, frankly... simply cannot process his own actions.
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Speaker 1: It's mind-boggling when you read it.
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Speaker 2: It really is. We'll look at the rapid unraveling of
2:23
Speaker 2: a toxic relationship and the incredibly meticulous, almost invisible tactics
2:30
Speaker 2: that detectives use.
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Speaker 1: Those tactics are fascinating.
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Speaker 2: They are. Just to get to the truth when sitting
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Speaker 2: across from someone who has just committed the unthinkable.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Because to understand how this ends
2:41
Speaker 1: in a sterile interrogation room, we need to start with
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Speaker 1: the timeline of this Myrtle Beach trip.
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Speaker 2: The setup is crucial here.
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Speaker 1: Right. The context of how these kids even ended up
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Speaker 1: in this rental unit is everything.
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Speaker 2: It absolutely is, because it sets the stage for what
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Speaker 2: I call the illusion of normalcy.
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Speaker 1: The illusion of normalcy. I like that phrase. Thanks.
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Speaker 2: You have this group of recent high school graduates from
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Speaker 2: Muskingum County, Ohio.
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Speaker 1: Just normal kids.
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Speaker 2: Right. They've planned the senior trip for months, they've pooled
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Speaker 2: their money, and they've rented a unit in Myrtle Beach
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Speaker 2: for early June 2023.
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Speaker 1: Which sounds like a blast, normally.
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Speaker 2: It does. But right out of the gate, there is
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Speaker 2: a massively complex, unstable dynamic.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the elephant in the room.
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Speaker 2: Big time. Blake and Natalie had broken up several weeks
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Speaker 2: prior to this trip.
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Speaker 1: Which is just a recipe for disaster.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. Yet despite the breakup, they still ended up going
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Speaker 2: on this vacation together.
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Speaker 1: Which, just pausing there, I mean, I am struggling to
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Speaker 1: understand the logic.
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Speaker 2: It's hard for adults to grasp, definitely.
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Speaker 1: Right. If you think about teenage dynamics, bringing a fresh
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Speaker 1: ex on a week-long beach trip with all your mutual
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Speaker 1: friends is like a literal power keg.
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Speaker 2: It really is.
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Speaker 1: But I guess, thinking back being 18, teenagers constantly try
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Speaker 1: to power through these awkward or volatile situations.
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Speaker 2: They do because the social pressure is just so immense.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they want to keep the peace in the friend
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Speaker 1: group or maybe they convince themselves it won't be a
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Speaker 1: big deal.
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Speaker 2: Or they just don't want to miss out on the fun.
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Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. The adolescent brain just assumes, oh, we can
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Speaker 1: just be friends on this trip. It'll be totally fine.
4:15
Speaker 2: That's precisely it. And it has a lot to do
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Speaker 2: with brain development at that age.
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Speaker 1: Right. The neuroscience of it all.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. The prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for long-term planning,
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Speaker 2: risk assessment, and complex emotional regulation, well, it's nowhere near
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Speaker 2: fully developed at 18.
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Speaker 1: So they literally can't see the disaster coming.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. They lack the life experience to say, this is
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Speaker 2: a terrible idea. Someone is going to get hurt emotionally.
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Speaker 1: They're just living in the moment.
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Speaker 2: Right. They prioritize the immediate social reward going on the
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Speaker 2: fun trip over the potential for intense emotional fallout.
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Speaker 1: Which makes sense on paper, but the reality is so different.
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Speaker 2: The reality of trying to play house with an ex
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Speaker 2: is far messier than an 18-year-old anticipates.
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Speaker 1: And we see that messiness start bubbling up on the
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Speaker 1: evening of June 6th.
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Speaker 2: The night before the tragedy. Right.
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Speaker 1: The group goes out. They attend an event at the
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Speaker 1: House of Blues.
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Speaker 2: Which is a big venue down there.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, according to the friends in the group who
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Speaker 1: spoke to police, Blake is taking this recent breakup incredibly hard.
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Speaker 2: He is not handling it well at all.
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Speaker 1: Not at all. He's reportedly making these really dark statements
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Speaker 1: to friends, saying things like he didn't want to live
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Speaker 1: without Natalie.
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Speaker 2: That's a massive red flag.
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Speaker 1: A huge one. So the emotional stakes for him are
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Speaker 1: sky high. He's not on a fun trip.
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Speaker 2: No, not in his mind.
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Speaker 1: He's on a desperation tour to win her back while
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Speaker 1: everyone else is just trying to enjoy their graduation.
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Speaker 2: Which creates a profound isolation for him within the group.
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Speaker 1: Oh, totally. He's the odd man out.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. He is experiencing a crisis of identity and attachment
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Speaker 2: completely out of sync with the celebratory environment around him.
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Speaker 1: And that misalignment leads us to the morning of June 7th.
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Speaker 2: The morning everything changed. Right.
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Speaker 1: The friends in the rental unit wake up, and, you know,
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Speaker 1: I want you to put yourself in their shoes for
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Speaker 1: a second.
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Speaker 2: It's hard to even imagine.
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Speaker 1: It is. You wake up on your beach vacation, rub
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Speaker 1: the sleep out of your eyes, and walk out of
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Speaker 1: your bedroom into what is essentially a collapsed reality.
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Speaker 2: A total nightmare.
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Speaker 1: Yes. They find Blake covered in blood.
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Speaker 2: Just horrifying.
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Speaker 1: He has a self-inflicted stab wound to his chest, and
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Speaker 1: he is frantic. claiming that Natalie won't wake up.
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Speaker 2: The sheer chaos of that moment.
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Speaker 1: How does a group of teenagers even begin to process
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Speaker 1: walking into a scene like that?
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Speaker 2: They don't. I mean, the human brain isn't equipped to
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Speaker 2: suddenly process extreme trauma in an environment coded as safe.
6:39
Speaker 1: Right. They're supposed to be on vacation.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. They react with sheer, unadulterated panic, which is perfectly
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Speaker 2: captured in the 911 call made by one of the friends,
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Speaker 2: a girl named Addison.
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Speaker 1: That call is just gut-wrenching. It is.
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Speaker 2: When you look at the transcript of that call, it's chaotic.
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Speaker 2: But Addison gives the dispatcher these crucial, chilling, physical descriptions
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Speaker 2: of Natalie.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, she was really observant despite the panic.
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Speaker 2: She was. She says her friend is passed out on
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Speaker 2: the floor, but then she adds that Natalie is ice
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Speaker 2: cold and her lips are blue.
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Speaker 1: I read that part of the transcript and it literally
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Speaker 1: stopped me in my tracks.
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Speaker 2: It's a very striking detail.
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Speaker 1: Those specific words, ice cold, blue lips. That completely shifts
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Speaker 1: the reality of what the dispatcher and the police are
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Speaker 1: walking into, right?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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Speaker 1: This isn't a medical emergency anymore.
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Speaker 2: Precisely. What's fascinating here is how those seemingly simple descriptors
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Speaker 2: immediately establish a rigid scientific timeline for the detectives.
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Speaker 1: It changes everything.
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Speaker 2: It turns a chaotic scene into a chronological puzzle. When
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Speaker 2: a human body is described as ice cold in a
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Speaker 2: room temperature environment, We are talking about algor mortis, the
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Speaker 2: cooling of the body after death.
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Speaker 1: Right, the temperature drop. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: A body typically cools at a rate of about one
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Speaker 2: and a half degrees Fahrenheit per hour until it reaches
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Speaker 2: room temperature.
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Speaker 1: So it takes a while.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. For a person to feel ice cold to the
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Speaker 2: touch to an untrained teenager, several hours have to have passed.
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Speaker 1: So the idea that this happened right before they woke up,
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Speaker 1: like a sudden morning argument, is instantly thrown out the window.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. And the blue lips... cyanosis.
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Speaker 1: That's the lack of oxygen, right?
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Speaker 2: Well, it indicates deoxygenated blood pooling. When the heart stops,
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Speaker 2: gravity takes over. The blood settles in the lowest parts
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Speaker 2: of the body, a process called liver mortis.
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Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: For these physical changes to be so pronounced that a
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Speaker 2: panicked teenager notices them immediately, Natalie had been dead for
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Speaker 2: a significant amount of time.
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Speaker 1: Hours and hours.
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Speaker 2: Yes. The tragedy unfolded long before the sun came up
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Speaker 2: in the dead of night, while everyone else was asleep.
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Speaker 1: So the police arrive, they secure the scene, and Blake,
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Speaker 1: after getting medical attention for his chest wound, is taken
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Speaker 1: down to the station for questioning.
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Speaker 2: The transition phase.
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Speaker 1: Right. We're moving from the chaotic, blood-soaked, panicked reality of
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Speaker 1: that rental unit to the stark, controlled, almost clinical environment
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Speaker 1: of the police interrogation room.
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Speaker 2: It's a totally different world.
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Speaker 1: It is. And this transition is where the source material
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Speaker 1: really gets into the weeds of police tactics. Yes.
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Speaker 2: The interrogation room is a highly engineered environment designed to
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Speaker 2: strip away distractions and establish control.
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Speaker 1: Very psychological.
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Speaker 2: It is. And this is where the psychological chess match
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Speaker 2: between the detective and the suspect begins.
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Speaker 1: And reading this transcript, I have to admit, I was
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Speaker 1: so confused at first.
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Speaker 2: Oh, really? How so?
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Speaker 1: Well, if you watch too many Hollywood movies or procedural
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Speaker 1: cop shows, you expect the detective to storm in, slam
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Speaker 1: a file on the table, and scream, Why did you
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Speaker 1: kill her?
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Speaker 2: Ah, right. The classic TV trope.
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Speaker 1: Exactly. But the detective here does the exact opposite. It
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Speaker 1: almost feels counterintuitive.
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Speaker 2: It's very deliberate, though.
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Speaker 1: He sits down, confirms Blake can read and write, asks
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Speaker 1: about his high school graduation, makes sure he isn't under
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Speaker 1: the influence of drugs, and calmly reads him his Miranda rights.
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Speaker 2: Very low.
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Speaker 1: Key. He is so quiet. Like eerily calm.
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Speaker 2: It's a brilliant execution of what's known in law enforcement
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Speaker 2: as the soft approach or an information gathering interview style.
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Speaker 1: Soft approach.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Think about the traditional bad cop routine you mentioned.
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Speaker 2: It's highly confrontational. Right.
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Speaker 1: Lots of yelling.
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Speaker 2: If you come in screaming accusations, what does the human
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Speaker 2: brain do? It triggers the fight or flight response.
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Speaker 1: Your walls go right up.
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Speaker 2: The suspect's defenses go up, their adrenaline spikes, and they
10:27
Speaker 2: immediately stop talking.
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Speaker 1: Which is the opposite of what the cop wants.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. The detective here is utilizing techniques closer to the
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Speaker 2: peace model, which originated in the UK, focusing on preparation...
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Speaker 2: and engaging the suspect in a conversational manner.
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Speaker 1: So he's intentionally acting as a nonjudgmental information gatherer.
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Speaker 2: Yes. Just a guy doing his job.
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Speaker 1: He isn't accusing Blake of murder. He's just a guy
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Speaker 1: trying to piece together a timeline.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. By keeping the emotional temperature incredibly low, the detective
11:00
Speaker 2: lowers Blake's cognitive defenses.
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Speaker 1: Making him feel comfortable. Right.
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Speaker 2: He asks Blake to just walk him through the previous evening,
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Speaker 2: starting way back with getting Ubers to the House of Blues.
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Speaker 1: The boring stuff. Yes.
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Speaker 2: They spend minutes talking about mundane logistics. Blake talks about
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Speaker 2: a friend named Dakota getting kicked out of the club,
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Speaker 2: taking an Uber back early to the rental, and Dakota
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Speaker 2: taking a nap.
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Speaker 1: Just standard Friday night stuff.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. The detective is systematically locking Blake into a chronological,
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Speaker 2: verifiable timeline of events, Before ever bringing up the violence.
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Speaker 1: But wait, I need to pause here because this is
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Speaker 1: where my brain starts breaking. Think about Blake's state of
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Speaker 1: mind in this exact moment. He violently strangled his ex-girlfriend
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Speaker 1: just hours ago.
11:43
Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: She is dead on the floor. He stabbed himself in
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Speaker 1: the chest with a kitchen knife.
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Speaker 2: Massive trauma.
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Speaker 1: Yet he is sitting in this sterile room, calmly giving
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Speaker 1: a play-by-play of nightclub drama, who paid for which Uber,
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Speaker 1: and who took a nap on which couch.
12:00
Speaker 2: It's surreal.
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Speaker 1: How is that neurologically possible? Have you ever noticed how
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Speaker 1: in times of extreme trauma or right after someone does
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Speaker 1: something horrific, they fixate on the most boring, mundane detail?
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Speaker 2: Yes. It happens all the time.
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Speaker 1: It makes no sense to me.
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Speaker 2: It seems bizarre from the outside, but it is a
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Speaker 2: profound and well-documented psychological defense mechanism.
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Speaker 1: Really? A defense mechanism?
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Speaker 2: Yeah. When a human being commits an act that entirely
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Speaker 2: shatters their own self-concept, in this case murder the brain,
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Speaker 2: experiences an overwhelming surge of cognitive dissonance.
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Speaker 1: It just can't compute it.
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Speaker 2: The trauma is too massive for the psyche to process
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Speaker 2: all at once. So the brain essentially compartmentalizes.
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Speaker 1: It puts the horror in a box.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. The amygdala, which processes fear and emotion, is screaming.
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Speaker 2: But the hippocampus, which handles memory and sequencing, tries to
12:50
Speaker 2: assert control by clinging to safe chronological facts.
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Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So it's almost like the brain uses those small,
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Speaker 1: boring facts... The Uber receipt, the friend getting kicked out
13:03
Speaker 1: of the club as a life raft.
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Speaker 2: A life raft is the perfect metaphor.
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Speaker 1: He's clinging to the logistics so he doesn't drown in
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Speaker 1: the reality of the murder he just committed.
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Speaker 2: That is a perfect way to conceptualize it. By focusing
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Speaker 2: on Dakota getting kicked out of the House of Blues,
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Speaker 2: Blake is actively delaying the moment he has to verbally
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Speaker 2: acknowledge the monstrous act.
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Speaker 1: He's putting it off.
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Speaker 2: He is living in the safe harbor of the before.
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Speaker 2: But the detective, knowing exactly what he is doing, patiently
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Speaker 2: and methodically navigates the ship out of the harbor.
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Speaker 1: Slowly steering him to the truth.
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Speaker 2: He lets Blake recount the mundane timeline right up until
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Speaker 2: they reach the inciting incident back at the rental unit.
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Speaker 1: Right. The timeline tightens. Blake and Natalie are back at
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Speaker 1: the rental, lying in bed together in the dark, watching
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Speaker 1: TikTok videos on her phone.
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Speaker 2: A very normal teenager scenario.
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Speaker 1: Right. And this is where that mundane, safe reality violently shatters.
13:53
Speaker 2: The turning point.
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Speaker 1: Blake tells the detective he got mad over something he
13:57
Speaker 1: saw on her phone. He claims he can't even exactly
13:59
Speaker 1: remember what the specific video or message was, but he
14:03
Speaker 1: assumes it was about other dudes on Snapchat.
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Speaker 2: This introduces the element of intense jealousy and possessiveness, which,
14:11
Speaker 2: as we analyze his later statements, we will see is
14:14
Speaker 2: the central recurring theme of his psychology.
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Speaker 1: Jealousy is a powerful trigger. It is.
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Speaker 2: The detective, staying in that calm clinical mode, asks for
14:24
Speaker 2: excruciating detail about their physical positioning in the bed when
14:27
Speaker 2: the argument starts.
14:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I noticed that. Why does the detective care about
14:31
Speaker 1: their physical positioning before the crime is even confessed to?
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Speaker 2: Because the physical mechanics of a crime are much harder
14:37
Speaker 2: to lie about consistently than emotional states.
14:39
Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense.
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Speaker 2: The detective is trapping him in the physics of the room.
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Speaker 2: Blake explains that they were lying with their feet towards
14:45
Speaker 2: the end of the bed. Natalie was on her back
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Speaker 2: near the edge of the mattress. and Blake was on
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Speaker 2: his side, facing her.
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Speaker 1: Building a literal map of the scene.
14:53
Speaker 2: Once Blake establishes this geometry, he can't later claim she
14:57
Speaker 2: attacked him from behind or that they were standing up.
15:00
Speaker 2: He is locked in.
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Speaker 1: Okay, that makes perfect sense. And then the transcript moves
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Speaker 1: to the act itself.
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Speaker 2: The most difficult part. Yeah.
15:07
Speaker 1: Blake says they were arguing, just saying stuff back and
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Speaker 1: forth in the dark, and he just reaches over, first
15:13
Speaker 1: with one hand.
15:14
Speaker 2: Just casually reaches over.
15:15
Speaker 1: Then he says he brings up his second hand. And
15:18
Speaker 1: he chokes her.
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Speaker 2: So violent, so quickly.
15:21
Speaker 1: He tells the detective she arched her back up, pushing
15:23
Speaker 1: a little bit against him, and they ended up shifting
15:26
Speaker 1: until they were on their knees on the bed.
15:27
Speaker 2: A physical struggle for survival.
15:29
Speaker 1: During this struggle, this terrifyingly intimate act of violence, a specific,
15:35
Speaker 1: incredibly weird detail emerges.
15:36
Speaker 2: Yes, a necklace.
15:37
Speaker 1: Blake tells the detective that his favorite silver Jesus pendant
15:40
Speaker 1: got snapped off his neck.
15:42
Speaker 2: That detail about the Jesus pendant is incredibly significant from
15:45
Speaker 2: a psychological standpoint.
15:46
Speaker 1: How so? Because it distracts him.
15:48
Speaker 2: Well, in the absolute peak midst of this violent physical
15:52
Speaker 2: struggle where he is manually strangling a girl he claims
15:56
Speaker 2: to love, his brain registers his favorite necklace breaking.
16:00
Speaker 1: Prioritizing jewelry over a human life.
16:03
Speaker 2: Exactly. And shortly after that, as her body gives out,
16:06
Speaker 2: Natalie falls backward completely off the edge of the bed
16:10
Speaker 2: and hits the floor.
16:11
Speaker 1: And this brings us to the part of the transcript
16:13
Speaker 1: that I genuinely struggle to read.
16:15
Speaker 2: It's very tough.
16:16
Speaker 1: It is deeply, deeply unsettling. And honestly, it's the psychological
16:20
Speaker 1: core of this entire deep dive.
16:21
Speaker 2: The aftermath. Right.
16:23
Speaker 1: Natalie falls off the bed and hits the floor. And
16:26
Speaker 1: Blake's immediate reaction. He doesn't check her pulse.
16:31
Speaker 2: Doesn't try to help at all.
16:32
Speaker 1: He doesn't turn on a light. He tells the detective,
16:33
Speaker 1: all right, I'm just going to go to bed. Like,
16:35
Speaker 1: I'm not dealing with this right now.
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Speaker 2: It's chilling.
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Speaker 1: He rolls over to the middle of the mattress, grabs
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Speaker 1: his phone. texts his parents that he messed up and
16:43
Speaker 1: goes to sleep.
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Speaker 2: It defies conventional empathy entirely.
16:46
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting, because I have to
16:48
Speaker 1: push back hard on Blake's logic here, and I want
16:51
Speaker 1: your take on this. It is absolute absurdity. The only
16:54
Speaker 1: way I can comprehend it is by comparing it to
16:57
Speaker 1: the dark, extreme version of object permanence.
17:00
Speaker 2: Object permanence. Okay, untack that.
17:02
Speaker 1: You know how a toddler closes their eyes and genuinely
17:04
Speaker 1: thinks the rest of the world disappears because they can't
17:07
Speaker 1: see it?
17:07
Speaker 2: Like playing peekaboo.
17:08
Speaker 1: Exactly. That's what this reads like. Blake pushes his ex-girlfriend
17:13
Speaker 1: off a bed by her throat. Here's her hit the ground,
17:17
Speaker 1: rolls over to face the wall, and just decides reality
17:19
Speaker 1: doesn't exist if he's not looking at it.
17:21
Speaker 2: Just erasing it from his mind.
17:23
Speaker 1: How does a human being do that?
17:25
Speaker 2: Your analogy of object permanence is incredibly apt because it
17:28
Speaker 2: highlights a massive temporary regression in his cognitive processing.
17:32
Speaker 1: Regression. So he's acting like a child.
17:34
Speaker 2: We are looking at profound cognitive dissonance resulting in temporary delusion.
17:39
Speaker 1: Delusion is the right word.
17:40
Speaker 2: How does a perpetrator rationalize this to themselves in the
17:43
Speaker 2: split second after the violence? Blake's hyper-focus on his own anger,
17:48
Speaker 2: and specifically his focus on that broken Jesus pendant, allowed
17:52
Speaker 2: him to completely dehumanize Natalie in that instant.
17:55
Speaker 1: Dehumanize her how? Because he thought she broke his stuff. Yes.
18:01
Speaker 2: His internal narrative shifted rapidly from, I am hurting a
18:04
Speaker 2: living human being to, I am inconvenienced, my property was damaged,
18:08
Speaker 2: and I am annoyed at this situation.
18:10
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Annoyed.
18:12
Speaker 2: By rolling over and physically turning his back to the floor,
18:16
Speaker 2: he is physically and psychologically severing his connection to the
18:19
Speaker 2: consequences of his violence.
18:21
Speaker 1: Just literally turning his back on reality.
18:23
Speaker 2: He tells the detective he just assumed she would get
18:25
Speaker 2: up and leave the room.
18:26
Speaker 1: Which is insane.
18:27
Speaker 2: He minimizes the violence to such an extreme degree in
18:31
Speaker 2: his own mind that he convinces himself it was just
18:33
Speaker 2: a typical, albeit physical, argument. He needed to believe she
18:38
Speaker 2: was fine so that he could be fine.
18:40
Speaker 1: It's staggering selfishness. He actually says to the detective, I
18:43
Speaker 1: didn't think she was just dead. I didn't care for
18:45
Speaker 1: it at all.
18:46
Speaker 2: I didn't care for it. Listen to that phrasing.
18:48
Speaker 1: He thought she was on the floor trying to get
18:49
Speaker 1: a word out, maybe moaning. He just literally didn't care
18:52
Speaker 1: to check.
18:53
Speaker 2: The absolute lack of concern.
18:55
Speaker 1: He texts his mom and dad because he's worried the
18:58
Speaker 1: vacation is ruined and he's going to be in trouble
19:00
Speaker 1: with the friend group.
19:01
Speaker 2: Right. Social consequences.
19:02
Speaker 1: He's not texting them because he thinks he just took
19:04
Speaker 1: a life.
19:05
Speaker 2: Exactly. He is entirely self-centered in that moment. The text
19:09
Speaker 2: to his parents, I messed up, is entirely about his
19:12
Speaker 2: own anticipated social trouble.
19:14
Speaker 1: He's playing the victim.
19:15
Speaker 2: He tells the police he thought she was going to
19:17
Speaker 2: tell her friends in the other room and everyone was
19:19
Speaker 2: going to be mad at him in the morning.
19:21
Speaker 1: That's his biggest fear. Everyone being mad at him.
19:23
Speaker 2: The empathy for her physical suffering is completely absent. His
19:27
Speaker 2: only concern is his own social standing and comfort.
19:30
Speaker 1: So having established this horrific reality of what happened in
19:33
Speaker 1: that dark room, the interrogation begins to shift.
19:36
Speaker 2: Phase two of the interview.
19:38
Speaker 1: Right. The detective has the timeline. He has the confession
19:41
Speaker 1: to the physical act. Now we start to see how
19:44
Speaker 1: Blake attempts to justify this to the detectives.
19:47
Speaker 2: The excuses start rolling in.
19:49
Speaker 1: And even... in doing so, he reveals a terrifying history
19:53
Speaker 1: of toxic behavior. He essentially starts building this anatomy of
19:57
Speaker 1: excuses right there at the table.
19:59
Speaker 2: He does. And if you study the psychology of domestic abusers,
20:03
Speaker 2: he relies on classic textbook tactics.
20:06
Speaker 1: What's the first one?
20:07
Speaker 2: First, there's minimization. He repeatedly uses the word just. He
20:12
Speaker 2: says he just choked her for a little bit.
20:14
Speaker 1: Just. Like it's no big deal.
20:16
Speaker 2: Exactly. He repeatedly emphasizes that he didn't mean to kill her.
20:21
Speaker 2: He even says at one point that the whole thing
20:22
Speaker 2: felt like a dream or a nightmare.
20:24
Speaker 1: Trying to distance himself from it.
20:26
Speaker 2: Attempting to detach himself from the physical reality of his
20:29
Speaker 2: own hands.
20:30
Speaker 1: And then, when minimization doesn't seem to be landing, he
20:33
Speaker 1: pivots to blame shifting.
20:35
Speaker 2: A very common pivot.
20:36
Speaker 1: He points the finger squarely at a scapegoat. Alcohol. Ah, yes.
20:41
Speaker 2: The alcohol defense.
20:42
Speaker 1: He tells the detective, the alcohol, it just escalates on
20:45
Speaker 1: them worse than I would ever be if I was sober.
20:47
Speaker 2: Notice how he says on them, detaching it even further.
20:50
Speaker 1: He even brings up his family, saying his dad and
20:53
Speaker 1: grandfather always told him to control the alcohol. Don't let
20:56
Speaker 1: the alcohol control you.
20:57
Speaker 2: Using his family history as cover.
20:59
Speaker 1: So he is using this familial advice almost as a shield.
21:04
Speaker 1: He's essentially saying to the cop, look. It's a known
21:07
Speaker 1: genetic or family problem I have with drinking. This wasn't
21:10
Speaker 1: the real me. It was the liquor.
21:12
Speaker 2: And that is a very dangerous, albeit common, deflection. He
21:16
Speaker 2: is trying to surgically separate his actions from his core character. Right.
21:20
Speaker 1: I'm a good guy. The alcohol is bad.
21:22
Speaker 2: Now, regarding alcohol, we need to be clear about the
21:24
Speaker 2: neurological realities.
21:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask about that because we hear
21:27
Speaker 1: this all the time. The alcohol made me violent.
21:30
Speaker 2: We hear it constantly.
21:31
Speaker 1: Does alcohol actually create aggression or does it just remove
21:34
Speaker 1: the brakes?
21:34
Speaker 2: It's the latter. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant
21:39
Speaker 2: and its primary target is the prefrontal cortex.
21:41
Speaker 1: Which we talked about earlier.
21:42
Speaker 2: Right. The part of the brain that handles impulse control,
21:46
Speaker 2: risk assessment and social regulation.
21:48
Speaker 1: The part that's already underdeveloped in an 18 year old.
21:51
Speaker 2: Exactly. Alcohol does not plant the seed of rage or jealousy.
21:55
Speaker 2: It acts as a magnifying glass and a disinhibitor.
21:58
Speaker 1: It just unlocks the door.
22:00
Speaker 2: If you have deep-seated jealousy, possessiveness or anger... Alcohol shuts
22:05
Speaker 2: down the part of your brain that whispers, don't act
22:08
Speaker 2: on this. It's a bad idea.
22:09
Speaker 1: So the monster is already inside the house.
22:12
Speaker 2: Yes. So when Blake blames the alcohol, he is refusing
22:16
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that the jealousy and the capacity for violence
22:19
Speaker 2: were already inside him. The alcohol just gave it permission
22:23
Speaker 2: to come out.
22:23
Speaker 1: That makes total sense. So he's building this facade, claiming
22:27
Speaker 1: they were this perfect couple.
22:28
Speaker 2: The we never fight narrative.
22:30
Speaker 1: Right. He insists to the detective that they had never
22:32
Speaker 1: done anything physical to each other. In their three years
22:35
Speaker 1: of dating.
22:36
Speaker 2: Which is almost statistically impossible given how this ended.
22:39
Speaker 1: But the detective doesn't just buy that, right? With steady,
22:43
Speaker 1: calm questioning, the detective starts to poke holes. And that
22:47
Speaker 1: perfect facade cracks wide open.
22:49
Speaker 2: It absolutely shatters.
22:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:51
Speaker 2: Because the detective knows that a two-handed strangulation resulting in
22:54
Speaker 2: death is almost never the very first instance of physical
22:58
Speaker 2: aggression in a relationship.
22:59
Speaker 1: Violence escalates. It doesn't just start at 11.
23:02
Speaker 2: Violence escalates. So the detective probes gently and Blake eventually
23:07
Speaker 2: admits to a previous incident. Right.
23:09
Speaker 1: He brings up this situation that happened at 6.0 in
23:11
Speaker 1: the morning back in Ohio.
23:13
Speaker 2: A very telling story.
23:14
Speaker 1: He says his friend Brady and Brady's ex were at
23:17
Speaker 1: his house being loud. Blake was trying to sleep, gets
23:20
Speaker 1: furious and goes out to confront them.
23:23
Speaker 2: So he's already agitated.
23:25
Speaker 1: Natalie, trying to de-escalate the situation... tries to step in
23:29
Speaker 1: and physically shove him back to calm him down.
23:31
Speaker 2: She's trying to protect everyone.
23:32
Speaker 1: And Blake casually admits to the detective that he completely
23:36
Speaker 1: pushed her to the ground in the living room.
23:38
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, this is
23:40
Speaker 2: exactly how toxic relationships operate and sustain themselves.
23:44
Speaker 1: They brush off the warning signs.
23:46
Speaker 2: The abuser rationalizes early red flags as isolated anomalies or
23:50
Speaker 2: justifiable reactions. Blake completely dismisses that pushing incident to the detective.
23:56
Speaker 1: Like it didn't even count.
23:58
Speaker 2: He says he felt bad afterward, but crucially, he claims
24:01
Speaker 2: he didn't even consider that, putting his hands on her.
24:03
Speaker 1: Oh, come on. He shoved her to the ground.
24:06
Speaker 2: He actually compares himself favorably to his friend Brady in
24:09
Speaker 2: this story, basically saying, Brady's the crazy one who fights
24:13
Speaker 2: with girls. Natalie and I are fine.
24:15
Speaker 1: It is a breathtaking lack of self-awareness.
24:19
Speaker 2: It was breathtaking.
24:20
Speaker 1: And as the detective keeps digging, the history gets even darker.
24:25
Speaker 2: The real Blake starts showing through.
24:27
Speaker 1: The detective asks if there were other issues. Other times
24:30
Speaker 1: he felt that extreme jealousy. And Blake admits to a
24:34
Speaker 1: major confrontation that happened a year prior at their trade school.
24:37
Speaker 2: The possessive jealousy comes out.
24:38
Speaker 1: He says there were rumors going around that some other
24:41
Speaker 1: guy was messing around with Natalie. So what does Blake do?
24:44
Speaker 2: He overreacts.
24:45
Speaker 1: He gets his power line guys, his crew from school together,
24:48
Speaker 1: tracks this guy down, and is ready to brawl in
24:50
Speaker 1: the parking lot.
24:51
Speaker 2: A literal mob mentality.
24:53
Speaker 1: But listen to how Blake frames this aggression to the detective.
24:56
Speaker 1: He says, I've fought over people for her for good reasons.
25:00
Speaker 1: They've always known my protection I had for her.
25:03
Speaker 2: Which is a terrifying, twisted contradiction.
25:05
Speaker 1: Exactly. He is sitting in a police station having just
25:09
Speaker 1: murdered this girl, and he is claiming to be her
25:11
Speaker 1: noble protector.
25:12
Speaker 2: It's sickening.
25:13
Speaker 1: I mean, the irony is sickening. He was the very
25:16
Speaker 1: danger she needed protection from. How does he not hear himself?
25:19
Speaker 2: Because that is the ultimate tragic irony of possessive control.
25:24
Speaker 2: It always masks itself as passion and protection.
25:28
Speaker 1: I do this because I love you so much.
25:30
Speaker 2: In Blast Mind, he views Natalie not as an autonomous
25:34
Speaker 2: human being with her own agency, but as an extension
25:37
Speaker 2: of himself. Like a property. She was his property to
25:40
Speaker 2: defend from others. But when that property defied him or
25:43
Speaker 2: annoyed him or broke his favorite necklace, that outward protection
25:47
Speaker 2: instantly turned inward into lethal aggression.
25:50
Speaker 1: It just pivots instantly.
25:51
Speaker 2: He actually tells the detective that when he gets mad,
25:54
Speaker 2: there's just a little switch that flips.
25:56
Speaker 1: The switch.
25:57
Speaker 2: That switch is the complete withdrawal of empathy.
26:00
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's move the timeline forward to the morning
26:02
Speaker 1: of June 7th.
26:03
Speaker 2: Back to the rental unit.
26:04
Speaker 1: Blake wakes up in the rental bed. And this is
26:06
Speaker 1: the moment the cognitive dissonance that delusion he built the
26:09
Speaker 1: night before finally breaks against the jagged rocks of reality.
26:13
Speaker 2: He can't hide from it anymore.
26:15
Speaker 1: He tells the detective he woke up, looked over the
26:18
Speaker 1: edge of the bed, moved her arm a little bit,
26:20
Speaker 1: and realized she was cold and blue.
26:22
Speaker 2: The reality sets in.
26:24
Speaker 1: He tells the detective he had this thought. I just
26:27
Speaker 1: did that.
26:28
Speaker 2: This is the critical psychological transition from denial to realization.
26:33
Speaker 1: The fog lifts.
26:34
Speaker 2: The sun is up. The alcohol has worn off, and
26:37
Speaker 2: the physical reality of the body cannot be ignored anymore.
26:42
Speaker 2: But notice carefully what he does next.
26:44
Speaker 1: Or what he doesn't do.
26:45
Speaker 2: He doesn't scream for his friends to help. He doesn't
26:48
Speaker 2: attempt CPR. He doesn't call 911.
26:51
Speaker 1: Right. He bypasses any attempt to save her. Not at all.
26:54
Speaker 1: He goes out to the rental kitchen, retrieves a knife,
26:57
Speaker 1: goes into the shower, and attempts to take his own
27:00
Speaker 1: life by stabbing himself in the chest.
27:02
Speaker 2: Drastic move.
27:03
Speaker 1: He tells the detective he did this because he realized
27:06
Speaker 1: she was gone and he didn't want to live without her. Now,
27:09
Speaker 1: I want to debate this with you for a second.
27:11
Speaker 2: Okay, let's hear it.
27:12
Speaker 1: A lot of people, when they hear this, might say, well,
27:14
Speaker 1: doesn't that show ultimate remorse? He couldn't bear the guilt
27:17
Speaker 1: of what he did, so he tried to end his life.
27:20
Speaker 1: It was just pure, overwhelming shock.
27:22
Speaker 2: It's a common interpretation.
27:24
Speaker 1: Could it just be that his brain broke under the
27:28
Speaker 1: weight of it and it was sheer panic rather than
27:31
Speaker 1: something calculated?
27:33
Speaker 2: It's a fair question, and it's something forensic psychologists debate
27:36
Speaker 2: constantly in cases of murder-suicide or attempted murder-suicide.
27:40
Speaker 1: What's the contentious?
27:41
Speaker 2: While panic and shock are absolutely present, we have to
27:45
Speaker 2: look at the sequence of actions.
27:47
Speaker 1: The order matters.
27:48
Speaker 2: True remorse, which is focused on the victim, would dictate
27:51
Speaker 2: that your very first instinct is to try and reverse
27:55
Speaker 2: the harm you caused.
27:56
Speaker 1: Right. You call 911 immediately.
27:57
Speaker 2: You call an ambulance, even if you know it's probably
28:00
Speaker 2: too late because you desperately want to save them. Blake
28:03
Speaker 2: didn't do that.
28:04
Speaker 1: The detective actually challenges him directly on this, which I
28:06
Speaker 1: thought was a brilliant investigative move.
28:08
Speaker 2: That was a very smart question.
28:09
Speaker 1: He asks Blake, essentially, if you realize she was in
28:13
Speaker 1: bad shape, why try to die with her instead of
28:16
Speaker 1: immediately calling 911 to get her help?
28:18
Speaker 2: Put the focus back on helping her.
28:20
Speaker 1: Maybe paramedics could have done something.
28:22
Speaker 2: And Blake's answer to that challenge is incredibly telling, and
28:26
Speaker 2: it counters the idea of selfless remorse.
28:29
Speaker 1: What does he say?
28:30
Speaker 2: He admits he knew she was dead. He says, either way,
28:33
Speaker 2: if I try to get help, I would have had
28:35
Speaker 2: to live through it.
28:36
Speaker 1: Ah, I would have had to live through it.
28:38
Speaker 2: Exactly. It reveals a final act of profound narcissism.
28:42
Speaker 1: It's all about him.
28:44
Speaker 2: His suicide attempt wasn't born out of a desire to
28:47
Speaker 2: undo the harm or a pure, selfless mourning for Natalie.
28:51
Speaker 2: It was about escaping the consequences for Blake.
28:53
Speaker 1: Taking the easy way out.
28:55
Speaker 2: He just didn't want to deal with the reality of
28:56
Speaker 2: what he had done, the social pariah he would become,
29:00
Speaker 2: the prison time he would face.
29:01
Speaker 1: He's avoiding accountability again.
29:03
Speaker 2: Much like he didn't want to deal with it the
29:05
Speaker 2: night before when he rolled over to go to sleep.
29:07
Speaker 2: It was the ultimate evasion of accountability.
29:10
Speaker 1: It makes you wonder, at what point does extreme emotional
29:14
Speaker 1: negligence become a weapon itself?
29:16
Speaker 2: That's a deep question.
29:17
Speaker 1: Because his negligence the night before ensured she couldn't be saved.
29:22
Speaker 1: And his evasion the morning after ensured he was the
29:24
Speaker 1: center of attention.
29:25
Speaker 2: That is a profound way to frame it. And legally,
29:29
Speaker 2: right at this moment, the interrogation reaches its most critical
29:33
Speaker 2: turning point.
29:34
Speaker 1: They lock it down.
29:35
Speaker 2: The detective and his partner have Blake stand up and
29:39
Speaker 2: physically demonstrate his hand placements.
29:41
Speaker 1: In the middle of the room.
29:42
Speaker 2: Yes. They have him show them exactly how he reached over,
29:46
Speaker 2: how she was positioned, and how he used both hands
29:48
Speaker 2: to compress her neck.
29:50
Speaker 1: Why do they have him pantomime it?
29:51
Speaker 2: They are locking in the physical mechanics of the crime
29:54
Speaker 2: for the jury.
29:55
Speaker 1: Visual evidence.
29:56
Speaker 2: Once they have that physical demonstration on camera, the detective
30:00
Speaker 2: officially serves him with an arrest warrant for murder.
30:03
Speaker 1: And the detective explains the charge under South Carolina law
30:07
Speaker 1: to him.
30:07
Speaker 2: The legal definition.
30:08
Speaker 1: He tells Blake that murder is the killing of one
30:11
Speaker 1: human being by another with malice aforethought, either expressed or implied.
30:16
Speaker 2: Malice aforethought.
30:17
Speaker 1: Now, I have to admit, I've heard the phrase malice
30:19
Speaker 1: aforethought a million times on TV, but I don't know
30:22
Speaker 1: what it actually means practically in a courtroom.
30:25
Speaker 2: Most people don't.
30:26
Speaker 1: Doesn't a forethought mean you had to plan it out
30:28
Speaker 1: in advance, like buying a weapon or stalking someone?
30:32
Speaker 2: That is a very common misconception. Malice aforethought does not
30:35
Speaker 2: strictly require a pre-planned, calculated assassination plot like you see
30:40
Speaker 2: in the movies.
30:41
Speaker 1: Oh, really?
30:41
Speaker 2: The detective explains this concept brilliantly to an 18-year-old. Throughout
30:46
Speaker 2: the interview, Blake keeps falling back on the excuse. I
30:49
Speaker 2: didn't mean to kill her. I just wanted her to
30:51
Speaker 2: stop arguing.
30:52
Speaker 1: Right. He thinks because he didn't have a master plan
30:54
Speaker 1: to murder her, It's just a terrible accident or manslaughter.
30:58
Speaker 2: Precisely. But the law doesn't care about his internal emotional rationalization.
31:02
Speaker 1: The law looks at the facts.
31:03
Speaker 2: The law looks at the physics of his actions. The
31:06
Speaker 2: detective explains that simply grabbing someone by the neck inherently
31:10
Speaker 2: expresses an intent to do them grievous harm.
31:13
Speaker 1: The act itself is the intent.
31:15
Speaker 2: The physical act of manual strangulation takes time. It is
31:18
Speaker 2: not instantaneous like a gunshot.
31:20
Speaker 1: Right. It's a sustained effort.
31:22
Speaker 2: It takes continuous applied pressure for dozens of seconds, sometimes minutes,
31:27
Speaker 2: to restrict blood flow and oxygen enough to cause death.
31:30
Speaker 1: That's agonizing to think about.
31:32
Speaker 2: During every single one of those seconds, Blake's brain had
31:35
Speaker 2: the opportunity to stop, to let go, to realize what
31:39
Speaker 2: he was doing.
31:40
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So the very duration of the act proves
31:43
Speaker 1: the malice.
31:44
Speaker 2: Exactly. The time it takes to strangle someone provides the aforethought.
31:49
Speaker 1: Because he kept choosing not to let go.
31:51
Speaker 2: His refusal to let go legally implies malice. Regardless of
31:55
Speaker 2: whether Blake thought in his own mind he was just
31:58
Speaker 2: trying to quiet her down or punish her, the physical
32:02
Speaker 2: act itself is the proof of intent to do harm.
32:05
Speaker 1: That is chilling when you break down the mechanics of it.
32:08
Speaker 1: And this brings us to a devastating climax in the
32:10
Speaker 1: interrogation room.
32:11
Speaker 2: The empty room scene.
32:12
Speaker 1: The detective has to leave the room for a moment
32:14
Speaker 1: to go get buckle swabs, those long Q-tips, to collect
32:18
Speaker 1: Blake's DNA from the inside of his cheeks.
32:20
Speaker 2: Standard procedure.
32:21
Speaker 1: Blake is left entirely alone in the room with just
32:23
Speaker 1: the camera roll.
32:24
Speaker 2: This is not an accident. The empty room tactic is
32:27
Speaker 2: a staple in advanced interrogations.
32:29
Speaker 1: They want to see what he does when no one's watching.
32:31
Speaker 2: Detectives know that suspects are holding onto a massive amount
32:34
Speaker 2: of psychological pressure while answering questions. When the detective leaves,
32:38
Speaker 2: that pressure is momentarily released.
32:40
Speaker 1: The mask slips.
32:42
Speaker 2: The suspect thinks they are alone and they will often
32:44
Speaker 2: talk to themselves, cry, or express frustration. It reveals their true,
32:50
Speaker 2: unguarded emotional state without the filter of trying to impress
32:54
Speaker 2: or appease the detective.
32:55
Speaker 1: Left alone in that sterile room, Blake puts his head
32:59
Speaker 1: down and starts muttering.
33:00
Speaker 2: You can hear it on the tape.
33:01
Speaker 1: He says, God, Natalie, I just want to see you
33:03
Speaker 1: one more time. Please, please, please. Wow. He says, I
33:05
Speaker 1: just want to talk to you.
33:06
Speaker 2: It's very raw.
33:07
Speaker 1: Hearing the audio of that is haunting.
33:09
Speaker 2: It is haunting. And this raises an important question that
33:13
Speaker 2: psychologists and legal scholars debate.
33:15
Speaker 1: What's the debate?
33:16
Speaker 2: Is he experiencing genuine grief for the life he extinguished?
33:20
Speaker 2: Or is he experiencing grief for the life he just
33:23
Speaker 2: threw away?
33:24
Speaker 1: Wow. That's a profound distinction.
33:26
Speaker 2: Is he mourning Natalie as a person? Or is he
33:29
Speaker 2: mourning the comfort, the normalcy, and the future she represented
33:32
Speaker 2: for him?
33:33
Speaker 1: Given how selfish he's been.
33:34
Speaker 2: Given his pattern of intense self-centeredness throughout the rest of
33:37
Speaker 2: the transcript. It's difficult to view this as purely altruistic
33:42
Speaker 2: mourning for her loss. It feels more like he is
33:45
Speaker 2: mourning his own ruined life.
33:47
Speaker 1: And that ruined life becomes very real when the detective
33:50
Speaker 1: returns to swab his cheeks.
33:52
Speaker 2: The reality check.
33:53
Speaker 1: The reality really starts to crush Blake. He asks the
33:57
Speaker 1: detective if he'll be able to talk to his parents,
33:59
Speaker 1: and he gives the detective his mom's phone number.
34:02
Speaker 2: Still acting like a kid in trouble at school.
34:04
Speaker 1: Then Blake asks a question that really shows how young
34:07
Speaker 1: and deeply naive he still is, despite the monster he
34:11
Speaker 1: just acted as. He looks at the detective and asks,
34:15
Speaker 1: what do you think my life will be?
34:16
Speaker 2: And this is where the dynamic of the interrogation flips entirely.
34:20
Speaker 1: The soft approach is gone.
34:21
Speaker 2: The detective drops the friendly, accommodating persona. The information-gathering phase
34:27
Speaker 2: is officially over. The confession is secure.
34:29
Speaker 1: The hammer drops.
34:30
Speaker 2: The accountability phase has begun.
34:32
Speaker 1: The detective delivers this blunt, brutal reality check. He doesn't
34:36
Speaker 1: sugarcoat it anymore.
34:37
Speaker 2: He lets him have it.
34:38
Speaker 1: He looks at this 18-year-old and says, dude, you killed somebody.
34:42
Speaker 1: Your life's fixing to be a shit show for a
34:44
Speaker 1: little while.
34:44
Speaker 2: Very direct.
34:46
Speaker 1: He even forces Blake to shift perspectives. He asks Blake
34:50
Speaker 1: to imagine how he would feel if someone off the
34:52
Speaker 1: street grabbed his own mother by the neck and choked
34:55
Speaker 1: her to death.
34:56
Speaker 2: It's a shocking tonal shift for Blake. And it is
34:59
Speaker 2: entirely intentional.
35:00
Speaker 1: Forcing him to feel it.
35:01
Speaker 2: The detective is aggressively forcing empathy onto a subject who
35:05
Speaker 2: has demonstrated absolutely none for hours.
35:08
Speaker 1: Stripping away the excuses.
35:10
Speaker 2: He is violently stripping away the excuses of alcohol, the
35:13
Speaker 2: arguments over Snapchat, the broken Jesus necklace.
35:16
Speaker 1: None of that matters now.
35:17
Speaker 2: He is forcing Blake to look at the raw, ugly,
35:20
Speaker 2: unvarnished truth of his actions without any of his psychological
35:24
Speaker 2: life rafts.
35:25
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? We see how incredibly
35:27
Speaker 1: fast the teenager's life can pivot.
35:29
Speaker 2: Faster than you can blink.
35:31
Speaker 1: One day, you are picking out a prom tux, figuring
35:33
Speaker 1: out trade school, and packing for a beach trip.
35:36
Speaker 2: Living a normal life.
35:37
Speaker 1: The next, you are surrounded by arrest warrants, forensic DNA swabs,
35:42
Speaker 1: and looking at the concrete walls of a holding cell.
35:45
Speaker 1: It's a terrifying whiplash.
35:46
Speaker 2: It leads us directly to the legal resolution of the case.
35:49
Speaker 1: Fast forwarding to the end.
35:51
Speaker 2: The timeline fast-forwards through the slow grind of the justice
35:54
Speaker 2: system to February 28, 2025. So he's older now. By
35:58
Speaker 2: this time, Blake Linkus has been sitting in jail, and
36:01
Speaker 2: he is 20 years old. The prosecutors in South Carolina
36:04
Speaker 2: were fully prepared to take this to a murder trial,
36:07
Speaker 2: armed with this interrogation tape and the forensic evidence.
36:10
Speaker 1: But they didn't have to.
36:11
Speaker 2: But Blake ultimately makes the decision to plead guilty to murder.
36:15
Speaker 1: Which, despite everything we've analyzed about his selfishness, is a
36:19
Speaker 1: crucial and somewhat merciful decision for the victim's family.
36:22
Speaker 2: It's the one good thing he did.
36:23
Speaker 1: A guilty plea spares Natalie's parents, her family, and her
36:27
Speaker 1: friends the absolute agony of having to sit through a
36:30
Speaker 1: full public trial.
36:31
Speaker 2: Trials are agonizing.
36:33
Speaker 1: Hearing these gruesome forensic details and seeing the crime scene
36:36
Speaker 1: photos projected in a courtroom.
36:37
Speaker 2: Yes, it prevents the re-traumatization of the community.
36:40
Speaker 1: So what did he get?
36:41
Speaker 2: For his crime, Blake Linkus is sentenced to 45 years
36:44
Speaker 2: in a South Carolina prison. With absolutely no possibility of
36:48
Speaker 2: early release or parole.
36:50
Speaker 1: 45 years. Think about that math. He went into prison
36:53
Speaker 1: at 18. He was basically 20 when he officially pled guilty.
36:56
Speaker 2: A lifetime.
36:57
Speaker 1: He will be in his mid-60s if he ever walks
37:00
Speaker 1: out of those gates. It is a staggering amount of time.
37:03
Speaker 2: It brings up a complex intersection of neuroscience and the
37:07
Speaker 2: justice system.
37:08
Speaker 1: Like we were discussing earlier.
37:09
Speaker 2: We talked earlier about how an 18-year-old brain is not
37:12
Speaker 2: fully developed in terms of risk assessment and emotional control.
37:16
Speaker 1: Right. They're still basically kids, neurologically.
37:18
Speaker 2: However, the justice system recognizes that the physical act of murder,
37:22
Speaker 2: especially one as intimate and prolonged as manual strangulation, crosses
37:26
Speaker 2: a threshold where brain development cannot excuse the sheer malice
37:30
Speaker 2: of the act.
37:31
Speaker 1: The crime is too heinous.
37:32
Speaker 2: The sentence reflects the permanent devastation caused by just a
37:36
Speaker 2: few minutes of unrestrained rage over a Snapchat message and
37:40
Speaker 2: a bruised ego.
37:41
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate tragedy of domestic violence. distilled down to
37:45
Speaker 1: one horrific night.
37:46
Speaker 2: It truly is.
37:47
Speaker 1: One life is completely lost, extinguishing all of Natalie's potential,
37:51
Speaker 1: all her future milestones, her career, her family.
37:55
Speaker 2: Everything she could have been.
37:57
Speaker 1: And another life is effectively thrown away, locked in a
38:00
Speaker 1: cage for decades. And as we've unpacked today, it is
38:04
Speaker 1: all rooted in extreme possessiveness, the misuse of alcohol as
38:08
Speaker 1: a convenient excuse, and a fundamental inability to process anger
38:12
Speaker 1: without resorting to physical domination and control.
38:15
Speaker 2: It is a heavy story to process, but the psychological
38:18
Speaker 2: mechanisms at play here are crucial to understand.
38:20
Speaker 1: They really are.
38:21
Speaker 2: The rationalizations we explore today are defense mechanisms. They allow
38:25
Speaker 2: toxicity to fester and escalate in the dark until it
38:28
Speaker 2: reaches a point of absolute no return.
38:30
Speaker 1: Exactly. The core takeaway here for you listening to this
38:33
Speaker 1: is to be acutely aware of the stories we tell
38:36
Speaker 1: ourselves and the stories others tell us.
38:38
Speaker 2: Pay attention to the narratives.
38:39
Speaker 1: Think about the narratives we use to minimize bad behaviors,
38:42
Speaker 1: whether it's I was just drunk or I just pushed
38:44
Speaker 1: her because I was tired or I'm just protective of you.
38:47
Speaker 2: The excuses mask the truth.
38:49
Speaker 1: Those stories can sometimes mask true lethal danger. We have
38:55
Speaker 1: to train ourselves to look objectively at the actions. not
38:58
Speaker 1: the flowery or desperate excuses that follow them.
39:01
Speaker 2: Absolutely. When the actions and the excuses don't align, believe
39:05
Speaker 2: the actions.
39:06
Speaker 1: I want to leave you with a final thought to
39:08
Speaker 1: mull over, something that builds on everything we've discussed today.
39:11
Speaker 2: Okay, let's hear it.
39:12
Speaker 1: When we look at true crime cases like this, society
39:16
Speaker 1: almost always asks the same frustrating, victim-blaming question.
39:20
Speaker 2: Why didn't she leave?
39:22
Speaker 1: Exactly. Why didn't she just leave earlier? Why didn't she
39:24
Speaker 1: see the red flags? But if you consider Blake's own
39:28
Speaker 1: admission to the police, that he was capable of completely
39:31
Speaker 1: detaching from reality the moment he felt angry.
39:34
Speaker 2: That switch he mentioned.
39:35
Speaker 1: That little switch flipped inside his brain where he truly
39:38
Speaker 1: didn't care if she lived or died over a broken necklace.
39:41
Speaker 2: It's terrifying.
39:42
Speaker 1: The real question we should be asking ourselves is much
39:44
Speaker 1: more unsettling. How well can we ever truly know the
39:48
Speaker 1: inner darkness of the people we share our lives or
39:50
Speaker 1: vacations in our beds with?
39:52
Speaker 2: That is the truly terrifying unknown. The capacity for that
39:56
Speaker 2: switch to flip exists in places we least expect it.
40:00
Speaker 1: At the start of this deep dive, we talked about
40:02
Speaker 1: that quintessential graduation beach trip.
40:05
Speaker 2: The optimism we started with.
40:06
Speaker 1: The packed cars, the nervous excitement, the bridge into adulthood.
40:11
Speaker 1: For Natalie Martin, that bridge was burned and that transition
40:15
Speaker 1: was stolen in the dark. of a vacation rental by
40:18
Speaker 1: someone who claimed to love her.
40:19
Speaker 2: A heartbreaking loss.
40:21
Speaker 1: It's a stark, heartbreaking reminder that the facades we build
40:24
Speaker 1: to keep the peace can sometimes hide the most dangerous realities.
40:28
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into
40:30
Speaker 1: the psychology of a confession. Keep questioning the narratives around you,
40:33
Speaker 1: stay observant, and we will catch you on the next one.