Lodi Police Seek Community Help to Solve Decades-Old Cold Cases

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.240
I want you to just picture the city of Lodi,
2
00:00:03.359 --> 00:00:06.679
California for a second. Geographically, we are right in the
3
00:00:06.679 --> 00:00:09.839
heart of the San Joaquin Valley. And when you visualize
4
00:00:09.839 --> 00:00:12.759
this place, especially if you've ever like driven through or
5
00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:17.359
seen their tourism campaigns, you're seeing miles and miles of
6
00:00:17.399 --> 00:00:19.480
these lush, symmetrical vineyards.
7
00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:23.000
Oh yeah, it's completely beautiful. It's built on that massive
8
00:00:23.079 --> 00:00:25.679
economic engine of agriculture and wine.
9
00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:29.359
Right exactly. It's that quintessential Americans small town charm, the
10
00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:32.039
kind of place where the downtown is super walkable, the
11
00:00:32.039 --> 00:00:35.280
community feels tight knit, and the overarching vibe is just
12
00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:37.600
you know, safe. It feels really idyllic.
13
00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:39.039
It does on the surface anyway.
14
00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:42.000
Yeah, but we need to completely shatter that postcard image
15
00:00:42.039 --> 00:00:44.119
today because if you dig just a fraction of an
16
00:00:44.159 --> 00:00:48.119
inch beneath that sun drenched agricultural surface, there is this
17
00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:51.000
much darker undercurrent that has been hiding in plain sight
18
00:00:51.119 --> 00:00:51.960
for generations.
19
00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:53.359
It's a very dark undercurrent.
20
00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:57.240
Yeah, we are looking at nearly six decades of unsolved
21
00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:02.240
homicides and violent crimes of ghosts, essentially just lingering in
22
00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:04.719
the shadows of this picturesque valley town.
23
00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:08.319
The contrast is honestly jarring when you actually look at
24
00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:12.439
the public records, because, like I said, Lodi is this vibrant,
25
00:01:12.519 --> 00:01:17.680
expanding community, yet running completely parallel to that prosperity is
26
00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:21.400
this hidden ledger of profound trauma. Right, And we aren't
27
00:01:21.439 --> 00:01:24.799
just doing some historical autopsy today. You know, in early
28
00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:29.400
twenty twenty six, the Loadi Police Department, the LPD, they
29
00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:32.640
launched this massive, amplified initiative which.
30
00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:34.760
Is such a huge undertaking huge.
31
00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:37.760
They took over twenty cold cases, some stretching literally all
32
00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:40.400
the way back to nineteen sixty seven and brought them
33
00:01:40.439 --> 00:01:43.519
out of the basement archives into the digital age. They
34
00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:46.319
are actively pleading for the public to help close them.
35
00:01:46.359 --> 00:01:48.959
Okay, so let's unpack this because our mission for this
36
00:01:49.040 --> 00:01:52.799
deep dive is to explore that exact twenty twenty six initiative.
37
00:01:53.159 --> 00:01:55.680
I have this massive stack of sources sitting in front
38
00:01:55.719 --> 00:01:58.959
of me, public records, deep dive reporting from local outlets
39
00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:02.120
like KCRA and the Loading News Sentinel, and the official
40
00:02:02.239 --> 00:02:04.079
LPD case summaries, and.
41
00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:05.120
A lot of material to go through.
42
00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:07.719
It is. Yeah, but to be totally clear to you listening,
43
00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.520
we aren't just reading old case files to like scratch
44
00:02:10.520 --> 00:02:12.599
a true crime itch. That's not what this is.
45
00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:13.800
No, absolutely not.
46
00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:16.919
We are exploring the anatomy of legacy violence in a
47
00:02:16.960 --> 00:02:20.520
mid sized American city. We want to know how marginalized
48
00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:24.599
people fall through the cracks and honestly, how the intersection
49
00:02:24.639 --> 00:02:29.000
of human memory and modern forensic science is completely rewriting
50
00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:30.759
the rules of what it means to get away with
51
00:02:30.800 --> 00:02:31.240
a crime.
52
00:02:31.400 --> 00:02:34.680
Because the stakes here they extend far beyond the city
53
00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:38.439
limits of Lodi. When a violent crime goes cold, it
54
00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:43.080
creates this Well, it's like a localized fracture in the
55
00:02:43.240 --> 00:02:44.599
entire social contract.
56
00:02:44.599 --> 00:02:45.719
Oh, that's a good way to put it.
57
00:02:45.879 --> 00:02:48.840
Yeah. It sends an unintended but very clear message to
58
00:02:48.879 --> 00:02:53.240
the community that violence can, under the right circumstances, occur
59
00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:55.120
without any consequence, which.
60
00:02:54.960 --> 00:02:57.199
Brings us to the catalyst for all of this. Out
61
00:02:57.240 --> 00:02:59.199
of all the files in this stack, there is one
62
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:03.280
specific incident that seemed to completely shatter Lodi's illusion that
63
00:03:03.319 --> 00:03:05.719
the twenty first century would somehow be immune to the
64
00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:06.800
shadows of its past.
65
00:03:06.919 --> 00:03:08.840
Right, you're talking about the two thousand and two Walmart
66
00:03:08.919 --> 00:03:10.240
parking lot double homicide.
67
00:03:10.360 --> 00:03:12.879
Yes, so set the scene for us. It's the early
68
00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:15.039
morning of July ninth, two thousand and two, and this
69
00:03:15.159 --> 00:03:17.840
is the first known double homicide of the new century
70
00:03:17.879 --> 00:03:18.400
for this town.
71
00:03:18.759 --> 00:03:21.400
Exactly. So we are on the twenty three hundred block
72
00:03:21.560 --> 00:03:24.919
of West Kettleman Lane in two thousand and two. This
73
00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:28.120
is part of the sun West Plaza area. Lodi police
74
00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:30.919
are dispatched to the massive Walmart parking lot in the
75
00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:31.919
early morning hours.
76
00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.639
And it's a Walmart, so it's a huge open space,
77
00:03:34.759 --> 00:03:35.800
right massive.
78
00:03:36.159 --> 00:03:39.400
And what they find there is a white nineteen eighty
79
00:03:39.439 --> 00:03:43.879
seven Cadillac Deville. From the outside, the car is completely still,
80
00:03:44.039 --> 00:03:47.759
the engine is off, but inside officers find two men
81
00:03:47.759 --> 00:03:48.840
who have been shot to death.
82
00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:49.439
God.
83
00:03:49.639 --> 00:03:52.840
But what fundamentally shifts the trajectory of this investigation in
84
00:03:52.919 --> 00:03:55.520
the very first few minutes is the physical positioning of
85
00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:59.960
the bodies these men. They were asleep when they were killed.
86
00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:02.879
Wait, asleep, like you mean? There were no signs of
87
00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:04.120
defensive wounds, no.
88
00:04:03.960 --> 00:04:07.599
Struggle at all, none whatsoever. And the physiology of a
89
00:04:07.639 --> 00:04:11.560
startled victim leaves clear physical evidence, especially inside a confined
90
00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:12.120
space like.
91
00:04:12.080 --> 00:04:15.000
A car, right because you'd be thrashing around exactly.
92
00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:16.800
If they'd woken up and realized someone was outside of
93
00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:20.399
the weapon. You'd see defensive posture, hands raised, pressing away
94
00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:22.519
from the window, maybe kicking at the dashboard of the door.
95
00:04:22.639 --> 00:04:25.199
We don't see any of that. Yeah. The victims are
96
00:04:25.240 --> 00:04:27.920
Timothy Wayne Layton, who was only twenty years old, and
97
00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:31.480
Danny Stewart Rogers, who was forty eight. Rogers was actually
98
00:04:31.480 --> 00:04:34.600
the owner of the Cadillac, and both were known to
99
00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:37.079
LOADI police as transient individuals.
100
00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:39.600
The dynamic between those two is so tragic to me.
101
00:04:39.720 --> 00:04:43.319
Timothy Layton is barely out of his teens and the
102
00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:47.120
public records on his background are incredibly thin, which I
103
00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:49.600
mean that tells its own story, right, it really does.
104
00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:52.639
He was a young guy navigating the absolute margins of
105
00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:55.800
the Central Valley, where finding a place to sleep that
106
00:04:55.920 --> 00:04:59.920
shields you from the elements completely overrides any long term
107
00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:02.839
concept of personal safety. You're just trying to survive the night.
108
00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.399
Yeah, the immediate need for shelter trump's everything.
109
00:05:05.079 --> 00:05:06.879
Else, right, And then you have Rogers.
110
00:05:07.279 --> 00:05:09.360
Yeah. Rogers had a much longer history in the area.
111
00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:11.959
At forty eight, he was kind of an established fixture
112
00:05:12.040 --> 00:05:15.959
within the local unhoused population. Police were familiar with him,
113
00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:19.279
mostly through the standard interactions that come with transient living,
114
00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:23.560
you know, welfare checks, minor property disputes, things like that.
115
00:05:23.800 --> 00:05:26.079
I read this local article from a few years later
116
00:05:26.120 --> 00:05:29.399
that actually referenced him. It portrayed him as someone who
117
00:05:29.480 --> 00:05:33.160
was highly visible in the community yet totally ignored by
118
00:05:33.560 --> 00:05:34.720
mainstream society.
119
00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:37.439
That's a very common paradox for transient individuals.
120
00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:39.800
Yeah, he existed right in front of people, but was
121
00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:43.720
treated like background scenery. And here's where it gets really
122
00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:47.800
interesting to me, specifically regarding the environment where this took place.
123
00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:51.399
They were killed in a Walmart parking lot. Right, a
124
00:05:51.439 --> 00:05:55.240
Walmart parking lot in America is like the ultimate hub
125
00:05:55.279 --> 00:05:59.879
of public commerce. It's paved, brightly lit, highly trafficked, but
126
00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:04.560
latent in rogers, this parking lot function like a parallel dimension.
127
00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:06.480
A parallel dimension. Yeah, that's incredibly accurate.
128
00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:10.199
Right, They were existing inside this heavily trafficked commercial zone,
129
00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:13.800
yet they were completely invisible to the people walking in
130
00:06:13.879 --> 00:06:15.480
and out of those automatic doors.
131
00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:17.720
What's fascinating here is how the method of the crime
132
00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:22.680
actually extrades that exact invisibility. Well, when you analyze a
133
00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:25.879
scene where victims are executed in their sleep inside a
134
00:06:25.920 --> 00:06:30.199
public space, you are looking at a deeply specific perpetrator profile.
135
00:06:30.839 --> 00:06:33.079
This was not some heat of the moment altercation that.
136
00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:35.000
Got out of hand because they were asleep.
137
00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:39.120
Exactly walking up to a vehicle confirming your targets are
138
00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:43.519
asleep and firing into the car requires severe premeditation and stealth.
139
00:06:43.759 --> 00:06:46.720
So you think the shooter was specifically hunting them, not
140
00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:49.759
just you know, checking door handles for loose change and
141
00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:50.600
getting surprised.
142
00:06:50.680 --> 00:06:54.040
Oh, the physical evidence points strongly away from a random robbery.
143
00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:58.800
The shooter either knew Rogers' exact habits, like knowing he
144
00:06:58.920 --> 00:07:02.000
parked that white cattle at that specific Walmart, or they
145
00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:03.199
actively track them down.
146
00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:03.959
Wow.
147
00:07:04.079 --> 00:07:06.959
Yeah, it's just a highly personal vendetta or a calculated
148
00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:09.759
elimination based on a specific dispute.
149
00:07:09.199 --> 00:07:12.480
But a dispute over what I struggle with how someone
150
00:07:12.519 --> 00:07:14.959
goes from an argument to a double execution? Does this
151
00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:18.160
point to a territorial dispute, maybe tied into the drug
152
00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:20.519
trade that was exploding in the valley around that time.
153
00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:24.279
To understand that escalation, you really have to look at
154
00:07:24.279 --> 00:07:27.000
the sociological mechanics of the central Valley. In the early
155
00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:30.360
two thousands, Lodi was a city of roughly sixty five
156
00:07:30.399 --> 00:07:33.360
thousand to seventy thousand people back then. Okay, you have
157
00:07:33.639 --> 00:07:37.480
massive influx of wealth from the wine industry, but parallel
158
00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:40.839
to that, the geography of the Central Valley, the vast
159
00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:45.759
agricultural spaces and relative isolation, made it the absolute epicenter
160
00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:48.240
of the early two thousands methin fetamine epidemic.
161
00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:52.639
Right, and meth completely rewires not just individual brains, but
162
00:07:52.680 --> 00:07:54.759
the entire dynamics of a community.
163
00:07:54.879 --> 00:07:59.759
Chemically and sociologically. Methinfetamine induces prolonged weightfulness, right, which inevitably
164
00:07:59.839 --> 00:08:01.360
leads to severe sleep deprivation.
165
00:08:01.519 --> 00:08:03.120
And sleep deprivation makes you crazy.
166
00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:07.000
It breeds hyper paranoia, extreme paranoia. Yeah. So when you
167
00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:10.120
introduce a drug that causes extreme paranoia into a marginalized,
168
00:08:10.120 --> 00:08:14.920
transient shadow community, the baseline for violence drops dramatically. In
169
00:08:14.959 --> 00:08:18.079
a mainstream context, a stolen five dollars bill or a
170
00:08:18.120 --> 00:08:21.600
perceived insult is an annoyance. But in a hyper paranoid
171
00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:24.920
shadow community where you have absolutely no recourse to call
172
00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:28.920
the police for dispute resolution, that same five dollars bill
173
00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:33.080
isn't a mistake. It's viewed as a massive conspiracy.
174
00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:35.320
And the reaction becomes lethal. Exactly, so we have this
175
00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:39.440
highly volatile environment, the murders happen, the police canvass the walmart.
176
00:08:40.039 --> 00:08:41.879
And I mean this is two thousand and two. We're
177
00:08:41.879 --> 00:08:45.000
talking about early two thousand CCTV technology.
178
00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:47.600
Oh, it was practically useless compared to today.
179
00:08:47.679 --> 00:08:50.360
Right, it's not the four K high definition ring cameras
180
00:08:50.399 --> 00:08:52.919
we have today. A parking lot security camera in two
181
00:08:52.919 --> 00:08:55.840
thousand and two was basically a VCR recording a time
182
00:08:55.919 --> 00:08:58.639
lapse onto a magnetic tape that had probably been recorded
183
00:08:58.679 --> 00:08:59.600
over one hundred times.
184
00:09:00.039 --> 00:09:04.320
Rainy, it's skipping frames, and that technological limitation feeds into
185
00:09:04.399 --> 00:09:08.360
the dual tragedy of transient victims tragedy. Yeah, the first
186
00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:11.360
tragedy is their sheer physical vulnerability to violence out on
187
00:09:11.399 --> 00:09:15.279
the street. The second tragedy is how the investigation immediately.
188
00:09:14.799 --> 00:09:16.639
Stalls because there's no camera footage.
189
00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:20.840
Right, Detectives can't rely on blurry VHS footage, so they
190
00:09:20.919 --> 00:09:25.399
desperately need human witnesses. But the people who might actually
191
00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:28.519
know something, the other members of that shadow community, harbor
192
00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:32.879
and intense, often justified fear of law enforcement.
193
00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:34.919
They operate under a strict survival code.
194
00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:39.279
Yes, they might have their own outstanding warrants or even
195
00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:42.960
more pressing. They might fear lethal retaliation from the shooter,
196
00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:46.360
who is obviously still out there and capable of.
197
00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:50.080
Double murder, so nobody says a word, so they deploy.
198
00:09:49.799 --> 00:09:52.720
A wall of silence. It's a defense mechanism for them,
199
00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:56.399
but it inadvertently acts as a bulletproof shield for the killer.
200
00:09:56.759 --> 00:10:00.159
This makes me question the broader societal narrative, though. Are
201
00:10:00.200 --> 00:10:02.720
we as a community subtly complicit when a case like
202
00:10:02.840 --> 00:10:04.200
Leyton Rogers goes cold?
203
00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:05.759
That's a heavy question.
204
00:10:05.720 --> 00:10:07.879
But think about it. If a prominent vineyard owner was
205
00:10:07.919 --> 00:10:11.279
assassinated in his sleep inside a Mercedes, the political pressure
206
00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:15.000
would be astronomical. Task forces would be formed immediately, there.
207
00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:17.159
Would be press conferences every day exactly.
208
00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:20.200
But when the victims are transient men in an old Cadillac,
209
00:10:20.679 --> 00:10:23.279
I get the sense that society subtly accepts it as
210
00:10:23.320 --> 00:10:26.639
an inevitable hazard of living on the street. Does that
211
00:10:26.799 --> 00:10:32.039
perceived inevitability cause police departments to under resource the initial investigation?
212
00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:38.360
That is a critical sociological friction point. Historically, yes, investigative
213
00:10:38.360 --> 00:10:42.279
resource allocation can be subtly influenced by the perceived risk
214
00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:46.279
level of the victim's lifestyle. It's a psychological distancing that happens.
215
00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:48.600
Right people think, well, they put themselves in danger.
216
00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:51.840
The public narrative becomes exactly that, well, they put themselves
217
00:10:51.879 --> 00:10:55.279
in a dangerous situation. But from a strictly legal and
218
00:10:55.440 --> 00:11:01.399
moral standpoint, a homicide investigator's mandate is absolute. Murder is murder, period.
219
00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:04.120
The fact that the LPD is pulling these specific cases
220
00:11:04.159 --> 00:11:06.720
back into the spotlight in twenty twenty six is an
221
00:11:06.759 --> 00:11:10.840
institutional attempt to correct that historical imbalance. They are stating
222
00:11:10.879 --> 00:11:14.679
definitively that Timothy Layton's life held the exact same value
223
00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:15.759
as anyone else's.
224
00:11:15.879 --> 00:11:19.480
That's powerful, But this vulnerability isn't just a phenomenon of
225
00:11:19.519 --> 00:11:22.840
the two thousands meth boom, and it isn't strictly limited
226
00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:26.039
to people sleeping in cars. The real terror in Lodi's
227
00:11:26.039 --> 00:11:30.000
history is that the violence echoes backward for decades, really does.
228
00:11:30.120 --> 00:11:32.559
If we step back into the nineteen sixties, we see
229
00:11:32.559 --> 00:11:35.639
the exact same predatory behavior.
230
00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:39.320
If we look at October eighteenth, nineteen sixty seven, we
231
00:11:39.399 --> 00:11:42.120
have the case of Stephen Joseph Smolensky. He was a
232
00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:45.399
sixty three year old transient man, and he was found
233
00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:47.720
near the railroad tracks just north of Locus.
234
00:11:47.399 --> 00:11:50.600
Street the railroad tracks. It's literally the quintessential setting for
235
00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:51.679
marginalized living.
236
00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:57.080
The physical environment speaks volumes there. Smolinski was bludgeoned to death. Specifically,
237
00:11:57.200 --> 00:11:58.799
his face was smashed with a rock.
238
00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:00.879
That is horrible, brutal.
239
00:12:00.679 --> 00:12:03.799
Extremely intimate and brutal. But the critical piece of investigative
240
00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:07.159
data here isn't just the brutality. It's what was left behind.
241
00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:10.200
At the scene. Investigators found pocket change still on.
242
00:12:10.159 --> 00:12:13.799
His body, which instantly rewrites the motive. In nineteen sixty seven,
243
00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:15.879
for a man living by the railroad tracks, every single
244
00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:18.600
cent is vital for survival. If this were a mugging,
245
00:12:18.639 --> 00:12:21.080
that change would absolutely be gone exactly.
246
00:12:21.639 --> 00:12:24.720
The presence of the money rules out a simple robbery.
247
00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:28.039
It means the motive was purely the application.
248
00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:29.799
Of violence, just violence for the sake of violence.
249
00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:31.840
It could have been a target at hate crime against
250
00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:35.879
a homeless individual, or a deeply personal, rage fueled attack,
251
00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:39.320
and the records indicate this wasn't an isolated event either.
252
00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:43.559
There's a pattern of similar severe beatings of transient men
253
00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:45.039
in the area during that.
254
00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:49.000
Era, So we established this baseline of transient vulnerability early on.
255
00:12:49.399 --> 00:12:52.000
But the historical records show that having a roof over
256
00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:55.279
your head didn't necessarily insulate you from the specific type
257
00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:58.559
of intimate violence either. Let's look at nineteen seventy nine.
258
00:12:58.600 --> 00:13:02.559
March twentieth, nineteen seven, Caroline Schneider, a twenty eight year
259
00:13:02.600 --> 00:13:05.519
old woman is found dead inside her own residence. The
260
00:13:05.559 --> 00:13:10.200
cause of death is severe blunt force trauma combined with asphyxiation.
261
00:13:09.639 --> 00:13:12.759
Marks asphyxiation that requires the attacker to have their hands
262
00:13:12.840 --> 00:13:15.960
literally on the victim's throat. It is terrifyingly intimate.
263
00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:19.039
It is the absolute definition of close quarters violence, and
264
00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:21.240
the most vital clue at the Schneider scene was the
265
00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:22.200
lack of forced.
266
00:13:22.039 --> 00:13:25.320
Entry, meaning she either forgot to lock her door or
267
00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:28.000
far more likely, she opened it for her killer she
268
00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:29.080
recognized them.
269
00:13:29.399 --> 00:13:33.519
Statistically, a lack of force entry in a violent homicide
270
00:13:33.879 --> 00:13:37.600
strongly points toward an acquaintance, someone who didn't trigger her
271
00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:40.960
immediate threat response until they were already inside the sanctuary
272
00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:44.000
of her home, which is horrifying. But that case went cold.
273
00:13:44.440 --> 00:13:48.440
Then jumped forward twelve years to May one, nineteen ninety one.
274
00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:53.240
The victim is Martha Menzel. She is seventy four years old.
275
00:13:53.399 --> 00:13:55.919
She is bludgeoned to death inside her home on West
276
00:13:55.919 --> 00:13:58.600
Locust Street, eventually discovered by her tenant.
277
00:13:58.919 --> 00:14:03.000
So another woman inside her home blunt force trauma.
278
00:14:03.159 --> 00:14:05.799
Yes, And at the time the community was terrified of
279
00:14:05.799 --> 00:14:08.200
a random intruder because there have been a recent string
280
00:14:08.240 --> 00:14:09.519
of burglaries in the neighborhood.
281
00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:11.600
Ah, so everyone assumed it was a break in gone
282
00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:12.480
wrong exactly.
283
00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:14.360
And if we look at the late eighties, we also
284
00:14:14.440 --> 00:14:16.600
see the case of incented to Terras in May nineteen
285
00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:19.480
eighty nine, another victim of fatal blunt force trauma to
286
00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:21.840
the head, where a reporting party was cleared, but no
287
00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:22.879
one else stepped forward.
288
00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:26.159
When you stack the Schneider case next to the Menzil case,
289
00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:28.679
it feels like reading a book where the ink is
290
00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:32.000
actively fading and your brain is desperately trying to connect
291
00:14:32.039 --> 00:14:33.000
the remaining words.
292
00:14:33.159 --> 00:14:34.519
That's a very human reaction.
293
00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:38.480
You have two women killed in their homes utilizing blunt force,
294
00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:41.559
It is so tempting to draw straight line between them.
295
00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:44.840
How do investigators and how do we looking at this
296
00:14:44.960 --> 00:14:49.759
data avoid the trap of linking unrelated tragedies. Human brains
297
00:14:49.799 --> 00:14:53.440
crave patterns we want to invent, like the loady bludgeoner
298
00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:57.440
because a single monster is easier to process than random chaos.
299
00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:01.559
You're describing patternicity, the cycle logical phenomenon where we find
300
00:15:01.639 --> 00:15:03.960
meaningful patterns in meaningless noise.
301
00:15:04.039 --> 00:15:05.720
Patternicity, Yeah, it is.
302
00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:08.879
The absolute bane of cold case investigators. You have to
303
00:15:09.159 --> 00:15:11.919
actively fight it every single day. Yes, you have blunt
304
00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:15.440
force trauma indoors in both cases, but you must force
305
00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:18.480
yourself to look at the massive dissimilarities.
306
00:15:17.720 --> 00:15:18.480
Like the age gap.
307
00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:22.000
The age gap, the context everything a twenty eight year
308
00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:25.639
old victim where the attacker was likely invited inside versus
309
00:15:25.639 --> 00:15:27.840
a seventy four year old victim in an area with
310
00:15:27.919 --> 00:15:32.840
active break ins suggesting a potentially botched burglary. The victimology,
311
00:15:33.080 --> 00:15:36.639
the potential motives, the timeline. They don't align to a single.
312
00:15:36.360 --> 00:15:37.879
Perpetrator, right, that makes sense.
313
00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:40.960
However, if we connect this to the bigger picture, these
314
00:15:41.080 --> 00:15:43.919
cases do tell us something profound about the nature of
315
00:15:43.960 --> 00:15:45.120
twentieth century of violence.
316
00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:47.360
What's the through line then? If it's not the same guy,
317
00:15:47.519 --> 00:15:48.320
what connects them?
318
00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:52.279
Intimacy? The physical mechanics of these crimes using a rock
319
00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:55.919
strangulation swinging a blunt object require the killer to be
320
00:15:55.960 --> 00:15:57.200
within arm's reach to the victim.
321
00:15:57.279 --> 00:15:58.799
They have to physically overpower them.
322
00:15:58.919 --> 00:16:03.159
Yes, feels the physical resistance. They are covered in the
323
00:16:03.159 --> 00:16:06.679
immediate aftermath, the blood, the sweat. This type of violence
324
00:16:06.759 --> 00:16:10.240
leaves a massive psychological and physical footprint. It speaks to
325
00:16:10.279 --> 00:16:14.159
a killer driven by visceral rage, immediate panic, or profound
326
00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:15.200
interpersonal friction.
327
00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:18.399
It's messy, it's visceral. But as we keep moving through
328
00:16:18.399 --> 00:16:21.440
this stack of LPD files into the twenty first century,
329
00:16:21.639 --> 00:16:23.759
that intimacy completely vanishes.
330
00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:25.679
It does, it shifts dramatically.
331
00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:29.960
The methodology of the violence undergoes a terrifying evolution. We
332
00:16:30.039 --> 00:16:33.159
shift away from the close quarters blunt force trauma into
333
00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:36.320
an era where the violence becomes shockingly detached.
334
00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:40.159
We enter the era of modern firearms, specifically the drive
335
00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:44.120
by shooting. It alters the fundamental physics of a homicide investigation.
336
00:16:44.440 --> 00:16:47.600
Let's look at the modern docket. We have Pedro Missa
337
00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:51.600
shot on East Elm Street in August twenty eleven. The
338
00:16:51.639 --> 00:16:55.120
case notes explicitly state that witnesses are believed to exist,
339
00:16:55.399 --> 00:16:56.840
but no one is talking.
340
00:16:57.240 --> 00:16:58.639
Standard for these types of cases.
341
00:16:58.679 --> 00:17:02.200
Unfortunately, we have Christina Canto shot to death in April
342
00:17:02.279 --> 00:17:06.000
twenty nineteen. We have Sylvester Guzman Badala killed in a
343
00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:09.000
drive by in twenty sixteen. The introduction of the car
344
00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:11.359
and the gun creates a totally different dynamic than a
345
00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:12.759
rock or a blunt object.
346
00:17:12.920 --> 00:17:16.599
A drive by shooting is the ultimate manifestation of detached violence.
347
00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:19.680
Just think about the mechanics of it. Okay, the perpetrator
348
00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:22.160
is encased in steel and glass. They are moving at
349
00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:25.480
twenty to thirty miles an hour. There is a physical barrier,
350
00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:28.640
a speed barrier, and an emotional barrier between the killer
351
00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:29.559
and the target.
352
00:17:29.599 --> 00:17:30.880
They never even have to touch them.
353
00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:32.839
They don't look the victim in the eyes, they don't
354
00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:36.720
feel the physical resistance. It allows for a horrific casualness
355
00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:39.720
to the act of killing. It's just pull the trigger
356
00:17:39.960 --> 00:17:41.039
and press the gas pedal.
357
00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:44.079
And from an evidence standpoint, it must be an absolute nightmare.
358
00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:48.519
With the older intimate cases, if you strangle someone, there
359
00:17:48.599 --> 00:17:52.440
is a high probability you're leaving skin cells under their fingernails.
360
00:17:52.759 --> 00:17:56.119
You are sweating on the scene with a drive by,
361
00:17:56.440 --> 00:17:58.240
what do you even leave behind?
362
00:17:58.519 --> 00:18:00.960
You might leave a few brass old casings on the
363
00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:04.160
asphalt and maybe a tire track. If you accelerate quickly,
364
00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:07.480
that's literally it, that's nothing. The crime scene is essentially
365
00:18:07.519 --> 00:18:10.440
mobile and it's gone in seconds. Furthermore, we have to
366
00:18:10.519 --> 00:18:14.200
understand that this modern violence doesn't respect municipal boundaries right
367
00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:17.519
because of the cars exactly. Lodi is a mid size city,
368
00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:21.200
but it sits geographically sandwished near massive urban centers like
369
00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:24.799
Stockton and Sacramento, connected by the Highway ninety nine corridor.
370
00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:28.519
The regional spillover, the gang politics and drug supply roots
371
00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:30.839
in Stockton don't stop at the Lodi city limits.
372
00:18:30.839 --> 00:18:34.279
Sign precisely, you might have a dispute originate in a
373
00:18:34.279 --> 00:18:37.680
Stockton neighborhood. The hit occurs in Lodi because the target
374
00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:41.279
was spotted there, and the shooter flees north to Sacramento
375
00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:42.440
within forty five.
376
00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:44.880
Minutes, so they're completely out of the jurisdiction before the
377
00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:45.759
cops even arrive.
378
00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:50.799
This massive geographic dispersion fragments the witness pool and creates
379
00:18:50.880 --> 00:18:53.000
jurisdictional nightmares for local detectives.
380
00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:53.759
Unbelievable.
381
00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:57.400
And alongside these shootings, the modern files also contain incredibly
382
00:18:57.440 --> 00:19:01.799
ambiguous tragedies. The suspicious over of Hailey Radford in twenty.
383
00:19:01.519 --> 00:19:03.640
Sixteen rad that one is so sad.
384
00:19:03.519 --> 00:19:07.079
And the missing person case of Angelica Marie Ubale from
385
00:19:07.119 --> 00:19:11.000
two thousand and nine. The spectrum of modern trauma is vast,
386
00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:13.839
and it is largely devoid of traditional physical.
387
00:19:13.519 --> 00:19:16.640
Evidence, which forces me to ask a really difficult logistical
388
00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:19.200
question here. If you are a detective at LPD, you
389
00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:22.200
are staring at a massive volume issue. You are you
390
00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:25.119
have a twenty nineteen drive by shooting with potential gang ties,
391
00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:27.440
and you have a nineteen sixty seven case of a
392
00:19:27.480 --> 00:19:30.559
man bludgeoned with a rock. How does a mid sized
393
00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:34.039
department triage this without burning out? Does the sheer, noisy
394
00:19:34.119 --> 00:19:36.920
volume of modern fire and violence simply drown out the
395
00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:38.119
silent older cases.
396
00:19:38.319 --> 00:19:42.319
The triage process is agonizing, and it is dictated by
397
00:19:42.319 --> 00:19:46.279
the brutal reality of modern policing, which is a bleeding
398
00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:49.519
crime will always supersede a cold one. Of course, when
399
00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:52.839
a homicide occurs tonight, the first forty eight hours require
400
00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:56.839
an all hands on deck response. Detectives are physically pulled
401
00:19:56.880 --> 00:19:59.279
away from their cold case files. They have to lock
402
00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:03.000
down the active, pull fresh surveillance video before it's overwritten,
403
00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:06.759
and interview witnesses before their adrenaline fades, or they are
404
00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:08.240
intimidated into silence.
405
00:20:08.759 --> 00:20:11.319
So the nineteen sixty seven file goes right back into
406
00:20:11.359 --> 00:20:11.839
the drawer.
407
00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:14.400
It has to. It is not an issue of apathy
408
00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:17.960
from the detectives. It is an issue of sheer mathematical constraint.
409
00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:21.359
You only have so many investigators and so many hours
410
00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:22.119
in a shift.
411
00:20:22.279 --> 00:20:24.880
Okay, so we've walked through sixty years of violence from
412
00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:27.559
the railroad tracks of the drive bys. We see the constraints,
413
00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:30.119
but we still haven't answered the primary question that any
414
00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:32.359
listener is screaming at their audio player right now.
415
00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:33.759
Why hasn't anyone been caught?
416
00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.759
Exactly? Why hasn't anyone been caught? Let's actually dissect the
417
00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:40.079
anatomy of a stall. How does a murder investigation actually
418
00:20:40.119 --> 00:20:41.119
grind to a halt?
419
00:20:41.400 --> 00:20:44.759
In homicide work, a case going cold is rarely due
420
00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:48.119
to a single failure. It's usually a combination of what
421
00:20:48.119 --> 00:20:50.160
we can call the four pillars of a cold case.
422
00:20:50.279 --> 00:20:52.160
The four pillars, Okay, let's go through them.
423
00:20:52.279 --> 00:20:55.759
The first pillar is the degradation of evidence. The universe
424
00:20:55.839 --> 00:20:59.119
actively works against the preservation of a crime scene. How So,
425
00:20:59.599 --> 00:21:05.599
like weather, weather, time, biology take biological evidence. For instance,
426
00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:09.279
DNA is robust, but it isn't magic. If blood or
427
00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:11.440
saliva is left in a hot car during a central
428
00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:14.920
valley summer and it gets over one hundred degrees there easily,
429
00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:17.599
the heat and ambient bacteria begin to break down the
430
00:21:17.640 --> 00:21:19.000
cellular structure.
431
00:21:18.599 --> 00:21:20.519
So the DNA literally cooks away.
432
00:21:20.599 --> 00:21:24.519
It degrades rapidly, fingerprints fade due to humidity and dust.
433
00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:28.440
But more critically, the human evidence degrades and people forget,
434
00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:31.720
witnesses die, they move across the country, or quite simply,
435
00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:35.839
human memory is incredibly fallible. Twenty years later, you genuinely
436
00:21:35.960 --> 00:21:38.559
might not remember if the fleeing car was dark blue
437
00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:39.119
or black.
438
00:21:39.319 --> 00:21:42.599
Right. And the second pillar is technological gaps, which feels
439
00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:45.039
highly relevant to the loading files since so many of
440
00:21:45.079 --> 00:21:46.519
them predate the smartphone era.
441
00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:49.680
Entirely relevant. Think about the Layton Rogers case in two
442
00:21:49.720 --> 00:21:53.200
thousand and two or Smolensky in nineteen sixty seven. They
443
00:21:53.240 --> 00:21:56.160
occurred in massive technological blind spots.
444
00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:57.799
There was just nothing recording them.
445
00:21:58.039 --> 00:22:01.400
Today, investigators assume they will have did digital breadcrumbs. They
446
00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:04.720
look for high definition porch cameras. They pull cell phone
447
00:22:04.759 --> 00:22:07.319
tower data to ping a suspect's location to within a
448
00:22:07.319 --> 00:22:11.599
few yards. They check GPS telematics from the suspects car but.
449
00:22:11.599 --> 00:22:12.720
In nineteen seventy nine.
450
00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:15.279
In nineteen seventy nine, if no one physically saw you
451
00:22:15.319 --> 00:22:17.799
commit the act and you didn't drop your wallet at
452
00:22:17.799 --> 00:22:20.000
the scene, you were effectively a ghost.
453
00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:22.599
The third pillar has to be what we just talked about.
454
00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:27.160
Resource constraints, Yes, money and time. Advanced forensic testing is
455
00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:29.240
not like it is on television where results pop up
456
00:22:29.279 --> 00:22:31.359
on a screen in ten seconds with a little beat, right.
457
00:22:31.400 --> 00:22:34.599
It takes months, months, and it's expensive. Sending a single
458
00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:37.359
degraded DNA sample out to a private lab for advanced
459
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:41.119
genetic sequencing can cost the local department thousands of dollars.
460
00:22:41.680 --> 00:22:44.640
Multiplying that by twenty cold cases is a budget breaking
461
00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:46.480
proposition for a mid sized city.
462
00:22:46.279 --> 00:22:48.920
Like LOADI, which brings us to the fourth and probably
463
00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:52.960
the most frustrating pillar societal factors, the culture of silence.
464
00:22:53.319 --> 00:22:56.279
It is the most insurmountable hurdle because it involves human
465
00:22:56.319 --> 00:23:00.400
free will. The no snitch culture is a prev inesive,
466
00:23:00.519 --> 00:23:01.559
powerful force.
467
00:23:01.519 --> 00:23:03.319
Especially in marginalized communities.
468
00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:07.680
Right exactly, there is a profound, often historical distrust of
469
00:23:07.720 --> 00:23:12.880
law enforcement. Additionally, there is a very real logical fear
470
00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:14.240
of violent.
471
00:23:13.960 --> 00:23:16.640
Retaliation because if the killer knows you talked.
472
00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:19.279
If a witness believes that testifying will put a target
473
00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:21.839
on their families back, and they don't trust the system
474
00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:25.680
to protect them long term, they will choose silence. Survival
475
00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:27.839
overrides civic duty every single time.
476
00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:30.039
Oh wait, when you look at the national landscape, we
477
00:23:30.119 --> 00:23:32.920
have more forensic tools today than at any point in
478
00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:37.599
human history. We have DNA databases, we have ubiquitous surveillance.
479
00:23:37.680 --> 00:23:40.000
And yet I was reading a study recently that said
480
00:23:40.359 --> 00:23:43.400
national clearance rates for homicides are actually declining. We saw
481
00:23:43.519 --> 00:23:45.799
fewer murders now than we did in the nineteen sixties.
482
00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:47.480
How is that mechanically possible.
483
00:23:47.559 --> 00:23:49.960
It's a paradox, I know, but it's true, and it
484
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:53.160
exposes a critical misunderstanding about how crimes are actually solved.
485
00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:54.319
Okay, enlighten us.
486
00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:58.079
Despite the massive leaps in science, multiple studies indicate that
487
00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:01.839
up to sixty three percent of homicide case resolutions ultimately
488
00:24:01.880 --> 00:24:06.000
rely on new witness testimony. Someone talking, not a magic
489
00:24:06.039 --> 00:24:06.839
forensic bullet.
490
00:24:06.960 --> 00:24:10.119
Wow. So it's like trying to assemble a massive, complex,
491
00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:13.519
one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, but half the crucial pieces
492
00:24:13.559 --> 00:24:16.119
aren't lost under the couch. They are locked inside the
493
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:18.960
minds of people who are watching you struggle but actively
494
00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:20.519
refuse to hand the pieces over.
495
00:24:20.920 --> 00:24:24.319
That is an incredibly accurate analogy. Yeah, but there is
496
00:24:24.359 --> 00:24:27.359
another layer to why clearance rates are dropping, and it's
497
00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:30.440
known in legal circles as the CSI effect.
498
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:33.519
Ah, the CSI effect. Let me push back on this though.
499
00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:36.920
Is the CSI effect just an excuse? Is the existence
500
00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:39.680
of all this high tech science actually making police lazy?
501
00:24:39.960 --> 00:24:42.599
Our investigators relying too heavily on waiting for a lab
502
00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:44.920
swap to come back at the expense of old fashioned
503
00:24:44.960 --> 00:24:46.839
knock on every door street detective work.
504
00:24:47.039 --> 00:24:50.440
It's a fiercely debated topic, but it's less about laziness
505
00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:53.400
and more about a systemic shift in judicial expectations.
506
00:24:53.480 --> 00:24:55.200
What do you mean by judicial expectations?
507
00:24:55.559 --> 00:25:01.440
Jury's watch television. They expect undeniable, pricpe DNA evidence in
508
00:25:01.640 --> 00:25:06.359
every single trial. Consequently, prosecutors are incredibly hesitant to bring
509
00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:09.359
a case to court based solely on circumstantial evidence or
510
00:25:09.400 --> 00:25:13.000
witness testimony, because defense attorneys will successfully argue that the
511
00:25:13.039 --> 00:25:15.119
absence of DNA creates reasonable doubt.
512
00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:18.000
Oh so if there's no DNA, the jury thinks someone
513
00:25:18.039 --> 00:25:18.480
is innocent.
514
00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:22.960
Exactly Furthermore, criminals watch the same television shows they've adapted,
515
00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:25.960
they wear latex gloves, They leave their smartphones at home
516
00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:29.839
so their location can't be pinged. The technological arms rais
517
00:25:29.880 --> 00:25:33.160
has simply raised the baseline difficulty of securing a conviction.
518
00:25:33.640 --> 00:25:36.680
Okay, so the stall is systemic and the hurdles are massive,
519
00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:39.359
But LODI isn't just throwing their hands up in defeat.
520
00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:41.920
The twenty twenty six initiative isn't a surrender.
521
00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:44.640
It's an offensive, a very calculated offensive.
522
00:25:44.759 --> 00:25:46.799
Let's look at the toolpit for justice. How are they
523
00:25:46.799 --> 00:25:50.519
planning to dismantle those four pillars and actually close these files?
524
00:25:50.759 --> 00:25:54.599
They were deploying a modern forensic renaissance. Let's start with
525
00:25:54.680 --> 00:25:58.240
the scientific leap. The biggest game changer for cases involving
526
00:25:58.279 --> 00:26:02.240
biological evidence like our older blunt force or asphyxiation cases
527
00:26:02.759 --> 00:26:08.920
is familial DNA searching using genetic genealogy databases like ged match.
528
00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:11.920
This is the exact methodology that finally brought down the
529
00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:15.200
Golden State killer. Right break down how that actually works
530
00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:17.640
mechanically for someone who isn't a geneticist.
531
00:26:17.720 --> 00:26:20.599
Sure, Let's say investigators have a blood droplet from the
532
00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:24.200
attacker in the nineteen ninety one Martha Menzel case, they
533
00:26:24.279 --> 00:26:27.200
extract a DNA profile, but when they run it through
534
00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:30.759
the FBI's criminal database, which is called CODIS, there.
535
00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:33.160
Is no match because the guy has never been arrested before.
536
00:26:33.279 --> 00:26:35.279
Right, the killer was never arrested for a felony, so
537
00:26:35.319 --> 00:26:38.519
their DNA isn't in the system. Traditionally, that's a dead end,
538
00:26:38.599 --> 00:26:42.480
game over. But now investigators take that same profile and
539
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:46.279
upload it to public, open source ancestry databases where average
540
00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:48.920
citizens have uploaded their own DNA to find relatives.
541
00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:51.160
So they aren't looking for the killer directly. They are
542
00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:53.240
looking for the killer's family exactly.
543
00:26:53.720 --> 00:26:57.240
The algorithm might flag a partial match someone who shares
544
00:26:57.240 --> 00:27:00.559
a specific amount of DNA measured in sent morgans.
545
00:27:01.359 --> 00:27:02.799
Wait, what's a cent to morgan.
546
00:27:02.920 --> 00:27:05.440
It's just a unit of genetic linkage. It tells you
547
00:27:05.480 --> 00:27:09.400
how closely related two people are. So the database might say, hey,
548
00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:12.960
this DNA sample shares one hundred cent of morgans with
549
00:27:13.160 --> 00:27:14.960
user John Smith eighty eight.
550
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:16.920
Okay, So they find a relative.
551
00:27:17.400 --> 00:27:20.720
It might be the killer's third cousin. From there, specialized
552
00:27:20.759 --> 00:27:25.279
genetic genealogists build massive family trees backward to common ancestors
553
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:29.039
and then build them forward, looking through public records, birth certificates,
554
00:27:29.079 --> 00:27:32.759
and obituaries until they isolate the one specific branch of
555
00:27:32.799 --> 00:27:36.079
the family that intersects with Lodi, California in nineteen ninety one.
556
00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:39.240
They literally hunt the suspect through their own bloodline.
557
00:27:39.319 --> 00:27:39.720
They do.
558
00:27:40.039 --> 00:27:42.880
That is staggering. But what about the modern cases the
559
00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:45.920
drive buys where there is no blood left behind, only shellcasings.
560
00:27:45.960 --> 00:27:50.759
For ballistics, they utilize NIBBIN, the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network.
561
00:27:51.079 --> 00:27:53.759
How does a computer system match a shellcasing? I always
562
00:27:53.759 --> 00:27:56.079
thought ballistics was just like a guy looking through a
563
00:27:56.079 --> 00:27:57.240
microscope at a lab bench.
564
00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:00.559
It used to be just a guide a microscope. Mechanically,
565
00:28:00.559 --> 00:28:03.319
when a gun is fired, the firing pin strikes the
566
00:28:03.319 --> 00:28:07.400
primer and the extreme pressure forces the brass casing violently
567
00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:09.400
backward against the breach face of the gun.
568
00:28:09.480 --> 00:28:12.200
Okay, so metal hits metal right, and.
569
00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:15.440
The microscopic imperfections in the manufactured metal of the gun
570
00:28:15.960 --> 00:28:19.319
basically stamp a three D topographic map into the soft
571
00:28:19.359 --> 00:28:22.359
brass of the casing. It's a fingerprint made of explosions.
572
00:28:22.440 --> 00:28:24.480
Wow, a fingerprint made of explosions.
573
00:28:24.559 --> 00:28:28.960
NIBBIN takes hyper detailed three D digital scans of those
574
00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:32.720
microscopic crators and peaks. So if a nine millimeter casing
575
00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:35.680
from a twenty sixteen Loady drive by is scanned, and
576
00:28:35.799 --> 00:28:38.720
five years later a gun is confiscated during a routine
577
00:28:38.759 --> 00:28:41.680
traffic stop in Sacramento, the system catches it. The system
578
00:28:41.720 --> 00:28:45.279
automatically correlates the microscotic topography the weapon, connects the crimes
579
00:28:45.279 --> 00:28:47.839
across space and time, even if the user is different.
580
00:28:47.880 --> 00:28:50.039
But again, this goes back to the third pillar money
581
00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:53.000
you mentioned. These tests cost thousands of dollars. How does
582
00:28:53.079 --> 00:28:54.039
Loady afford.
583
00:28:53.759 --> 00:28:57.960
This by dismantling the financial barriers creatively? They are seeking
584
00:28:58.039 --> 00:29:02.119
specialized state grants in California designed specifically to empower local
585
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:03.839
departments with high tech assays.
586
00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:04.960
Oh, that makes sense.
587
00:29:05.039 --> 00:29:08.200
They are also partnering with nonprofits like the Season of
588
00:29:08.319 --> 00:29:12.359
Justice program, which provides direct funding to law enforcement agencies
589
00:29:12.359 --> 00:29:16.160
and families to bypass municipal budget constraints and get this
590
00:29:16.279 --> 00:29:17.920
evidence to private labs.
591
00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:20.880
That's amazing that nonprofits are stepping up to fund this,
592
00:29:21.319 --> 00:29:25.079
but forensics only cover the physical evidence. What really caught
593
00:29:25.079 --> 00:29:27.519
my eye in the twenty twenty sixth initiative is how
594
00:29:27.559 --> 00:29:31.200
they are attacking the fourth pillar, the human silence.
595
00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:32.119
The digital strategy.
596
00:29:32.200 --> 00:29:36.079
Yeah, they launched a massive digital offensive. They hosted Cold
597
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:40.519
Case Week across Facebook, Instagram, and local digital networks. They
598
00:29:40.599 --> 00:29:43.720
are taking the faces of Timothy Layton, Carolin Schneider, and
599
00:29:43.759 --> 00:29:47.680
Pedro Masa and injecting them directly into the public's daily scroll.
600
00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:50.680
And this is where time, which is usually the detective's
601
00:29:50.680 --> 00:29:55.119
greatest enemy regarding physical evidence, actually becomes a psychological asset.
602
00:29:55.279 --> 00:29:57.240
How so, I mean time degrades memory.
603
00:29:57.319 --> 00:29:59.559
Like we said earlier, it degrades memory, but it also
604
00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:01.599
violent lea rodes fear and loyalty.
605
00:30:01.720 --> 00:30:02.880
Oh, I see where you're going with this.
606
00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:05.920
Think about the sociology of a gang related drive by
607
00:30:06.680 --> 00:30:09.119
a nineteen year old kid might know exactly who pulled
608
00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:11.720
the trigger in twenty eleven, but they are terrified to
609
00:30:11.720 --> 00:30:14.039
speak out because the shooter lives down the street from
610
00:30:14.079 --> 00:30:14.440
their mam.
611
00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:16.119
Right, the threat is immediate.
612
00:30:16.519 --> 00:30:19.519
But fast forward fifteen years. That nineteen year old is
613
00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:22.839
now thirty four, They have a mortgage, they have children,
614
00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:26.039
they moved out of the neighborhood, or perhaps the shooters
615
00:30:26.039 --> 00:30:29.400
already in prison on unrelated charges or has passed away.
616
00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:32.240
The threat matrix has fundamentally.
617
00:30:31.640 --> 00:30:34.839
Changed exactly, the loyalty to the old true is gone.
618
00:30:35.880 --> 00:30:39.279
By pushing these cases digitally, LPD is banking on the
619
00:30:39.279 --> 00:30:41.799
fact that someone who was terrified into silence in twenty
620
00:30:41.880 --> 00:30:45.000
eleven might finally feel safe picking up the phone today.
621
00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:47.599
I see the mechanical logic of that. It's a delayed
622
00:30:47.640 --> 00:30:50.759
reaction dragnet. But I have to ask about the psychology
623
00:30:50.799 --> 00:30:52.039
of this digital strategy.
624
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:52.559
Go for it.
625
00:30:52.599 --> 00:30:54.759
If I'm scrolling on my phone in twenty twenty six
626
00:30:54.799 --> 00:30:57.519
and I swipe past a restaurant advertisement, and then suddenly
627
00:30:57.559 --> 00:31:00.440
I'm looking at a post about a brutal two thousand
628
00:31:00.480 --> 00:31:03.319
and two double execution in a Walmart parking lot, and
629
00:31:03.359 --> 00:31:05.759
the very next post is a funny video of a cat.
630
00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:08.240
Doesn't that trivialize the tragedy?
631
00:31:08.319 --> 00:31:08.880
It's jarring.
632
00:31:09.240 --> 00:31:13.039
Does presenting a murder in the exact same format as
633
00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:18.160
disposable content reduce these people's deaths to just another dopamine
634
00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:20.400
hit for the scroller? Or is this just the ultimate
635
00:31:20.480 --> 00:31:22.640
democratization of an investigation.
636
00:31:23.119 --> 00:31:26.960
It is a profoundly jarring juxtaposition. Absolutely, there is a
637
00:31:27.079 --> 00:31:32.880
legitimate psychological risk of desensitization where horrific trauma just blends
638
00:31:32.920 --> 00:31:34.799
into the background noise of the Internet. We see that
639
00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:38.720
all the time, but from a purely tactical investigative standpoint,
640
00:31:38.880 --> 00:31:41.440
it is a required maneuver. You have to place your
641
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:42.759
net where the water flows.
642
00:31:42.759 --> 00:31:44.160
Everyone is on social media.
643
00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:46.720
The public square is no longer a bulletin board outside
644
00:31:46.720 --> 00:31:49.400
the post office. It is the algorithmic feed. By placing
645
00:31:49.440 --> 00:31:52.079
these victims in the digital stream, you are turning the
646
00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:55.079
entire community into a passive sensor network.
647
00:31:55.279 --> 00:31:57.319
A passive sensor network that's brilliant.
648
00:31:57.519 --> 00:32:00.960
A single share by a local resident might push that
649
00:32:01.039 --> 00:32:03.839
image under the feed of someone who moved to Texas
650
00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:07.279
a decade ago, but who casually overheard a confession at
651
00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:09.440
a bar and LOADI back in two thousand and three.
652
00:32:10.599 --> 00:32:13.079
It may feel ethically uncomfortable to see it next to
653
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:16.319
a meme, but if that algorithm generates the one tip
654
00:32:16.359 --> 00:32:20.519
that breaks a twenty year silence, the tactical utility vastly
655
00:32:20.519 --> 00:32:22.599
outweighs the discomfort, which brings us.
656
00:32:22.519 --> 00:32:25.519
To the absolute core of this entire endeavor. We can
657
00:32:25.559 --> 00:32:28.279
debate the nuances of patternicity, We can marvel at the
658
00:32:28.359 --> 00:32:31.400
three D topography of nibbin, and we can theorize about
659
00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:33.680
the sociology of the meth epidemic all.
660
00:32:33.559 --> 00:32:35.599
Day, but we have to remember why we're doing this.
661
00:32:35.880 --> 00:32:38.000
Exactly at the end of the day, all of this
662
00:32:38.079 --> 00:32:40.519
science and history must tether back to the human cost
663
00:32:41.240 --> 00:32:44.039
behind every single one of those twenty plus case files
664
00:32:44.079 --> 00:32:47.200
stacked on a detective's desk is a family whose timeline
665
00:32:47.240 --> 00:32:48.319
was permanently shattered.
666
00:32:48.559 --> 00:32:51.359
We have to center the specific lives that were interrupted.
667
00:32:51.599 --> 00:32:54.680
Timothy Layton, only twenty years old, whose life was violently
668
00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:57.799
extinguished before he even had an opportunity to stabilize and
669
00:32:57.839 --> 00:32:59.160
find his footing in the world.
670
00:32:59.400 --> 00:33:02.359
Danny Stewart Rogers, who navigated the brutal realities of the
671
00:33:02.359 --> 00:33:06.000
Margins for forty eight years, only to be executed while
672
00:33:06.039 --> 00:33:07.960
completely defenseless in his sleep.
673
00:33:08.279 --> 00:33:13.079
We must acknowledge the profound psychological violation of Martha Menzel
674
00:33:13.119 --> 00:33:16.880
and Carolin Schneider, whose homes, the spaces that society promises
675
00:33:16.920 --> 00:33:20.559
will be our absolute sanctuaries, were transformed into sites of
676
00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:21.960
unimaginable terror.
677
00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:24.160
And the families of these victims have been trapped in
678
00:33:24.200 --> 00:33:28.079
a state of suspended animation, no answers, no accountability, just
679
00:33:28.119 --> 00:33:31.880
an open loop of grief. So let's explicitly lay out
680
00:33:31.880 --> 00:33:35.200
the Loading Police Department's call to action, because this initiative
681
00:33:35.359 --> 00:33:38.720
isn't a museum exhibit. It is an active, ongoing operation.
682
00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:39.559
They need help.
683
00:33:39.880 --> 00:33:42.799
They're stating that absolutely no detail is too small or
684
00:33:42.839 --> 00:33:45.880
too old. A vehicle you saw speeding away two decades ago,
685
00:33:46.200 --> 00:33:49.440
a rumor you heard at a party, a sudden, inexplicable
686
00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:51.680
change in a family member's behavior right after one of
687
00:33:51.720 --> 00:33:52.279
these dates.
688
00:33:52.480 --> 00:33:55.519
If you possess any fragment of information, the avenues for
689
00:33:55.559 --> 00:33:58.279
action are clear. You can contact the Loading Police Department
690
00:33:58.319 --> 00:34:00.960
directly at two zero nine three three three six seven
691
00:34:01.039 --> 00:34:01.559
two seven.
692
00:34:01.839 --> 00:34:05.000
And for the two thousand and two Layton Rogers double homicide, specifically,
693
00:34:05.359 --> 00:34:08.519
Detective Blide is actively working that file. You can reach
694
00:34:08.559 --> 00:34:11.480
Detective Blive at two zero nine two sixty nine five
695
00:34:11.679 --> 00:34:15.239
five four five or via email at Ablive at Luddy
696
00:34:15.320 --> 00:34:15.800
dot gov.
697
00:34:16.320 --> 00:34:18.480
And if you are listening to this and you are
698
00:34:18.480 --> 00:34:20.960
still paralyzed by that fourth pillar we discussed, if you
699
00:34:21.079 --> 00:34:24.480
are afraid of retaliation, or if you simply cannot have
700
00:34:24.519 --> 00:34:26.440
your name attached to a police support.
701
00:34:26.079 --> 00:34:28.159
There is a mechanism for you. You can use LOADI
702
00:34:28.199 --> 00:34:31.119
Area Crimestoppers. That number is two zero, nine, three six
703
00:34:31.320 --> 00:34:34.719
nine two seven four six. It is a completely anonymous system.
704
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:38.440
The LPD also has digital portals for anonymous tips. The
705
00:34:38.480 --> 00:34:41.360
protections to keep you safe are absolutely in place, and
706
00:34:41.440 --> 00:34:44.760
financial awards are frequently available for information leading to a resolution.
707
00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:48.039
A community cannot genuinely heal while it is dragging the
708
00:34:48.119 --> 00:34:51.559
unacknowledged trauma of its pass behind it. Resolving these cases
709
00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:55.079
requires confronting the darkness directly. True justice in a civilized
710
00:34:55.079 --> 00:34:57.840
society cannot simply be outsourced to a handful of overworked
711
00:34:57.880 --> 00:34:58.679
local detectives.
712
00:34:58.760 --> 00:34:59.719
It takes a village right.
713
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.719
It requires collective vigilance from the citizenry. It requires a
714
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:05.559
public that vehemently refuses to let its most vulnerable members
715
00:35:05.599 --> 00:35:06.760
be forgotten in the archives.
716
00:35:07.159 --> 00:35:09.960
Justice may be delayed, but with community resolve, it need
717
00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:13.920
not be denied. Lodi's massive twenty twenty six cold case
718
00:35:13.960 --> 00:35:17.360
push is a call to remember the dead, but more importantly,
719
00:35:17.639 --> 00:35:19.239
it is a call to act for the living who
720
00:35:19.280 --> 00:35:20.719
are still waiting for answers.
721
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:23.159
As we prepare to close the files on this specific
722
00:35:23.199 --> 00:35:26.960
deep dive, the sheer scale of the technological advancements we've
723
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:31.280
discussed forces us to confront a much larger overarching implication.
724
00:35:31.480 --> 00:35:33.320
I've been thinking about this since we brought up the
725
00:35:33.400 --> 00:35:37.719
DNA databases. Actually, we look at the trajectory from detectives
726
00:35:37.719 --> 00:35:40.800
hoping a killer dropped physical pocket change in nineteen sixty
727
00:35:40.840 --> 00:35:45.159
seven to building entire family trees from microscopic skin cells. Today,
728
00:35:45.599 --> 00:35:47.960
the technology is advancing exponentially.
729
00:35:48.079 --> 00:35:48.719
It really is.
730
00:35:48.920 --> 00:35:52.639
We are rapidly approaching a societal era where, mechanically speaking,
731
00:35:52.679 --> 00:35:56.000
getting away with a violent crime might become scientifically impossible.
732
00:35:56.239 --> 00:35:58.639
But that leaves us with a deeply provocative question.
733
00:35:58.760 --> 00:35:59.039
What's that.
734
00:35:59.320 --> 00:36:02.679
Let's say a SI that he utilizes immense financial resources
735
00:36:02.719 --> 00:36:06.440
and cutting edge genetic genealogy to conclusively solve a sixty
736
00:36:06.519 --> 00:36:09.400
year old crime, only to find out the perpetrator died
737
00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:13.079
of natural causes twenty years ago. Does that scientific triumph
738
00:36:13.199 --> 00:36:16.920
actually serve the victim? Does identifying a ghost actually bring
739
00:36:17.039 --> 00:36:20.360
peace to a surviving family, or does it merely satisfy
740
00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:23.079
the institution's need to close out a historical record.
741
00:36:23.480 --> 00:36:25.920
Yeah, it forces us to define what the word justice
742
00:36:25.960 --> 00:36:29.239
actually means when the possibility of earthly punishment has long
743
00:36:29.280 --> 00:36:29.960
since vanished.
744
00:36:30.440 --> 00:36:32.480
Something tam all over as you go about your day.
745
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:34.280
But until then, I want to leave you with that
746
00:36:34.360 --> 00:36:38.679
exact image we started with the postcards, the sun drenched vineyards,
747
00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:41.760
the idyllic charm of a quiet town. The next time
748
00:36:41.800 --> 00:36:45.159
you find yourself looking at a picturesque, perfect landscape, remember
749
00:36:45.159 --> 00:36:48.400
that the waters are always much muddy or underneath. Thank
750
00:36:48.440 --> 00:36:51.079
you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning
751
00:36:51.119 --> 00:36:53.599
the world around you, Look closely at the shadows, and
752
00:36:53.639 --> 00:36:54.559
we'll see you next time.