Speaker 1: So if you wanted to solve a murder like thirty
Speaker 1: years ago, you basically just looked for what the killer
Speaker 1: left behind in the physical world, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you're looking for a footprint in the mud
Speaker 2: outside a window, or something.
Speaker 1: Exactly, a dropped match book, maybe a stray fiber from
Speaker 1: a jacket, or you're just canvassing the neighborhood, you know,
Speaker 1: hoping someone happened to be looking out their window at
Speaker 1: exactly the right second.
Speaker 2: Right, Because the whole foundation of criminal investigation used to
Speaker 2: be built entirely on tangible physical traces. I mean you
Speaker 2: could literally touch the evidence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could see it under a magnifying glass. But
Speaker 1: the evolution of that process today is it's completely staggering.
Speaker 1: We've shifted from relying on that physical trace to this
Speaker 1: almost like total dependence on an invisible digital web.
Speaker 2: We really have. We're looking at a world where the
Speaker 2: absolute most crucial witnesses in a capital murder case aren't
Speaker 2: even human beings anywhere.
Speaker 1: No, they're not. They don't sleep, they don't have eyes,
Speaker 1: they definitely don't get intimidated by defense attorneys on the stand.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and they are just constantly silently watching every move.
Speaker 1: We make, which is terrifying, honestly, but that brings us
Speaker 1: right into our deep dive. Today. We are unpacking the
Speaker 1: tragic and what initially seemed like a completely unsolvable murder
Speaker 1: of Professor Matthew Wiser.
Speaker 2: And we are drawing from a really incredible source for
Speaker 2: this deep dive. It's a detailed transcript from the Crime
Speaker 2: three to sixty true crime documentary series.
Speaker 1: Right which gives us these amazing, raw, first hand accounts
Speaker 1: we hear directly from the detectives on the ground, the
Speaker 1: responding campus police, and really poignantly, the victim's own father.
Speaker 2: Our whole mission with his deep dive is to extract
Speaker 2: the mechanics of modern digital forensics for you. We want
Speaker 2: to look at exactly how modern technology acts as that silent.
Speaker 1: Witness, yeah, and how a single seemingly totally insignificant stolen
Speaker 1: toy can literally unravel an entire highly sophisticated criminal network.
Speaker 2: To really grasp the sheer contrast here, you know, between
Speaker 2: the life that was taken and the violent nature of
Speaker 2: the crime, we have to look at Professor.
Speaker 1: Wiser himself, definitely, so he was thirty nine years old,
Speaker 1: an economics professor at the University of South Alabama.
Speaker 2: Right, and the source material paints this really vivid picture
Speaker 2: of a guy who was just deeply embedded in this quiet,
Speaker 2: highly routine academic life. I mean, he was in his
Speaker 2: fourth year of a six year, ten year.
Speaker 1: Track, which is super stressful. But he was beloved, He
Speaker 1: revered his students, he never wanted to retire, and he
Speaker 1: had this just profoundly gifted mathematical mind.
Speaker 2: That anecdote his father shared is amazing, right.
Speaker 1: The one about the high school math meets, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: His dad described how Matthew was like always targeted by
Speaker 1: the moderators for every single question at these intense regional
Speaker 1: math meets.
Speaker 2: They would read off this incredibly complex, you know, multi
Speaker 2: variable calculus problem.
Speaker 1: To the whole room, and before anyone else could even
Speaker 1: pick up a pencil, Mathew would just sit there and
Speaker 1: state the answer is one thy nine hundred and forty eight.
Speaker 2: And he was always exact. It's like he didn't even
Speaker 2: calculate it. He just natively saw the architecture of the numbers.
Speaker 1: It's wild. But beyond that huge intellect, the defining thing
Speaker 1: everyone in the documentary kept coming back to was his gentleness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was physically a really large man, but his
Speaker 2: father just described him as a gentle giant. He literally
Speaker 2: had no enemies in the world.
Speaker 1: His dad actually called it an absolutely unnecessary crime. I mean,
Speaker 1: he wasn't doing anything risky, no illicit markets, nothing, He
Speaker 1: went to work, came home, graded papers, and played video games.
Speaker 2: Just a life totally insulated by routine. And that peaceful
Speaker 2: structure makes the chaos of November twentieth so jarring for
Speaker 2: everyone involved.
Speaker 1: Right, and this is where the physical evidence, or i
Speaker 1: guess the complete lack of it, presents the police with
Speaker 1: an almost impossible puzzle.
Speaker 2: Let's walk through that timeline of the discovery because it
Speaker 2: really shows how fast a normal day just completely unravels.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Professor Wiser had this ongoing issue with his leg,
Speaker 1: meaning he couldn't drive himself. He relied on a higher
Speaker 1: driver to take him to work every day, even.
Speaker 2: Though the university was what only about half a mile from.
Speaker 1: His house, yeah, super close. So at twelve pm exactly,
Speaker 1: the driver arrives at the front door, knocks, waits, gets
Speaker 1: no answer.
Speaker 2: Which you know, in isolation isn't a massive crisis. People
Speaker 2: sleep in, they get sick.
Speaker 1: Right, they misplace their keys, so the driver eventually just leaves,
Speaker 1: but the real trigger is an hour later, at one
Speaker 1: point zero pm, Weiser misses his afternoon economics class.
Speaker 2: And for a guy on a tenure track who loves
Speaker 2: his students, missing a lecture without calling the department is
Speaker 2: like a flashing red siren.
Speaker 1: Oh Instantly, the university doesn't even wait. They dispatch campus
Speaker 1: police right to his house for a wellness check.
Speaker 2: Get there, knock on the front door, no answer, so
Speaker 2: they walk around to the back, and the narrative immediately
Speaker 2: shifts from a wellness check to a massive emergency.
Speaker 1: The back door isn't just unlocked, it is violently swung
Speaker 1: wide open. There are literal pieces of the wooden door
Speaker 1: frame just shattered on the ground.
Speaker 2: That kind of damage is a definitive signature of forced entry.
Speaker 2: Someone didn't just pick the lock or use a credit.
Speaker 1: Card now, they used a fulcrum like a heavy steel
Speaker 1: pride bar or crowbar, and just physically defeated the dead
Speaker 1: bolt by destroying the wood holding the strike plate.
Speaker 2: When campus police see structural damage like that, protocol means
Speaker 2: an immediate tactical response. They draw weapons, announce themselves, and
Speaker 2: enter to clear the house for any active threats.
Speaker 1: The house is clear of threats, but what they find
Speaker 1: on the second floor is just devastating. Professor Weiser is
Speaker 1: lying face down in a pool of his own blood
Speaker 1: in the hallway.
Speaker 2: It's immediately clear that he's deceased and that this is
Speaker 2: a homicide. So the City of Mobile Police Department homicide
Speaker 2: unit is called in.
Speaker 1: You've got this beloved, innocent professor murdered in his own home,
Speaker 1: essentially right next to the campus. The public pressure on
Speaker 1: this case goes from zero to one hundred in minute, absolutely.
Speaker 2: So the homicide detectives and crime scene texts get there
Speaker 2: and they start processing the space, and the forensic reality
Speaker 2: starts to emerge, but it tells a completely contradictory story. Right.
Speaker 1: They examine the body and find a single gunshot wound
Speaker 1: just above his right nipple.
Speaker 2: And the trajectory of this bullet is practically unbelievable, it
Speaker 2: really is.
Speaker 1: It passes entirely through his chest cavity, exits his back,
Speaker 1: and then continues traveling straight down the length of the
Speaker 1: whole second floor hallway.
Speaker 2: It strikes a closed bedroom door at the very end
Speaker 2: the hall, goes cleanly through the wood and.
Speaker 1: Enters the bedroom, and because Weiser was a huge collector,
Speaker 1: I mean he accumulated massive amounts of stuff. That bedroom
Speaker 1: is packed floor to ceiling with boxes, electronics clutter.
Speaker 2: Which is usually a nightmare for crime scene texts. Finding
Speaker 2: a fired bullet in that environment usually means dismantling the
Speaker 2: room and cutting open the drywall.
Speaker 1: Right using laser trajectory mapping and all that. But in
Speaker 1: this bizarre stroke of luck, one of the lead detectives
Speaker 1: is moving items and literally finds the fired bullet sitting perfectly,
Speaker 1: neatly inside an open box.
Speaker 2: Right on top of the clutter. In the transcript, he
Speaker 2: actually says the bullet was just presenting itself like it
Speaker 2: wanted to be found.
Speaker 1: Identify it as a point three to eight special caliber
Speaker 1: bullet that suggests the weapon was a revolver, not a
Speaker 1: semi automatic pistol.
Speaker 2: Which perfectly explains why there was no spent brass casing
Speaker 2: on the floor. Revolvers retain their shell casings in the cylinder.
Speaker 1: But that single bullet is where the physical forensics just
Speaker 1: stop being helpful. It immediately becomes this massive psychological.
Speaker 2: Paradox, exactly because the scene analysis creates this huge conflict
Speaker 2: about the motive. When investigators analyze the scene, they're looking
Speaker 2: for behavioral artifacts to understand the why, and.
Speaker 1: The shattered back door completely screams property crime. It is
Speaker 1: the textbook daytime residential burglary entry.
Speaker 2: But then they document the inside of the house and
Speaker 2: that entire theory completely collapses.
Speaker 1: Because you walk into a house breach with a crowbar,
Speaker 1: you expect it to be ransacked. But his wallet is
Speaker 1: sitting right there in plane view.
Speaker 2: Credit cards, laid out, watches, expensive jewelry, checkbooks, even.
Speaker 1: His personal cell phone is just sitting untouched. In his room,
Speaker 1: they find high in laptops, tablets, and xbox, thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars of easily paintable stuff totally ignored.
Speaker 2: The contradiction is glaring. Right, you have the high risk,
Speaker 2: high effort entry of a burglary combined with a zero
Speaker 2: yield result.
Speaker 1: Right, let's pause on that. You use immense physical exertion
Speaker 1: to break a solid door off its hinges, step inside,
Speaker 1: and leave laptops and cash sitting in front of you.
Speaker 2: It makes no sense if this was a.
Speaker 1: Random burglary gone wrong. Why fire one lethal shot and
Speaker 1: then abandon the whole reason you broke in? It totally
Speaker 1: violates the basic logic of a profit driven crime.
Speaker 2: It violates logic because human behavior under sudden catastrophic panic
Speaker 2: is inherently illogical. We have to look at the physiology
Speaker 2: of an interrupted burglary.
Speaker 1: Oh, like, what's happening in the burglar's brain exactly.
Speaker 2: The baseline assumption for a daytime burglar is that the
Speaker 2: house is empty. They target hours between nine zero zero
Speaker 2: zero am and three point zero zero pm because people
Speaker 2: are at work, so.
Speaker 1: They think they have total control of the environment.
Speaker 2: Right. They are in a state of high autonomic around
Speaker 2: heart rate is up scanning for threats, but their brain
Speaker 2: is completely focused on getting high value goods.
Speaker 1: But then that assumption gets shattered.
Speaker 2: Yes, a burglar comes around a corner and is abruptly
Speaker 2: confronted by a six foot tall homeowner. The brain undergoes
Speaker 2: a massive physiological event and amygdala hijack, where the.
Speaker 1: Threat detection center just completely overrides the prefrontal cortex.
Speaker 2: Right precisely, The rational planning part of the brain shuts
Speaker 2: down instantly, the body is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol.
Speaker 2: Pure survival instinct takes over.
Speaker 1: So the single shot was just a reflexive startle response.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a calculated execution, just sheer terror.
Speaker 2: In the second that deafening gunshot rings out in that
Speaker 2: hallway and they watch a man collapse, the reality of
Speaker 2: the crime shifts instantly.
Speaker 1: It goes from a burglary charge to a potential death
Speaker 1: penalty for capital murder.
Speaker 2: Right, the psychological priority shifts in a microsecond from getting
Speaker 2: money to immediate escape. The laptops in cash don't matter anymore.
Speaker 1: The biological imperative is just to flee before the cops
Speaker 1: show up. That's why the house is still full of valuables.
Speaker 1: They left empty handed because survival instincts overrode greed.
Speaker 2: Which perfectly explains the chaotic scene, but it leaves to
Speaker 2: detectives with a totally cold trail. They bring in the
Speaker 2: specialized crime scene unit to this.
Speaker 1: Massive house, and these techs spend hours and hours working
Speaker 1: all night dusting for fingerprints on doors, switches, everywhere, and
Speaker 1: they get absolutely nothing usable, not one print for the database.
Speaker 2: This is a really critical point because people have this
Speaker 2: huge misconception about fingerprint evidence from TV. The biochemistry of
Speaker 2: a fingerprint is incredibly.
Speaker 1: Fragile because it's just sweat and oil, right, exactly.
Speaker 2: A latent print is essentially a crime sweat mostly water
Speaker 2: and amino acids mixed with subaceous oils from touching your
Speaker 2: face or.
Speaker 1: Hair, and for that to leave a readable print, the
Speaker 1: conditions have to be like completely perfect.
Speaker 2: The surface is the biggest variable. Smooth glass or polished
Speaker 2: metal hold prints well, but textured surfaces, unfinished wood, porous
Speaker 2: stuff actively disperse the oils.
Speaker 1: Plus, if the guy's wearing cheap gloves or just wipes
Speaker 1: his hands on his jeans, the oil transfer is basically gone.
Speaker 1: And Weiser's house was really dusty and cluttered.
Speaker 2: So the probability of recovering an afis quality print drops
Speaker 2: to near zero.
Speaker 1: So they have no biochemical evidence, no witnesses, nobody heard
Speaker 1: the shot, which happens in well insulated homes, and nobody
Speaker 1: saw anyone running away.
Speaker 2: The canvas for surveillance, but Wiser didn't have cameras. They
Speaker 2: finally find a next door neighbor with a ring doorbell camera.
Speaker 1: The lead detective must have been thrilled.
Speaker 2: He was. He pulls the footage expecting to see the
Speaker 2: killer walking away, but he scrubs through it and it's
Speaker 2: just a crushing disappointment. Just random cars driving by, no
Speaker 2: suspect on.
Speaker 1: Foot, so they are in a total evidence vacuum, no
Speaker 1: physical forensics, a motivational paradox of a scene, and starting
Speaker 1: a high profile case from absolute zero.
Speaker 2: It's the most precarious spot for a detective. They have
Speaker 2: to shift methodology, establish a hard timeline, and desperately cultivate
Speaker 2: a human lead.
Speaker 1: YU sure Cooker leads to what looks like a massive
Speaker 1: break but is actually a huge distraction.
Speaker 2: The community is terrified, a peaceful professor gunned down in daylight.
Speaker 2: The political and media pressure to close this is.
Speaker 1: Immense, and right in the middle of that, the tip
Speaker 1: line rings. An anonymous caller, a student at South Alabama,
Speaker 1: says he overheard someone on campus bragging about playing a
Speaker 1: part in the murder.
Speaker 2: From an investigative view, that is highly actionable intelligence. If
Speaker 2: a professor is killed near campus, the statistical probability of
Speaker 2: a student being involved is high enough to warrant immediate resources.
Speaker 1: The police mobilize fast. They get a name from the tipster.
Speaker 1: A student will call Joseph, and ironically he's studying criminal justice.
Speaker 2: They use the university's CCTV system track Joseph across the quad,
Speaker 2: get a high res photo. Have the tipster id him
Speaker 2: and bring him straight to headquarters.
Speaker 1: They bring him right into the interrogation room, and this
Speaker 1: part is a masterclass in behavioral analysis.
Speaker 2: They don't accuse him immediately. They ask him to build
Speaker 2: a minute by minute timeline of his day, watching his
Speaker 2: micro expressions, his posture.
Speaker 1: And Joseph's reaction is totally opposite to a guilty suspect.
Speaker 1: The detective said, he wasn't defensive, didn't ask for a lawyer.
Speaker 1: He was remarkably polite and confident.
Speaker 2: He didn't get agitated. He just said, no, y'all are
Speaker 2: looking in the wrong place. Yeah. He even consented to
Speaker 2: a search of his dorm room and told them to
Speaker 2: interview his roommates.
Speaker 1: Which is a huge warning bell for an interrogator. Right.
Speaker 2: Definitely, a guilty person, especially a young student who just
Speaker 2: committed murder, is under a massive cognitive load. They have
Speaker 2: to remember Lie's suppress.
Speaker 1: Fear and it leaks out through stuttering or anger or
Speaker 1: getting defensive over tiny details. They definitely don't invite police
Speaker 1: to tear through their room.
Speaker 2: Joseph's absolute calm consistency told the detective they were wasting
Speaker 2: their time.
Speaker 1: Well, wait, let's pause. If Joseph is totally innocent, why
Speaker 1: is an anonymous tipster calling the police saying they heard
Speaker 1: him confessing? Was he just bragging about a murder he
Speaker 1: didn't do it?
Speaker 2: Sounds deeply irrational, but in high profile tracks, this is
Speaker 2: heavily documented. It's the sociological mechanics of rumor and social contagion, like.
Speaker 1: The telephone game exactly.
Speaker 2: A community experiences collective anxiety, so people talk. Someone says,
Speaker 2: I wonder if a criminal justice student did.
Speaker 1: It, and the next person says, I heard a CJ
Speaker 1: student was involved, and then it becomes I heard Joseph
Speaker 1: from my CGI class did it.
Speaker 2: And sometimes people actually falsely claim involvement for status. Young
Speaker 2: adults wanting clout might make a dark joke and a
Speaker 2: bystander takes it literally and calls the cops.
Speaker 1: Human intelligence is just so fragile compared to hard data.
Speaker 1: So Joseph is cleared. They burn precious time. They're back
Speaker 1: to square one, but the clock is ticking.
Speaker 2: They pivot away from rumors and go straight to digital records,
Speaker 2: starting with wiser cell phone.
Speaker 1: But they aren't looking for a suspects number, the subpoena,
Speaker 1: the call detail, records the CDRs to establish an immovable
Speaker 1: time of death.
Speaker 2: This is where the digital footprint starts to show its power.
Speaker 2: The telecom data show is Wiser made an outgoing call
Speaker 2: at exactly eleven one point two five am, and we know.
Speaker 1: The driver arrived at the door at twelve thro z
Speaker 1: pm flat and got no answer.
Speaker 2: So through digital records and witness testimony, the window is locked.
Speaker 2: The murder had to happen in that tight thirty five
Speaker 2: minute window.
Speaker 1: It's like a steel trap. It doesn't tell you who
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger, but it creates a perfect filter. If
Speaker 1: you can't prove where you were between eleven point twenty
Speaker 1: five and twelve zero zero, you're caught.
Speaker 2: It's the structural foundation for the case, but we have
Speaker 2: to acknowledge the massive emotional weight on the team here.
Speaker 2: They have a timeline but zero.
Speaker 1: Suspects, and the documentary shares this haunting detail. The lead
Speaker 1: detective had actually spoken to Wiser on the phone three
Speaker 1: weeks before the murder about a neighborhood issue, and.
Speaker 2: During that call, Wiser made an offhand comment that he
Speaker 2: didn't expect the police to ever sult the case as
Speaker 2: something happened to him because crime is just too random, just.
Speaker 1: A chilling prophecy. The detective is fighting against the victim's
Speaker 1: own fatalism. And on top of that, he promised Wiser's
Speaker 1: dad he'd be the one to call when they made
Speaker 1: an arrest.
Speaker 2: He's carrying that promise while staring at a file with
Speaker 2: zero physical evidence and zero witnesses. So the investigation undergoes
Speaker 2: a fundamental evolution here.
Speaker 1: They stop looking at what the killer left behind and
Speaker 1: start obsessively focusing on what is actually missing from the house.
Speaker 2: Shifting from positive evidence to negative evidence, and this leads
Speaker 2: to the biggest breakthrough of the case, a digital tripwire.
Speaker 1: The inventory revelation. Remember the house is a labyrinth of boxes.
Speaker 1: Taking inventory of a hoarder's house is grueling. They're comparing
Speaker 1: everything to receipts and Amazon histories.
Speaker 2: And they establish Wiser was an avid gamer. As they
Speaker 2: self through everything, they realize one relatively inexpensive item is gone.
Speaker 1: Out of all the laptops and jewelry, the only thing
Speaker 1: missing is a Nintendo Switch gaming console.
Speaker 2: The ultimate needle in the haystack. But how do you
Speaker 2: scientifically prove it was there that morning and not sold
Speaker 2: months ago?
Speaker 1: Because the empty plastic game cases for Zelda, Breath of
Speaker 1: the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey are sitting right near
Speaker 1: the tea.
Speaker 2: They tear apart his office, his car, every box. The
Speaker 2: games are there, the doc is there, the console is gone.
Speaker 1: So they decided to subpoena Nintendo. The detectives admit there
Speaker 1: was zero precedent in their department for using a children's
Speaker 1: toy to solve a capital murder.
Speaker 2: They're used to pinging cell phones with GPS. A switch
Speaker 2: as a toy doesn't have a cellular radio or GPS.
Speaker 1: But the detective understands modern electronics the Internet of Things.
Speaker 1: A switch operates on a complex Wi Fi architecture.
Speaker 2: To update or play multiplayer, or verify licenses, it has
Speaker 2: to perform a handshake protocol with a local network routing
Speaker 2: to Nintendo's global server.
Speaker 1: His hypothesis is brilliant. If the killers took it and
Speaker 1: ever turn it on and connect to the internet, it
Speaker 1: acts as a digital beacon. It calls home.
Speaker 2: So they send the subpoena to Nintendo's legal team and
Speaker 2: wait days past then weeks. The trail goes ice cold.
Speaker 1: It feels like Weiser's prediction of random violence is going
Speaker 1: to win. Then On December seventh, almost three weeks later,
Speaker 1: around two point zero zero pm, the detective gets an
Speaker 1: email from Nintendo.
Speaker 2: And he literally screams in the middle of the squad room.
Speaker 2: The switch has connected.
Speaker 1: To the Internet and the data is super specific. It
Speaker 1: connected for exactly ten minutes, which is a huge behavioral clue, but.
Speaker 2: It raises a logical question. If you steal the device
Speaker 2: during a murder, why wait three weeks to turn it
Speaker 2: on and why only for ten minutes?
Speaker 1: Right? Wouldn't you just wipe it the mini got home,
Speaker 1: so you could sell it, you'd think.
Speaker 2: So, But that ignores the underground economy as stolen electronics,
Speaker 2: there's a life cycle for fence goods.
Speaker 1: H because it's a high heat crime. The item is
Speaker 1: radioactive exactly.
Speaker 2: The offenders know the police are looking for it, so
Speaker 2: it gets put in a drawer or a stash house
Speaker 2: while they wait for the heat to die.
Speaker 1: Down, so it just sits there, or it gets passed around,
Speaker 1: traded for drugs until someone decides it's safe to sell.
Speaker 2: But to sell a modern console, you can't leave the
Speaker 2: victim's profile logged in. You have to execute a hard factory.
Speaker 1: Reset, and the OS requires an active Internet connection and
Speaker 1: to authenticate the wipe with Nintendo servers before it formats
Speaker 1: the memory.
Speaker 2: Precisely, that ten minute window wasn't someone playing Zelda. It
Speaker 2: was someone rapidly connecting to Wi Fi, executing the factory
Speaker 2: wipe and disconnecting.
Speaker 1: They thought they were a rasing Wiser's digital ghost, making
Speaker 1: it untraceable, but trying to sever the connection is what
Speaker 1: lit them up on the map.
Speaker 2: The wipe command forced the console to log its current
Speaker 2: IP address on Nintendo servers, and Nintendo handed it to
Speaker 2: the detectives.
Speaker 1: Let's do a deep dive on IP addresses because it's
Speaker 1: the absolute lynchpin here. Every network enabled device acts as
Speaker 1: a node.
Speaker 2: When it connects to a router and the router request
Speaker 2: Internet access from an ISP. The ISP assigns a public
Speaker 2: IP address.
Speaker 1: The documentary compared it to a Social Security number for
Speaker 1: a specific Internet connection at a specific moment.
Speaker 2: Is the perfect analogy. A public IP can give you
Speaker 2: exact GPS coordinates or tell you which bedroom the console
Speaker 2: is in, but it provides an auditable paper trail.
Speaker 1: So law enforcement takes that IP and the two point
Speaker 1: zero zero PM time stamp. On December seventh and subpoena
Speaker 1: is the ISP. Like Comcast or AT and T.
Speaker 2: They ask who was leasing this exact string of numbers
Speaker 2: at this exact second, and.
Speaker 1: The ISP's automated systems the DHCP leases match it directly
Speaker 1: to the physical billing address of the customer's modem.
Speaker 2: It literally bridges the digital cloud directly to a physical
Speaker 2: front door in the real world.
Speaker 1: The ISP traces it to an apartment unit on downtown
Speaker 1: or Boulevard and mobile registered to a woman named Kinesha.
Speaker 2: This is where they transition back to human intelligence. They
Speaker 2: have a location, but Drywall isn't a suspect. They need
Speaker 2: to know whose hands were holding the console.
Speaker 1: So they go knock on Kinesh's door and the interview
Speaker 1: is tragically casual. The detective just asked, has anyone been
Speaker 1: here recently with a Nintendo.
Speaker 2: Swish and she just openly replies, yeah, my brother TikZ timmins.
Speaker 2: He came over with a switch and asked for the
Speaker 2: Wi Fi to reset it.
Speaker 1: She has absolutely no idea she's handing homicide detectives the
Speaker 1: prime suspect in a capital murder case.
Speaker 2: None and Tks is roughly twenty years years old, couch
Speaker 2: surfing no permanent address, not a student, no major violent history.
Speaker 1: If that switch hadn't pinged that router for those ten minutes,
Speaker 1: Tcauzou's been a total post.
Speaker 2: But the digital net is tightening. Kanisha also casually mentions
Speaker 2: tk's vehicle, a white Honda Accord he just bought from
Speaker 2: a small local used car dealership.
Speaker 1: That detail cracks it wide open because it introduces the
Speaker 1: hidden surveillance tech in the subprime auto market.
Speaker 2: We really have to explore this for decades by here
Speaker 2: pay here lots financed high risk buyers. If a buyer defaulted,
Speaker 2: they had to hire a.
Speaker 1: Reboman, which is expensive and dangerous. But technology solve that
Speaker 1: and inadvertently solve this murder right.
Speaker 2: To protect their assets, these dealerships hardwire cellular telematics units
Speaker 2: GPS trackers deep into the wiring harness.
Speaker 1: Pulling phantom power from the battery with a simcard, constantly
Speaker 1: transmitting the location to a central server.
Speaker 2: Some even have starter interrupt relays missapay. They click a
Speaker 2: button online and your car won't start, and.
Speaker 1: They can see exactly where it's part. But the crucial
Speaker 1: part for the detectives is that these servers maintain historical GPS.
Speaker 2: Logs minute by minute for months. Law enforcement subpoena is
Speaker 2: the historical data for Ticky's white Honda.
Speaker 1: They filter for the morning of November twentieth, and the
Speaker 1: satellite data is chilling. It shows the Honda drove into
Speaker 1: Weiser's neighborhood and stopped near his house at exactly eleven
Speaker 1: to fifty am.
Speaker 2: Let's contextualize that with our timeline. Weiser's call was eleven
Speaker 2: point twenty five, the driver arrived at twelve zero, and the.
Speaker 1: Historical GPS puts Tikas's car perfectly parked near the house
Speaker 1: at eleven fifty am, right inside that thirty five minute
Speaker 1: murder window.
Speaker 2: The vice just snapshut, but the detectives are relentless. They
Speaker 2: don't just go arrest them. They take this highly specific
Speaker 2: data back to the third link in the web.
Speaker 1: The neighbors ring doorbell camera the exact same footage. They
Speaker 1: discard it as useless on day one.
Speaker 2: It's a perfect demonstration of expectation bias. When you don't
Speaker 2: know what to look for, your brain filters out back
Speaker 2: ground noise.
Speaker 1: He was looking for a guy running in a ski mask,
Speaker 1: but now with a specific vehicle description and an exact timestamp.
Speaker 1: They look again and.
Speaker 2: Queuing up to eleven to fifty am. There it is,
Speaker 2: hiding in plain sight, a white four door vehicle slowly
Speaker 2: pulling in across the street during the exact window.
Speaker 1: Look At how these systems interact. A toy leads to
Speaker 1: an IP, which leads to a sister, to a car
Speaker 1: loan to GPS data, which gives the timestamp to make
Speaker 1: a random car on a doorbell video highly relevant.
Speaker 2: Disparate devices communicating across databases to build a flawless map
Speaker 2: of the crime.
Speaker 1: But a map in a blurry car don't prove who
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger. They have to leverage this web of
Speaker 1: evidence against human psychology. In the interrogation room.
Speaker 2: The domino effect begins. The detectives use the Honda's real
Speaker 2: time GPS feature to track the live movement of the
Speaker 2: car to a house on Crestwood Drive.
Speaker 1: They set up a covert perimeter, wait for it to
Speaker 1: go mobile, and execute a traffic stop. They pulled the
Speaker 1: driver out, expecting TKS.
Speaker 2: But we get a massive twist. It's not TKS. It's
Speaker 2: a completely different guy named Curtis's Womack.
Speaker 1: The detectives are thrown for a second, but they adapt.
Speaker 1: They detain Curtis, secure the car and marched back to
Speaker 1: the house on Crestwood, and sitting right inside is ts Timmins.
Speaker 2: They take Tkz to headquarters and the interrogation is a
Speaker 2: masterclass in using digital evidence as a psychological trap.
Speaker 1: Tks thinks it's routine questioning. He tries to spin a
Speaker 1: fake alibi, claiming he was across town and bought the
Speaker 1: switch off a random guy on the street.
Speaker 2: He's relying on analog rules, his word against theirs without
Speaker 2: a witness. He thinks he can.
Speaker 1: Walk, but the detective just lets him build this house
Speaker 1: of lies. Then he systematically dismantles it. He puts the
Speaker 1: actual switch on the table and.
Speaker 2: Then drops the hammer. He slides the telematics data print
Speaker 2: out across.
Speaker 1: The table and he says, your car wasn't across town.
Speaker 1: The GPS proves from space that your vehicle was parked
Speaker 1: fifty yards from the front door at eleven fifty am.
Speaker 1: You are lying and I can prove it.
Speaker 2: It's the moment of total psychological collapse. Tkez realizes the
Speaker 2: invisible way has him. The detective smartly offers him an
Speaker 2: off ramp right.
Speaker 1: He says, I know you didn't pull the trigger. You
Speaker 1: are just the driver. But tell me who shot the professor.
Speaker 2: And this leads to a truly bizarre moment. Tkez is trapped,
Speaker 2: but still bound by street code. He refuses to say
Speaker 2: the killer's name out loud because of a no snitching policy.
Speaker 1: It's a complete moral loophole. He asks for a pen
Speaker 1: and paper, and in total silence, writes down Derek Scott
Speaker 1: and slides it over.
Speaker 2: In his mind. Because he didn't speak the syllables, he
Speaker 2: didn't technically rat his partner out, even though he just
Speaker 2: handed them the murderer on a silver platter.
Speaker 1: Once that dam breaks, he gives up the whole operation.
Speaker 1: He says he and Derek formed a crew doing daytime burglaries.
Speaker 1: Ti Kez was the wheelman, Derek was the muscle.
Speaker 2: He details the sequence for November twentieth, drop Derek off.
Speaker 2: Derek breached the back door with a crowbar.
Speaker 1: Grab the very first thing he saw the switch, but
Speaker 1: Wiser came around the corner. Derek panicked, Amigdola hijacked, fired
Speaker 1: the shot, and ran.
Speaker 2: Tks says Derek was so rattle when he got to
Speaker 2: the car he didn't even want to hold the switch anymore,
Speaker 2: told Tiks to sell it and split the money.
Speaker 1: Which explains the whole life cycle of the object, why
Speaker 1: tek has kept it for three weeks, took it to
Speaker 1: Caineesies to wipe it, and how it ended up in Florida.
Speaker 2: The digital breadcrumbs and human confession align perfectly. So tactical
Speaker 2: units arrest Derek Scott that same night.
Speaker 1: And Derek's demeanor was chilling, totally emotionless, like being arrested
Speaker 1: for murder was just an irritating inconvenience.
Speaker 2: But his stoicism doesn't matter because the digital witness is
Speaker 2: ready to testify. They subpoena Derek's historical cell phone data.
Speaker 1: The telecom logs show rapid fire communication between Tikas and
Speaker 1: Derek all morning, proving conspiracy. But the cell tower data
Speaker 1: is the nail in the coffin.
Speaker 2: His phone pained the specific cell towers covering Weiser's neighborhood
Speaker 2: right at the crime scene during the thirty five minute window.
Speaker 1: Let's unpack cell tower pings the CSLI. It's different from
Speaker 1: the car's GPS, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: A cell phone is essentially a sophisticated two way radio.
Speaker 2: It constantly scans for the nearest tower doing a digital
Speaker 2: handshake every few seconds.
Speaker 1: So it's not a precise GPS dot, it's a record
Speaker 1: of which directional antenna it top two, giving them a
Speaker 1: pie shaped wedge on a map.
Speaker 2: Exactly By analyzing the time difference of arrival, engineers triangulate
Speaker 2: the location with devastating accuracy. The physics of radio waves
Speaker 2: proved Dari's phone was at the scene.
Speaker 1: It's an inescapable evidentiary matrix, confessed accomplice vehicle, GPS ring,
Speaker 1: camera call logs, and radio frequency physics.
Speaker 2: But there's one final intersection with traditional forensics.
Speaker 1: Right, because why was Curtis Walmack, the guy driving the
Speaker 1: Honda days later, also indicted for felony.
Speaker 2: Murder Because investigators didn't ignore the physical tools. They executed
Speaker 2: a search warrant on a completely different vehicle connected to Curtis.
Speaker 1: And in the trunk they found a heavy steel crowbar.
Speaker 2: They sent it to the state forensic lab for microscopic
Speaker 2: tool mark analysis. They compare the jagged pieces of Wiser's
Speaker 2: frame to the prying end of the crowbar.
Speaker 1: Because every time a heavy steel tool is used, it
Speaker 1: gets micro damage, right, creating a profile as unique as
Speaker 1: a fingerprint exactly.
Speaker 2: And the lab confirms it's a one hundred percent perfect match.
Speaker 2: The flaws in Curtis's crowbar perfectly mirror the gouge's in
Speaker 2: Weiser's door.
Speaker 1: The digital net dragged them out, but the oldest physical
Speaker 1: evidence scratches on wood locked all three men in. They
Speaker 1: were all charged with felony murder.
Speaker 2: It really encapsulates the absolute dominance of modern digital investigative work.
Speaker 2: The volume of silent testimony is staggering.
Speaker 1: The eleven point two to five phone call, the switches,
Speaker 1: ip lease, the hidden auto loan, GPS, the ring camera,
Speaker 1: the call logs, the cell tower pings.
Speaker 2: As a detective said, digital evidence is a witness without
Speaker 2: a dog in the fight. It doesn't misremember, under stress,
Speaker 2: it doesn't get intimidated. It just provides the math.
Speaker 1: But the human element brings it to closure. That veteran
Speaker 1: detective kept his promise to Wiser's dad. In the middle
Speaker 1: of the night, he called him to say arrests had
Speaker 1: been and arrest.
Speaker 2: Doesn't undo the violence, but it restores a fundamental sense
Speaker 2: of order. It proves the randomness of the world didn't
Speaker 2: swallow the truth.
Speaker 1: But there is one profoundly heartbreaking detail from the father.
Speaker 1: Shortly after Matthew died in the depths of grief, he
Speaker 1: typed out a text to his murdered son's phone.
Speaker 2: He sent it knowing with absolute certainty his son would
Speaker 2: never look at a screen again.
Speaker 1: He just typed love you and hit send a final
Speaker 1: message into the cold digital ether for a gentle giant
Speaker 1: who has already gone.
Speaker 2: It's a grounding reminder that behind every data point, every
Speaker 2: IP address, there are actual human lives and permanent loss.
Speaker 1: It really is, and looking at all of this leaves
Speaker 1: us with a somewhat unsettling thought for you to ponder.
Speaker 1: We constantly worry about digital privacy hackers or digital footprint
Speaker 1: being a liability, But.
Speaker 2: The flip side is that your footprint is an indestructible shadow,
Speaker 2: an objective record of your existence.
Speaker 1: Think about the devices around you right now. If you
Speaker 1: vanished today, what story would your electronics tell about your
Speaker 1: final twenty four hours? What timeline would the hidden GPS,
Speaker 1: the router, and the cell phone build.
Speaker 2: When you look at how these systems caught Professor Weiser's killers,
Speaker 2: it really makes you think.
Speaker 1: Are you comforted that your technology is an incorruptible witness,
Speaker 1: always watching or does it make you want to unplug
Speaker 1: your router and disappear off the grid. A profound reminder
Speaker 1: of the power of everyday tech in the pursuit of justice.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, and we'll catch you on the
Speaker 1: next deep dive.