# 1 Hour of Solved Cases That Are Too Dark For TV | 279

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 19 Jul 2026, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO7513777760.mp3

Join me for 1 hours of disturbing solved true crime cases that are too disturbing television or Netflix. Episode 279 of the true crime podcast btw. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 unsolved mysteries, true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, cases too dark for MrBallen, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, cold cases, true crime, true crime solved, 5 true crime cases, solved cases, sleep cases, Logan Federico

## Transcript

[0:00] In the early hours of May 3rd, 2025, the crack of a shot
[0:05] pierced the pre dawn quiet of a college neighborhood in
[0:07] Columbia, SC. By sunrise, 22 year old Logan
[0:13] Federico, an aspiring teacher visiting friends for the
[0:16] weekend, lay dead and a horrifying crime spree was
[0:21] unfolding around her. What began as a fun Friday night
[0:26] gathering had turned into a nightmare by dawn.
[0:31] Logan had traveled to Columbia to spend the weekend with
[0:33] friends near the University of South Carolina campus.
[0:37] After a fun night out, they returned to a rented house on
[0:41] Cypress Street just before three that early Saturday morning.
[0:46] Not long after, as the friend settled in to sleep, an intruder
[0:50] quietly slipped into the neighboring house and rummaged
[0:53] for valuables. Police say the man entered the
[0:56] room where Logan slept and fatally shot her in the chest
[1:00] during the break in. It all happened in the darkness
[1:04] without warning. A young life taken in an
[1:07] instant. Logan's friends didn't
[1:10] immediately realize the horror that had unfolded.
[1:14] It wasn't until later that morning that someone discovered
[1:16] Logan unresponsive and a nine one one call alerted authorities
[1:21] to her body. Investigators quickly determined
[1:25] that Logan was an unintended victim and that she was simply
[1:28] in the wrong place at the wrong time.
[1:32] As detectives processed the scene on Cypress Street, they
[1:36] soon realized Logan's slaying was not an isolated incident,
[1:40] but part of a larger crime spree.
[1:43] And the more you hear about this sick puppy who committed these
[1:46] acts, the more you're going to wonder what sort of system let
[1:49] this guy out to begin with. The suspected shooter was
[1:54] identified as Alex Dickey, a 30 year old man with an extensive
[1:58] criminal history. In fact, Dickey was already
[2:02] wanted on numerous warrants at the time of the attack on that
[2:06] same morning. He had already broken into the
[2:08] house next door, stealing keys, credit cards and even a firearm
[2:14] before targeting the home where Logan slept.
[2:17] Authorities believe the attack on Logan was completely random,
[2:21] a by product of Dickey's desperate string of burglaries.
[2:26] After shooting Logan, Dickey fled the scene immediately.
[2:30] He stole a car using the keys taken from the first burglary
[2:33] and speed off into the dawn. With stolen credit and debit
[2:37] cards in hand, he drove to nearby West Columbia and
[2:41] embarked on an ill advised, fraudulent shopping spree.
[2:45] And seriously, this is one of those moments where we just have
[2:48] to be thankful that most criminals are so stupid.
[2:52] This pointless act of post killing consumerism would
[2:55] thankfully stop him from inflicting further serious harm.
[3:00] He bought numerous items with his victim's stolen credit cards
[3:03] and left an ample trail of transactions for police to
[3:06] follow. Dickey was also apparently
[3:09] unfamiliar with this new technology, called a
[3:11] surveillance camera, which depicted him making these
[3:14] purchases. Dickey's crime spree didn't stop
[3:20] there. Later that day, he drove the
[3:22] stolen car out of town into rural Saluda County, South
[3:25] Carolina. As he attempted additional
[3:28] illicit purchases, the stolen vehicle broke down and left him
[3:33] stranded on the roadside. Undeterred, Dickey brazenly
[3:38] called a towing company to haul the broken car to a friend's
[3:41] residence in the small town of Gaston.
[3:44] Honestly, at this point, I'm surprised he didn't just have it
[3:47] towed to his own house. And yeah, this would be a comedy
[3:51] if it wasn't so damn tragic. By then, Columbia police had
[3:57] traced the suspect's path through his spending spree and
[4:01] the stolen car report. They coordinated with the
[4:04] Lexington County Sheriff's Office and state agents from the
[4:07] South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to 0 in on the Gaston
[4:11] location. When officers arrived on Sunday,
[4:15] May 4th, Dickey fled into nearby woods to evade capture, turning
[4:20] the manhunt into a tense overnight search.
[4:26] Through Saturday night and into Sunday, authorities scoured the
[4:29] area for the armed fugitive. Despite severe weather
[4:33] conditions hampering the search, law enforcement remained in
[4:37] pursuit. The break came around 4:00 PM on
[4:40] Sunday, May 4th, when a resident in Lexington County spotted a
[4:44] suspicious man emerging from the woods At the same time.
[4:48] There was a report of yet another stolen vehicle in the
[4:51] area, but he crashed the vehicle shortly after.
[4:55] In a bizarre attempt to avoid arrest, Dickey forced his way
[4:59] into that home in Gaston, where his friend was staying.
[5:03] The cops tracked him down and he refused to surrender peacefully,
[5:07] so officers from multiple agencies surrounded the house.
[5:11] A tense standoff ensued as they ordered the intruder to come
[5:14] out. In a final reckless act, Dickey
[5:17] set the house on fire while barricading himself inside.
[5:21] Police weren't about to let the suspect escape again.
[5:25] They moved in as flames began to spread, eventually pulling
[5:28] Dickey out through a window to safety before taking him into
[5:31] custody. Remarkably, no one else was
[5:34] harmed in the fire. Dickey was immediately
[5:38] transported to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries and
[5:41] smoke inhalation, then released straight into police custody.
[5:46] Just about 36 hours after Logan's life was taken, this
[5:50] sick predator was behind bars. With Dickey in custody,
[5:56] investigators began unraveling the full extent of his crime
[6:00] spree. It was also revealed that Dickey
[6:03] was a career criminal who had been charged with nearly 50
[6:06] prior crimes over the past decade.
[6:10] He had multiple felony convictions and had spent time
[6:13] in prison, yet he was free that weekend to wreak havoc.
[6:18] This revelation only deepened the tragedy, raising questions
[6:22] about how someone with such a record was walking the streets.
[6:27] In the days following the slaying, Logan's family and the
[6:31] Columbia community grappled with grief and anger.
[6:34] At a press conference on May 5th, Logan's father, Steven
[6:38] Federico, stood alongside police officials clutching a photo of
[6:43] his daughter and fighting back tears as he spoke.
[6:47] He described Logan as a vibrant, caring young woman who worked 2
[6:50] jobs while attending college with the dream of becoming an
[6:53] elementary school teacher. Authorities wasted no time
[6:59] charging Alex Dickey in connection with the crime spree
[7:01] and Logan's slaying. Columbia police obtained
[7:05] warrants accusing him of the attack.
[7:07] Multiple counts of burglary, several weapons charges, grand
[7:12] larceny and fraud. Additional charges for arson and
[7:17] other offenses were filed in neighboring Lexington County
[7:20] reflecting the blaze and break insurance there.
[7:24] A judge swiftly denied Dickey bond, ensuring he would remain
[7:28] jailed as he awaited trial. Given the shocking nature of the
[7:32] crime. South Carolina's attorney
[7:35] general even suggested the case might warrant federal attention
[7:39] and urged prosecutors to consider the death penalty.
[7:42] At present, this is where we stand, and Logan's case has
[7:46] become a rallying cry against a system that has failed to
[7:49] protect innocent people from repeat violent offenders.
[7:55] There's no way around the hard truth in this case.
[7:58] Logan Federico should still be alive.
[8:00] Her death wasn't the result of some unforeseeable lightning
[8:04] strike, but the predictable outcome of a system that
[8:07] repeatedly released a violently unstable offender back into the
[8:11] public. Alex Dickey didn't suddenly snap
[8:15] that weekend. His record showed years of
[8:18] escalating violence, disregard for the law, and an inability to
[8:22] function safely in society. When someone racks up nearly 50
[8:27] prior charges, including serious felonies, the question isn't how
[8:32] this happened, it's why it was allowed to happen.
[8:37] Every prior release was a gamble made with other people's lives,
[8:40] and Logan paid the price for that systematic indifference.
[8:44] In my view, justice for Logan can't stop at conviction alone.
[8:49] It has to include accountability for the failures that put her in
[8:53] danger to begin with. For nearly 44 years, the mystery
[8:59] of who killed 16 year old Pamela Moorer haunted a quiet Illinois
[9:03] suburb. The teenager's 1976 slaying
[9:07] remained unsolved until a breakthrough in forensic
[9:10] technology finally unmasked the perpetrator in a way that no one
[9:14] could have imagined in the 70s. This revelation not only closed
[9:19] a painful chapter for Pamela's loved ones, but also exposed A
[9:23] suspected serial predator who had lurked in plain sight.
[9:30] On a cold January night in 1976, Pamela Moorer left a friend's
[9:34] house in Woodridge, IL to buy a meal at a nearby McDonald's.
[9:39] When she didn't return home as expected, her mother reported
[9:43] her missing by late that night. The next morning, a road crew
[9:47] found Pamela's body abandoned beside a road in Lisle.
[9:51] The high school sophomore had been strangled and subject to an
[9:54] indecent assault, her life tragically snuffed out by a
[9:58] brutal attacker. The community was stunned by the
[10:02] violence inflicted on this shy, studious teenager.
[10:06] Police launched an intensive investigation, interviewing
[10:09] friends and classmates in hopes of identifying A suspect.
[10:13] At the time, the police chief vowed they would find Pamela's
[10:16] killer, but that promise would take decades to fulfill.
[10:21] Despite the investigators efforts, no arrests were made,
[10:25] and the case eventually went cold.
[10:28] Months turned into years with no answers, leaving Pamela's family
[10:33] to endure decades of uncertainty and grief.
[10:37] But her case wasn't alone. It became one of several
[10:40] puzzling unsolved slayings of young women in the county during
[10:44] that era. For decades, the question of who
[10:48] killed Pamela Moorer lingered. Investigators refused to forget
[10:52] the case, periodically revisiting the evidence as
[10:56] forensic science advanced. Crucially, authorities had
[11:00] preserved biological evidence from Pamela's body collected
[11:04] long before DNA profiling existed.
[11:07] In 2001, forensic analysts finally extracted adna profile
[11:12] of the unknown suspect from the preserved evidence.
[11:16] However, when this profile was run through the national
[11:20] database, it yielded no matches. In hindsight, the reason was
[11:25] simple. The killer had never been
[11:28] convicted of a crime and was already dead by then.
[11:31] With no hit on the genetic material and no other strong
[11:34] leads, Pamela's case remained unsolved well into the new
[11:38] century. Her family could only hold on to
[11:41] the hope that someday new technology or information would
[11:44] bring answers. The breakthrough in Pamela's
[11:48] case finally came in 2019 with cutting edge DNA analysis and
[11:53] genetic genealogy. DuPage County investigators
[11:58] worked with a private lab to apply advanced testing to the
[12:01] old evidence. Genetic genealogy works by
[12:04] comparing crime scene DNA to profiles that relatives
[12:07] voluntarily share on public databases.
[12:10] This in turn allows distant family matches to point toward
[12:15] an unknown suspect, who can then be confirmed with a direct test.
[12:21] It's not a perfect system by any means, and issues like adoption
[12:25] or the perpetrator not being from a select few countries like
[12:29] America or Canada can be major hindrances.
[12:33] Thankfully, this wasn't the case here, and the team built a
[12:36] family tree of possible relatives and narrowed their
[12:40] search to a single name, Bruce Lindell.
[12:44] Identifying Lindell on paper was only the first step.
[12:48] Investigators needed concrete proof.
[12:51] In late 2019, Lyndall's body was exhumed under a court order and
[12:56] his DNA was tested directly against the crime scene sample.
[13:01] The results provided the long-awaited definitive
[13:03] confirmation. It was also the first time in
[13:06] Illinois that this genetic forensic technique had been used
[13:09] to solve a cold case. After 44 years, science had
[13:14] finally put a name to the man who had cruelly brought an end
[13:17] to the life of this promising teenager.
[13:20] Detectives even traveled to Texas to inform Pamela's father
[13:24] and brother of the perpetrator's identity directly.
[13:29] Once unmasked, Bruce Lindahl emerged as a frightening figure
[13:33] with a history of violence. At age 23, Lindahl lived in the
[13:38] vicinity of Pamela's hometown and hadn't been on the police's
[13:42] radar in 1976. Starting in the mid 1970s,
[13:48] Lindahl had several run insurance with law enforcement,
[13:51] from minor offenses to serious charges, but he often avoided
[13:55] significant consequences. This helped him stay under the
[13:59] radar as his crimes escalated. In the years that followed
[14:03] Pamela's death, Lindahl's violence continued until a
[14:07] gruesome twist ended his life. He was arrested in 1980 for the
[14:12] kidnapping of a woman named Deborah Collie Ander, but she
[14:15] disappeared two weeks before the trial.
[14:18] She was later found slain, presumably at Lyndall's hands.
[14:23] Investigators later learned Lyndall had even tried to hire
[14:25] someone to kill Collie Ander to prevent her from testifying.
[14:30] In April 1981, Lyndall's crimes caught up with him in a truly
[14:34] bizarre way. While stabbing 18 year old
[14:37] Charles Huber to death, Lyndall accidentally slashed his own
[14:41] femoral artery and bled out at the scene next to his victim.
[14:47] His death meant he would never face justice in a courtroom, but
[14:51] the truth of his deeds would eventually come to light.
[14:55] After Lyndall died, police discovered numerous photographs
[14:59] of young women in his home, including one teenage girl who
[15:03] had gone missing in 1979. These findings raised suspicions
[15:08] that he had other victims beyond Pamela.
[15:11] Today, authorities believe Lindahl was a serial predator
[15:15] responsible for far more crimes than were known during his life.
[15:20] Investigators suspect he may have killed as many as a dozen
[15:23] people and committed numerous indecent assaults across the
[15:27] Chicago suburbs in the 1970's. The full extent of his violence
[15:32] may never be definitively known, but solving Pamela's case has
[15:36] shed light on Lyndall's deadly pattern.
[15:43] It was just past midnight on a quiet summer night in Tennessee
[15:46] when the calm of Cedar Creek Marina would be broken in the
[15:49] most disturbing and tragic way. This waterfront getaway on Old
[15:53] Hickory Lake near Nashville would suddenly become the scene
[15:57] of a violent crime. A young man who had simply
[16:00] pulled up with his boat became the unwitting target of a
[16:04] fleeing robbers gunfire. The senseless killing of 27 year
[16:09] Old Bailey Gardner in June 2024 shocked the Mount Juliet
[16:14] community and set off a determined investigation to
[16:17] bring his killer to justice. Late on the night of June 29th,
[16:23] 2024, Cedar Creek Marina's popular restaurant had just
[16:28] closed when armed intruders struck the suspects.
[16:32] A trio of armed robbers waited until the staff were locking up,
[16:37] then ambushed the employees inside.
[16:40] They assaulted 2 staff members who were treated by medics and
[16:43] released and forced them to open the restaurant safe before
[16:47] grabbing the cash and making a break for it outside. 27 year
[16:53] Old Bailey Gardner, a visitor from Kansas, was sitting in his
[16:57] vehicle with his boat on a trailer, unaware of the danger
[17:01] unfolding around him. As the robbers fled, they
[17:05] crossed paths with Gardner and opened fire, shooting him
[17:08] multiple times before vanishing into the night.
[17:12] Officers arrived within minutes to find Gardner slumped and
[17:16] unresponsive in his car, suffering from several gunshot
[17:19] wounds. They attempted life saving
[17:22] measures as paramedics rushed in but it was too late.
[17:26] Bailey Gardner perished from his injuries at the scene.
[17:30] The authorities were on extremely high alert as it was
[17:33] instantly clear that Bailey hadn't tried to intervene in any
[17:36] way. He was simply cut down because
[17:38] he was a potential witness to the crime, despite all evidence
[17:42] pointing to him likely having no idea that a robbery was even in
[17:46] progress. The Mount Juliet community was
[17:51] stunned by the violence. At a place known for leisurely
[17:54] weekends by the lake, regular patrons expressed disbelief that
[17:58] such a crime could occur at their Marina.
[18:01] In the immediate aftermath, law enforcement from the Wilson
[18:05] County Sheriff's Office and Mount Juliet Police Department
[18:08] flooded the scene to secure evidence The robbers had turned
[18:12] an attack, which would have only generated a modest amount of
[18:15] heat from the cops, into a national story.
[18:18] Local authorities even enlisted help from state and federal
[18:21] agencies as needed, determined not to let the killer slip away.
[18:27] Again, I can't stress this enough.
[18:30] Had these robbers not decided to shoot a completely innocent man,
[18:34] they may have been able to get away with the crime.
[18:37] With substantial resources assigned, the cops were able to
[18:41] get surveillance evidence from a number of businesses.
[18:44] The footage reportedly showed one of the culprits, later
[18:47] identified as 40 year old Adrian McClain, during the Commission
[18:51] of the crime just over 2 weeks after the slaying.
[18:55] The breakthrough came on July 17th, 2024.
[19:01] Authorities announced they had a suspect in custody, bringing an
[19:06] end to weeks of uncertainty and fear.
[19:09] The man arrested was 40 year old Adrian McClain, who quickly
[19:13] became the prime focus of the investigation.
[19:16] McClain, originally from Jamaica, had been in the United
[19:20] States on a temporary visa that expired.
[19:24] A joint task force tracked McClain to a house in Nashville
[19:28] and took him into custody during a pre dawn raid that same day.
[19:33] He was promptly charged for Bailey Gardner's death along
[19:36] with three counts of aggravated robbery stemming from the hold
[19:39] up at the Marina restaurant. The arrest was a major relief
[19:43] for law enforcement and the anxious community, ending an
[19:46] intense manhunt that involved multiple jurisdictions.
[19:51] Authorities revealed that McClain had orchestrated the
[19:53] robbery with at least two accomplices, which confirmed the
[19:58] statements given by the witnesses that night.
[20:01] Despite this, only McClain went on trial and the other two
[20:05] criminals remained at large. For Gardner's family, the trial
[20:11] in September 2025 was a long-awaited step toward
[20:14] justice. Finally, coming more than a year
[20:17] after the tragedy took place, a jury heard how McClain and his
[20:21] associates had planned the heist and how Bailey Gardner was
[20:25] gunned down simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong
[20:28] time. After a multi day trial, on
[20:31] September 18th, 2025, the jury returned a guilty verdict for
[20:36] the slaying. McClain, by then 41 years old,
[20:41] was also convicted on all charges in connection with the
[20:44] Cedar Creek Marina robbery. He hasn't yet been sentenced,
[20:49] with that event scheduled for early 2026, but the conviction
[20:53] carries a mandatory life term. Even with McClain now headed to
[20:59] prison for life, the case isn't completely closed.
[21:03] Investigators believe that the two additional suspects who
[21:06] helped carry out the Marina robbery are still at large, and
[21:11] efforts to identify and capture them remain underway.
[21:16] Authorities have posted a $15,000 reward for information
[21:20] leading to those accomplices arrests and prosecution.
[21:25] With Adrian McClain now convicted and facing a mandatory
[21:29] life sentence, authorities still have leverage points that could
[21:32] be used to pressure him into identifying his accomplices.
[21:36] And I'm going to discuss those before I get into a theory I
[21:39] have about what happened to them.
[21:42] One of the strongest tools is sentencing negotiation.
[21:47] While a life term is expected, prosecutors can offer to
[21:50] formally recognize substantial cooperation at sentencing.
[21:55] This could potentially influence future parole eligibility, which
[21:59] given the fact that McClain is only 41, this must be weighing
[22:03] on his mind. They could also give him
[22:06] incentives to testify against his Co conspirators if they're
[22:09] captured as a result of his cooperation.
[22:13] Personally, I also question whether the authorities have
[22:16] done a full digital forensic search on everything related to
[22:19] the convict. I find it highly unlikely that
[22:22] in this day and age he had no digital communications
[22:25] whatsoever with his Co conspirators at any point before
[22:29] or after the attack. Honestly though, I think he may
[22:34] have eliminated his Co conspirators after the death of
[22:36] Bailey. That's just a hunch though.
[22:41] On a quiet Sunday afternoon in downtown Cleveland on March
[22:44] 24th, 2013, 53 year old Elisa Sherman walked toward her
[22:49] divorce attorney's office expecting a routine meeting.
[22:53] Instead, she was ambushed and brutally stabbed just steps from
[22:57] the entrance in broad daylight. A grainy surveillance camera
[23:01] clip offered the only glimpse of the perpetrator, A blurred,
[23:05] masked figure dressed in dark clothing, sprinting away from
[23:09] the scene. The motive behind this case, if
[23:13] the prosecution's allegations are correct, will go down as one
[23:17] of the most unusual motives in American criminal justice
[23:20] history. Detectives quickly honed in on
[23:24] Eliza's personal life for possible motives.
[23:27] The victim had been in the midst of a messy divorce with her
[23:30] estranged husband, Sanford Sherman, at the time of her
[23:34] death. This bitter legal battle had
[23:37] dragged on for years, and friends later recounted that
[23:41] Elisa was afraid and just wanted it over with.
[23:45] Naturally, Sanford came under scrutiny.
[23:48] But when police attempted to interview him, he refused to
[23:51] cooperate, hiring an attorney who shielded him from
[23:55] questioning. Investigators could never
[23:58] formally label him a suspect, and with no direct evidence
[24:02] tying him to the attack, that lead hit a dead end.
[24:06] Years later, Sanford would pass away in Florida, never having
[24:10] answered detectives questions. The cloud of suspicion remained,
[24:15] but if he knew more about Eliza's death, he took those
[24:19] secrets to his grave. Under normal conditions, the
[24:23] authorities may have spent way more in the way of resources
[24:26] investigating Sanford, but this case was anything but normal.
[24:33] Another early focus of the investigation was Eliza's own
[24:36] divorce attorney, Gregory Moore, the very man she was on her way
[24:40] to meet almost immediately. Something about Moore's behavior
[24:45] didn't sit right with Eliza's friends or the police.
[24:49] Eliza's best friend later revealed that on the day of the
[24:51] attack, Moore had oddly kept changing the meeting time and
[24:55] location for their appointment. This constant rescheduling
[24:59] raised questions about whether Eliza had been deliberately
[25:02] lured into a trap. And this is where things get
[25:06] really weird. Moore told investigators that he
[25:11] hadn't been at his downtown office at the time of the
[25:13] attack, but was somewhere else entirely.
[25:17] They found this to be unusual, given that this is where he was
[25:19] supposed to meet his client at that exact time, deepening
[25:23] suspicions. Forensic analysis of cell phone
[25:27] records and building entry logs would later catch him in a web
[25:30] of deceit. Moore had sent text messages to
[25:34] Eliza just moments before and after the attack, claiming he
[25:37] was waiting inside his office, contrary to what he told the
[25:41] cops. Yet investigators discovered he
[25:44] was not actually in the building at that time, based on the
[25:46] building entry logs. This contradiction was alarming.
[25:51] Eliza's own attorney had attempted to fabricate some sort
[25:54] of alibi while also telling an obvious, verifiable lie to the
[25:58] authorities at the crime scene. Other strange clues, or lack
[26:05] thereof, emerged besides the blurry video footage.
[26:10] Physical evidence was scant. The attacker had been quick and
[26:14] efficient, leaving behind no weapon and initially no
[26:18] identifiable DNA or fingerprints.
[26:22] But investigators did notice anomalies that suggested a
[26:25] premeditated effort, likely involving multiple people.
[26:29] Critical surveillance footage from the building, about 20
[26:33] minutes worth, had mysteriously been deleted immediately after
[26:36] the attack. Similarly, voicemails from the
[26:40] building's calling system, which Elisa might have used to reach
[26:43] more upon arrival, were found to have been erased.
[26:47] Taken together, it was very clear these weren't random
[26:51] glitches. They looked like deliberate acts
[26:54] of evidence tampering, and it appeared that someone with
[26:57] access had tried to blind the investigation from the very
[27:01] start. This was a devastating set back
[27:04] for detectives. In those first critical weeks,
[27:08] leads were scarce, and even some of the most crucial evidence had
[27:11] literally been wiped away by unknown accomplices.
[27:17] As the months turned into years, Elisa Sherman's case languished
[27:22] without an arrest. Investigators faced repeated
[27:25] dead ends and frustrating missteps that stalled progress.
[27:30] Gregory Moore, who remained a person of interest, continued to
[27:34] practice law for a time, giving an unfortunate double meaning to
[27:38] the term criminal attorney. In 2016, more than three years
[27:45] after the event, a grand jury finally indicted Moore, but not
[27:49] for the slaying itself but for charges related to obstructing
[27:53] the investigation. He had lied to police about his
[27:57] whereabouts and role on the day of the attack, and investigators
[28:01] had uncovered even more unsettling behavior.
[28:04] Moore had a history of making bogus bomb threats to delay
[28:07] court proceedings. In fact, back in 2012, he had
[28:13] phoned in bomb scares to courthouse buildings as a tactic
[28:16] to postpone trials. This revelation painted a
[28:20] picture of a man seemingly terrified of facing courtroom
[28:23] showdowns and willing to commit crimes to avoid them.
[28:27] And hang tight. Because this is what we call
[28:30] foreshadowing. By 2017, Moore pleaded guilty to
[28:36] charges of falsification for his lies to detectives and inducing
[28:41] panic for the bomb threats. He served a mere 6 months in
[28:46] jail, but this family attorney was thankfully quickly divorced
[28:50] from his license to practice law.
[28:52] However, with no further charges filed at the time, Moore walked
[28:57] free after his short jail stint and the specter of Eliza's
[29:01] unsolved case continued to haunt investigators and her family.
[29:06] Behind the scenes, Cleveland detectives kept the file open.
[29:10] But we're running out of angles. By 2021, with the 10 year mark
[29:16] approaching and the case still unsolved, the Cleveland Police
[29:19] took a pivotal step. They handed the case over to the
[29:23] Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
[29:26] The idea was to get fresh eyes and cutting edge forensic
[29:29] technology involved. BC is Cold Case Unit under the
[29:34] state Attorney General's office had resources and analytical
[29:38] tools beyond the scope of the local department.
[29:42] This unit approached the case methodically, re examining every
[29:45] piece of evidence and applying new technological techniques in
[29:49] DNA and digital forensics. Crucially, they were determined
[29:53] to find something that had been missed in the earlier
[29:55] investigation and bit by bit, the cold case began to warm up.
[30:03] What local investigators had long suspected.
[30:05] The BCI team set out to prove cell phone technology in
[30:10] particular provided the long-awaited breakthrough.
[30:14] Every time a phone pings a cell tower or connects to Wi-Fi, it
[30:18] leaves a trace. Investigators discovered that on
[30:22] the day of the attack, Gregory Moore's phone behavior was
[30:25] anything but normal. For a critical 3 hour window
[30:29] around the time of Eliza's death, Moore's cell phone went
[30:32] dark. He had deliberately disconnected
[30:35] it from the network. This was a calculated move to
[30:38] avoid creating any cell tower location records, placing him
[30:42] near the crime scene. To season detectives, that kind
[30:46] of silence spoke volumes. It was as if an invisible alarm
[30:50] bell rang. An ordinary person has no reason
[30:53] to power off their phone for the duration of an event such as
[30:56] this unless they're trying to hide something.
[31:00] It made even less sense for Moore, since he was a practicing
[31:03] lawyer at the time, and going dark while working made no sense
[31:07] even if it was on a Sunday. The BCI team pieced together
[31:13] that right after the time of the stabbing, Moore powered his
[31:16] phone back on. While the initial investigators
[31:20] knew he made efforts to reach her right after, they didn't
[31:23] know that his phone had been off until a few moments after the
[31:26] completion of the deed. Notably, in the days following
[31:30] the slaying, Moore went so far as to obtain a new phone
[31:33] altogether, presumably to distance himself from any
[31:37] records on the old device. Such actions demonstrated an
[31:41] unusual level of planning and consciousness of guilt.
[31:46] Digital evidence wasn't the only puzzle piece that BCI re
[31:50] examined. They revisited surveillance
[31:53] systems and building access logs with fresh scrutiny.
[31:57] Moore's key card swipe into his office building was logged later
[32:00] that same evening after Elisa had been slain.
[32:04] This suggested he returned to the scene not long after the
[32:07] crime, possibly to retrieve evidence or verify that evidence
[32:12] had been destroyed by those who helped him out.
[32:15] With all that said, I let off by telling you the motive would be
[32:19] unusual. So let's get to it.
[32:24] Prosecutors now allege that Moore's motive was
[32:26] straightforward and disturbing. He wanted to delay or derail the
[32:30] divorce trial that was set to begin that week.
[32:33] This was a trial he was unprepared for or afraid to
[32:36] face. And, as noted, he previously
[32:39] called in bomb threats to avoid trials.
[32:42] This educated professional allegedly concluded that slaying
[32:45] his own client was the solution to his problems.
[32:49] As mentioned, Moore had a documented history of drastic
[32:53] delay tactics, and in Eliza's case, investigators say he went
[32:58] to the most extreme act possible.
[33:01] The plan, according to the prosecutor's allegations, was
[33:05] originally to kidnap Eliza Sherman as a delay tactic to
[33:09] prevent her from appearing in court.
[33:12] Along the way, something went horribly wrong.
[33:15] Prosecutors believe that Moore changed his plans for reasons
[33:18] which are yet unknown. After 12 long years of
[33:24] uncertainty, the hard work of the cold case investigators
[33:28] finally paid off. In early May 2025, a Cuyahoga
[33:33] County grand jury reviewed the mountain of new evidence and
[33:37] returned a secret indictment charging Gregory Moore.
[33:41] Armed with this indictment, law enforcement moved swiftly.
[33:45] On May 24th, 2025, the disgraced lawyer was extradited back to
[33:50] Ohio in handcuffs, ready to face the consequences of his alleged
[33:54] deeds. When the news of Moore's arrest
[33:58] broke, it sent shock waves through Cleveland.
[34:01] At a court hearing in late May 2025, Moore, now 51 years old,
[34:08] pleaded not guilty to all charges.
[34:11] A judge ordered him held on a $2,000,000 bond and demanded
[34:15] ADNA Sample, while also forbidding any contact with the
[34:19] Sherman family. For now, Moore awaits trial and
[34:25] remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
[34:31] On a warm late summer afternoon in 1984, a group of teenagers
[34:36] boating along Rhode Island's Narrow River made a gruesome
[34:39] discovery. Floating in the water was a
[34:42] floral patterned sleeping bag, tightly secured with rope and
[34:46] weighed down by a cement cinder block.
[34:49] Inside, authorities found the body of 24 year old Deborah
[34:53] Stone. The state medical examiner later
[34:56] confirmed what the scene had already suggested.
[34:59] Deborah had met with foul play. This chilling find on September
[35:04] 2nd, 1984 in the quiet town of Narragansett marked the
[35:09] beginning of a decades long search for the truth about what
[35:12] happened to Deborah Stone. In the days before her body
[35:17] surfaced, Deborah had simply vanished.
[35:21] The young woman was last seen on the night of August 28th, 1984,
[35:26] when she went to visit an acquaintance, 32 year old Robert
[35:30] Jeremiah, in Johnston, RI. According to witnesses in
[35:35] Jeremiah's own statements, Deborah had come by hoping to
[35:38] barter a stolen watch in exchange for drugs.
[35:42] Jeremiah, a man known to be involved in drug dealing and
[35:46] rumored to have possible mob connections, claimed he had no
[35:50] drugs to offer that night. He later told police that he
[35:54] gave Deborah a ride back to her apartment in Cranston and that
[35:57] she was alive and well when he left her.
[36:01] In fact, a few other people even reported seeing Deborah on
[36:05] August 30th, two days after her visit to Jeremiah.
[36:10] These accounts initially muddied the timeline of her
[36:12] disappearance and gave Jeremiah an air of plausible innocence in
[36:16] the early stages of the investigation.
[36:21] When questioned by investigators after Deborah's body was found,
[36:25] Jeremiah stuck to his story and offered an alternate explanation
[36:28] for her death. He claimed that Deborah had
[36:31] probably just overdosed on drugs.
[36:34] However, this story quickly fell apart.
[36:38] The medical examiner's autopsy showed clear signs of trauma to
[36:41] Deborah's neck, definitively ruling out an overdose and
[36:45] pointing to strangulation as the cause of death.
[36:49] In other words, Deborah had been forcibly choked, not
[36:52] accidentally overdosed, making it apparent that her death was
[36:56] no accident. With Jeremiah being the last
[37:00] known person to see her alive, suspicions began to circle
[37:04] around him. Despite his denials.
[37:07] From the outset, Narragansett police had reasons to eye Robert
[37:11] as the prime suspect, and what follows next is either a major
[37:15] dropping of the ball or perhaps something more sinister.
[37:19] Multiple witnesses confirmed that Deborah was with Jeremiah
[37:22] the night she disappeared. Investigators learned that
[37:26] Deborah took a taxi to Jeremiah's place and even had
[37:30] the stolen watch with her, corroborating parts of his
[37:33] account of that evening. Because some witnesses believed
[37:37] they saw Deborah alive after that night and parts of
[37:40] Jeremiah's story checked out, detectives initially held off on
[37:44] naming him an official suspect. In hindsight, this hesitation
[37:49] proved costly, and it wasn't long before more damning
[37:52] information surfaced. In January 1986, about a year
[37:59] and a half after Deborah's death, an informant came forward
[38:03] with a shocking confession. He told police that he had been
[38:06] at Jeremiah's apartment on August 29th, 1984, the night of
[38:11] Deborah's presumed slaying and into the early hours of August
[38:15] 30th. This informant revealed that he
[38:18] had seen Deborah's lifeless body in Jeremiah's apartment, and it
[38:22] even helped Jeremiah dispose of the body by dumping it into the
[38:25] narrow river. He recounted specific details
[38:29] about the crime scene, details authorities had never released
[38:33] publicly, which lent significant credibility to his story.
[38:38] According to the informant, Jeremiah himself admitted that
[38:41] he, quote, had to eliminate Deborah because she was stealing
[38:46] from him. Despite the informants insider
[38:51] knowledge and involvement, the investigation hit a frustrating
[38:54] standstill. As credible as his testimony
[38:58] seemed, the informants reliability was thrown into
[39:01] doubt when he failed a police administered polygraph in the
[39:05] mid 1980s. Law enforcement still put
[39:09] considerable trust in polygraph results, so when the informant
[39:13] stumbled on the lie detector, detectives grew skeptical of his
[39:17] account. In fact, investigators
[39:20] terminated their cooperation with this major informant after
[39:24] the single failed polygraph exam, even though he agreed to
[39:28] take another test to prove himself.
[39:32] With their key witness suddenly deemed unreliable, the case
[39:36] against Jeremiah collapsed, no arrest was made, and the
[39:41] investigation into Deborah Stone's death went cold.
[39:45] Today, polygraph tests are recognized as unreliable, but
[39:49] back in the 80s and over, reliance on that flawed tool
[39:52] likely derailed the case. Whether that derailing was
[39:56] entirely organic, though, is something I'll be investigating
[39:59] further in a moment. For decades, Deborah's case
[40:04] languished without justice, leads dried up, and without new
[40:08] evidence or willing witnesses, the file eventually found its
[40:12] way to the cold case shelves. Robert Jeremiah, the man long
[40:16] suspected in the shadows, never faced A courtroom for Deborah's
[40:20] slaying. He continued on with his life
[40:23] while suspicion quietly trailed him.
[40:26] Jeremiah's life, however, was about to come to an end as well.
[40:31] He died of either natural causes or an overdose in 1995 at the
[40:36] age of 43, and given his age and his proclivities, I'm going to
[40:41] lean towards the latter. Over the former, as years turned
[40:45] into decades, it seemed possible that the truth of what happened
[40:49] on that August night in 1984 might never fully come to light.
[40:55] Deborah's family and friends were left with painful questions
[40:58] and no closure, the memory of her loss hanging over them for
[41:02] 41 years. It wasn't until recent years
[41:07] that Deborah Stone's story was pulled back into the spotlight.
[41:11] In 2019, the Narragansett Police Department decided to reopen the
[41:16] dormant case, spurred by a fresh look at old evidence and a
[41:21] determination to set things right.
[41:24] Around the same time, Rhode Island's Attorney General
[41:27] launched A dedicated cold case unit in 2023 to re examine
[41:32] unsolved homicides like Deborah's.
[41:36] This new unit brought together veteran investigators and modern
[41:39] forensic resources with a clear mission deliver long-awaited
[41:43] answers for victims families. Cold case investigators began
[41:48] meticulously retracing the original investigation.
[41:52] They combed through old reports, revisited physical evidence, and
[41:57] perhaps most critically, tracked down and re interviewed
[42:01] witnesses from the 1980s. Over an 11 month period, the
[42:06] team interviewed 32 people connected to the case,
[42:09] effectively reliving the investigation step by step.
[42:15] The passage of time had not weakened the witnesses memories
[42:18] or their resolve. Remarkably, all of their
[42:21] statements in the present day lined up with what they had said
[42:25] decades earlier. Among those they spoke to was
[42:28] the very same informant from 1986.
[42:32] After so many years, he was still willing to tell his story.
[42:37] In fact, when detectives showed up at his door, the first thing
[42:41] he said was I've been waiting for you, indicating his
[42:45] eagerness to work with the cops. His account remained consistent
[42:50] with the details he'd provided back in the 80s, reinforcing
[42:54] that his testimony had been truthful all along.
[42:57] Crucially, investigators recognized that the only thing
[43:01] which had saved Jeremiah from being charged in the 1980s was
[43:05] the misplaced faith in a polygraph test.
[43:09] With that barrier removed, the accumulated evidence against
[43:13] Jeremiah became overwhelming. By late 2025, Rhode Island
[43:20] authorities were ready to declare Deborah Stone's case
[43:23] solved at last. Attorney General Peter Narona
[43:26] publicly announced that investigators had concluded
[43:29] Robert Jeremiah was the person responsible for Deborah's death.
[43:33] The reopened investigation had pieced together a compelling
[43:36] narrative of what happened. Deborah was strangled to death
[43:40] in Jeremiah's apartment, and her body was secretly transported
[43:44] and dumped in the narrow river shortly thereafter.
[43:47] According to the Cold Case Unit, there was now more than enough
[43:51] evidence to have charged Jeremiah with Deborah's slaying
[43:55] and likely win a conviction in court.
[43:58] Of course, this last piece is a bittersweet victory at best,
[44:02] since Jeremiah would never face justice for his crimes.
[44:08] I've got some thoughts on this case since it just doesn't sit
[44:11] right with me. Looking back at the way
[44:13] investigators handled Robert Jeremiah in the mid 1980s, it's
[44:18] hard not to feel a deep sense of disbelief.
[44:21] Here was a man openly dealing drugs, whispered to have mob
[44:25] ties, and directly linked to the last confirmed moments of
[44:29] Deborah Stone's life. Yet he was never arrested, never
[44:34] charged, and barely pressured. The fact that police let him
[44:39] walk away at a moment when the case was still warm has always
[44:43] raised uncomfortable questions. Detectives had an informant
[44:47] willing to implicate both himself and Jeremiah offering
[44:51] specific non public details about the disposal of Deborah's
[44:55] body. They had Jeremiah's shifting
[44:58] explanations, his suspiciously casual claim that she must have
[45:02] overdosed, and an autopsy that clearly contradicted that.
[45:07] But instead of building on the momentum, investigators stopped
[45:11] cold after one failed polygraph. Notably, while polygraphs
[45:16] weren't as discredited as they are today, they were still a
[45:19] highly controversial investigative tool even back in
[45:23] the 80s. It's impossible to ignore the
[45:27] broader context. This was an era when organized
[45:30] crime had significant influence in parts of Rhode Island.
[45:34] No one has ever proven corruption in Deborah's case,
[45:37] but the optics are undeniably troubling.
[45:41] A mob connected dealer avoids arrest despite being the last
[45:44] person seen with a woman who ended up strangled and hidden in
[45:48] a weighted sleeping bag. At best, it was a catastrophic
[45:52] investigative misjudgment. At worst, it hints at forces
[45:56] operating behind the scenes. It was 2:00 AM in the quiet of
[46:04] Mule Creek State Prison. This wasn't the main cell block,
[46:08] but one of the private apartment like units reserved for the
[46:11] prison's family visit program. An inmate, 54 year old David
[46:16] Brinson, used a phone to call correctional officers reporting
[46:21] a medical emergency. His wife, he claimed, had passed
[46:25] out. Prison fire department staff
[46:28] responded attempting life saving measures, but it was too late.
[46:33] Within the hour, 62 year old Stephanie Dowels was pronounced
[46:37] dead. Brinson's call was the start of
[46:40] a cover up. What appeared to be a tragic
[46:43] medical event was in reality a killing.
[46:47] And it wasn't the first time this had happened.
[46:49] In fact, it wasn't even the first time that year.
[46:55] Stephanie was visiting her husband David Brinson at the
[46:58] time. But he wasn't just any inmate.
[47:01] He was a notorious killer convicted in the 1990s for the
[47:05] execution style slayings of four men during a robbery in Los
[47:09] Angeles. His sentence was absolute, 4
[47:13] consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
[47:19] He was a man the state of California had legally
[47:21] determined was beyond rehabilitation, yet he was
[47:27] granted the privilege of a multi day unmonitored visit with his
[47:31] wife in a private unit. Stephanie's family's confusion
[47:35] was profound. They couldn't understand how,
[47:39] given Brinson's violent history, he was ever eligible for such a
[47:43] visit in the first place. The investigation into
[47:48] Stephanie's November 2024 death was slow, and for months it was
[47:52] shrouded in silence. Brinson's initial report that
[47:56] Stephanie had passed out from a medical event was, at least for
[48:01] a time, the prevailing narrative.
[48:04] The prison and the California Department of Corrections and
[48:07] Rehabilitation, or CDCR, released no public information.
[48:13] The breakthrough came not from a confession, but from the
[48:16] methodical work of the Amador County Coroner's office.
[48:20] In March 2025, four long months after her death, the coroner's
[48:26] findings were finally made public.
[48:28] Stephanie's death was caused by strangulation.
[48:32] Brinson's lie was exposed. The Amador County District
[48:36] Attorney's Office, led by Todd Reeby, had to wait for the
[48:39] prison's own complete investigation before filing
[48:43] charges. Finally, on August 14th, 2025,
[48:48] nine months after Stephanie was slain, Brinson was formally
[48:52] charged. The delay in the official
[48:56] silence were devastating, but what Stephanie's family and the
[49:00] public didn't know was that the CDCR was already sitting on a
[49:04] dark secret. Stephanie Dowels wasn't the
[49:08] first woman slain in the Mule Creek family visiting units that
[49:11] year. She was the second.
[49:15] Four months earlier, in July, 2 thousand 2447 year old Tanya
[49:20] Thomas arrived at the same prison for a four day, three
[49:25] night visit with her partner Anthony Curry.
[49:29] The circumstances of her death are a chilling echo of
[49:32] Stephanie's. On the morning of July 1st,
[49:36] 2024, Curry used the intercom in the visiting unit to call
[49:41] correctional staff, reporting that his partner was having a
[49:45] medical emergency. Tanya Thomas was found
[49:48] unconscious and pronounced dead. Like Brinson, Curry was a
[49:53] violent offender serving a life sentence.
[49:57] And just like Stephanie's case, the coroner's report on Tanya
[50:00] would later confirm the cause of death with strangulation. 2
[50:04] violent inmates serving life sentences, 2 identical quote UN
[50:09] quote medical emergency alibis, and two strangulations.
[50:14] This wasn't a tragic isolated incident.
[50:17] It was a pattern. The slayings of Stephanie Dowels
[50:22] and Tanya Thomas exposed A stunning and paradoxical flaw at
[50:26] the heart of California's family visit program.
[50:29] California is one of only a handful of states that still
[50:32] allows these extended overnight visits, often called conjugal
[50:37] visits. Notably, these visits place the
[50:40] privacy of the couple above security, a fact that has now
[50:44] come under heavy criticism. As of now, David Brinson remains
[50:49] charged, but not yet convicted, of killing Stephanie Dowels.
[50:55] On the morning of July 20th, 2019, a Lafayette County Deputy
[51:00] was on a routine patrol when he stumbled upon a scene that was
[51:03] anything but routine at an abandoned, desolate fishing camp
[51:08] near Sardis Lake, Ms. He found a body.
[51:12] The location was remote, some 30 miles from the bustling campus
[51:17] of the University of Mississippi, commonly known as
[51:20] Ole Miss. The victim, found near a picnic
[51:24] table, was quickly identified as 21 year old Alexandria Castiel,
[51:29] a student at the university. Her purse and I DS were found
[51:34] nearby, ruling out robbery. Foul play was immediately
[51:38] apparent. Ally, as she was known to her
[51:42] friends, had been shot multiple times.
[51:46] Investigators on the scene were struck by the sheer brutality.
[51:50] She had been shot at least nine times.
[51:54] This wasn't a random act of violence.
[51:56] This level of overkill was personal, pointing to a
[52:00] perpetrator driven by a deep, volatile rage.
[52:06] The discovery sent a shockwave through the community.
[52:09] Ali Castiel was well liked and respected.
[52:13] A native of St. Louis, MO, she was a senior
[52:17] staying in Oxford to take summer classes.
[52:20] She was ambitious and bright, studying marketing with dreams
[52:23] of working in the fashion industry.
[52:26] On campus, she was a leader, teaching yoga and Pilates and
[52:31] founding the student Golf Club. Investigators moved quickly to
[52:37] Allie's apartment, searching for any clue that could explain her
[52:40] final hours. They hit an immediate roadblock.
[52:44] Her cell phone was missing. It was a clear attempt by the
[52:47] perpetrator to erase their digital connection and any
[52:51] record of their final communications.
[52:54] But the killer made a critical technological mistake.
[52:58] In his haste to destroy the phone, he'd forgotten something.
[53:03] On her bedside table, police found Allie's Apple Watch.
[53:07] Even with the phone gone, her most recent text messages had
[53:10] synced to the watch. The watch, in effect, became the
[53:14] prosecution's star witness. It provided investigators with a
[53:19] digital map of Allie's life and her anxieties.
[53:22] And it offered up a single strong and immediate lead.
[53:27] The last person Allie had been in contact with, the person her
[53:31] final messages were with, was a 22 year old fellow student named
[53:37] Brandon Thiesfeld. But the watch didn't just
[53:41] provide a name, it provided A motive.
[53:44] The text logs revealed what investigators called life
[53:47] changing news. For the past three months, Allie
[53:51] had been communicating with Thiesfeld about a terrifying
[53:54] possibility. She was concerned she might be
[53:57] pregnant because of that simple synced device.
[54:01] This case was never a whodunit. Within hours of finding Ally's
[54:06] body, police had a primary suspect and the quote UN quote
[54:10] problem he desperately wanted to solve.
[54:15] Ally and Brandon Thiesfeld first met in 2016.
[54:20] Their relationship, however, was a complicated one.
[54:23] Friends described it as an on and off affair, but they were
[54:26] never an official couple. Ally was clearly more attached
[54:30] to him than he was to her, an attachment that confused her
[54:34] friends, who said Thiesfeld treated her poorly and sent her
[54:39] rude text messages. Thiesfeld's reputation on campus
[54:43] matched this private behavior. A former dorm neighbor described
[54:48] him in no uncertain terms as extremely arrogant.
[54:52] Thiesfeld constantly referenced his father's money and bragged
[54:56] that his dad could get him out of anything.
[54:59] This was the man Ali turned to in April 2019 when she feared
[55:04] she was pregnant. She texted him her concerns and
[55:09] even sent a photo of an inconclusive home pregnancy
[55:12] test. His reaction was immediate and
[55:15] cold. He messaged her that he wasn't
[55:18] ready to become a parent and that becoming a father would
[55:21] ruin his life. For the next three months, Ali
[55:25] tried to do what any reasonable person would.
[55:28] She tried to meet with him in person to discuss what to do,
[55:32] but Thiesfeld refused. He avoided her cancelling plans
[55:36] at the last minute. This digital only relationship
[55:40] gave him all the power. He could ignore her and she had
[55:44] no recourse. Her desperation for a simple
[55:47] face to face conversation would become her greatest
[55:50] vulnerability. As the prosecution would later
[55:54] argue, Thiesfeld didn't just see this as a difficult situation.
[55:59] It wasn't just the potential child, it was Ally herself, the
[56:04] inconvenience that threatened his consequence free lifestyle.
[56:08] Tragically, this entire motive was based on a fear, not a
[56:13] confirmed fact. An autopsy and a later admission
[56:17] from Thiesfeld's own defense attorney would confirm the awful
[56:21] irony. Ali Kostyal wasn't pregnant at
[56:24] any point. After Ali's initial text in
[56:28] April, his Google search history showed him looking up ways to
[56:32] end a pregnancy without her knowing.
[56:35] He was looking for a simple solution.
[56:37] But by July, his mindset had shifted from ending a pregnancy
[56:42] to ending a life. On July 12th, Allie texted him
[56:46] again, this time with photos of two more ambiguous pregnancy
[56:50] tests. This appears to have been the
[56:53] trigger. That same day, Thiesfeld drove
[56:57] from Mississippi to his home in the Dallas Fort Worth area.
[57:01] He returned with a pistol, a weapon that had been purchased
[57:04] by his father. His Internet searches became
[57:07] sinister. He was no longer looking for
[57:10] pills, he was researching silencers, suppressors, and
[57:15] ammunition types. Most disturbingly of all, he
[57:19] made a bunch of searches about Ted Bundy and wanted to find
[57:22] insights into how he lured his victims.
[57:26] Also, perhaps this doesn't bear mentioning, but I found it to
[57:30] just reveal what an arrogant amateur this idiot actually was.
[57:36] He also searched up quote what button does what on a Glock.
[57:40] For all his dark fantasies, he didn't even know how to use his
[57:44] weapon of choice. The plan was put into motion on
[57:48] the night of July 19th, 2019. Ally's evening began normally.
[57:54] Prosecutors later claimed that he had taken inspiration from
[57:57] Ted Bundy and committing his own crime, deciding to disarm Ally
[58:01] with charm. At 7:00 that night, she had a
[58:05] happy phone call with her mother, Cindy.
[58:08] They had just spent time decorating her apartment for the
[58:10] upcoming school year, and Allie was excited.
[58:14] She told her mom she'd just woken from a nap and was
[58:17] planning to go out with friends. Surveillance footage confirmed
[58:21] she did just that. At 11:52 PM, cameras captured
[58:27] Allie leaving a bar called Funky's in Oxford Square.
[58:30] She was safe just minutes later at 11:57 PM.
[58:36] Video shows her getting into an Uber alone.
[58:39] She arrived at her apartment safely around midnight.
[58:43] But sometime after she got home, the trap was sprung.
[58:47] She received the one message she had been waiting three months
[58:50] for. Brandon Thiesfeld had finally
[58:53] agreed to meet around 1:28 AM. Security footage and phone data
[59:00] show Thiesfeld's truck pulling up to her apartment.
[59:03] Believing she was finally going to get the face to face
[59:06] conversation she's so desperately needed.
[59:08] Allie voluntarily got in his truck, but according to Brandon,
[59:13] this wasn't to be a discussion for an apartment parking lot and
[59:17] he suggested they take a drive. Unfortunately, Allie trusted
[59:21] Thiesfeld and she went along with him.
[59:23] Thiesfeld drove her 30 minutes away from campus, away from the
[59:27] town, to the pre selected abandoned fishing camp at Sardis
[59:31] Lake. Phone data from both Allie and
[59:35] Thiesfeld pinged at that remote location at the time of the
[59:38] shooting. There, he shot her and dumped
[59:40] off her body. Just hours later, the deputy on
[59:44] patrol would find her body. Thiesfeld's plan unravelled
[59:50] almost immediately, thanks to the Apple Watch.
[59:53] When investigators called him for questioning, he kept making
[59:57] excuses, promising to come in on Monday.
[1:00:01] He never intended to. On Monday, July 22nd, when he
[1:00:06] failed to appear, police, who had already obtained an
[1:00:09] affidavit, began tracking his cell phone.
[1:00:13] He was fleeing. The data showed him driving
[1:00:16] north toward Memphis, TN. Authorities issued an alert for
[1:00:19] his pickup truck. It was easy to identify thanks
[1:00:24] to its arrogant custom vanity plate, which read Take It.
[1:00:30] He was arrested without incident at a Memphis gas station, and
[1:00:33] dash Cam video captured the end of his short run.
[1:00:36] Unsurprisingly, he wasn't quite as tough when he was confronted
[1:00:40] by police. Either that or his self
[1:00:43] preservation instinct kicked in. The evidence he was caught with
[1:00:47] was overwhelming. He still had blood on his
[1:00:50] clothes. Inside his truck, the cops found
[1:00:53] his dad's Glock, which was a match for the shell casings
[1:00:57] found at the crime scene. The case was sealed, but there
[1:01:01] was one more piece. Back in his apartment, police
[1:01:05] found a letter he'd written to his parents that weekend.
[1:01:08] Prosecutors called it a confession.
[1:01:11] In it, he wrote quote, I've always had terrible thoughts,
[1:01:16] blaming them on substance usage. He apologized for them and said
[1:01:21] that he was either going to die on the run or end up in jail for
[1:01:25] life, a prediction which would have been prophetic if it wasn't
[1:01:28] so obvious. In August 2019, a grand jury
[1:01:35] indicted Brandon Thiesfeld on capital offense charges.
[1:01:39] The charge rested on the allegation that he had kidnapped
[1:01:42] Ali by luring her to the lake under false pretenses.
[1:01:46] He was facing the death penalty, and despite the overwhelming
[1:01:49] evidence, he initially pled not guilty.
[1:01:53] After significant delays due to the events of 2020, the case
[1:01:57] came to a pragmatic conclusion. He agreed to life without parole
[1:02:02] in an effort to spare his own life and with the potential for
[1:02:06] a conditional release when he's 65 years old.
[1:02:10] Personally, I think having spent your entire adult life in prison
[1:02:14] and then being turned out to the world at age 65 sounds like
[1:02:19] another level of punishment entirely.
[1:02:23] In court, Thiesfeld, who had reportedly shown no emotion for
[1:02:27] two years, broke down during sentencing.
[1:02:31] He read a statement to Ally's family saying he was, quote,
[1:02:35] sincerely sorry for the pain he'd caused, that there is no
[1:02:39] excuse for his actions. Ally's family responded with a
[1:02:43] victim impact statement read in court by the assistant District
[1:02:47] Attorney. Her mother, Cindy, wrote that
[1:02:51] their lives had been shattered by her loss.
[1:02:54] Thiesfeld's own mother, in a separate statement, said she was
[1:02:58] disturbed that her son didn't share his inner demons with his
[1:03:01] family. She urged other parents to have
[1:03:04] a talk with their own children about their deepest, darkest
[1:03:07] secrets. Which, given the context of what
[1:03:10] kind of guy Thiesfeld was, I find questionable.
[1:03:14] His parents had clearly raised an affluenza style kid who was
[1:03:17] being handed everything, so their cautionary tale is much
[1:03:20] deeper than having a little talk now and then.

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