# Disturbing NYC Cold Cases The NYPD Can't Crack | 228

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 10 May 2026, 1 h 17 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO1402409360.mp3

Join me for some seriously disturbing New York City cold cases. Episode 228 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: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ 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 NYC cold cases, New York cold cases, cold case mysteries, unsolved mysteries, true crime podcast, New York true crime, NYC true crime, unsolved murders, missing persons cases, cold case files, NYPD cold cases, New York mysteries, Statue of Liberty mystery, forensic sketch, unidentified woman, Jane Doe case, unsolved disappearances, mysterious deaths, crime scene investigation, detective stories, real crime stories, true crime documentary, chilling mysteries, dark history, urban legends NYC, Manhattan mysteries, Brooklyn cold cases, Queens cold cases, Bronx mysteries, Long Island true crime

## Transcript

[0:00] The air in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn was thick and heavy in
[0:03] the pre dawn hours of June 30th, 1991.
[0:08] It was 3 in the morning, a time when the city that never sleeps
[0:12] takes a moment to grab some shut eye.
[0:15] For Joe Jones, a private security guard, this was the
[0:19] heart of his shift. He had a monotonous patrol
[0:22] around an abandoned building, a landscape of urban decay that
[0:26] was all too common in New York City at the time.
[0:30] The city was in the grip of a crime wave that felt
[0:32] apocalyptic, and neighborhoods like Bed Stuy were on the front
[0:37] lines. But even in a place accustomed
[0:40] to violence, what Jones was about to witness would stand out
[0:43] as particularly chilling. His attention was drawn to a man
[0:49] lingering behind the building, his movements secretive and out
[0:52] of place even for that hour. The man was near a large
[0:56] industrial dumpster and something about his presence set
[1:00] off every alarm in the veteran guards mind.
[1:04] Jones watched him, the suspicion growing with every passing 2nd.
[1:09] When the man finally noticed he was being observed, he didn't
[1:13] flee immediately. Instead, there was a brief,
[1:17] tense interaction before he got into his car and drove away,
[1:22] melting back into the city's labyrinthine streets.
[1:26] But he left behind a scene that felt deeply wrong, and Jones
[1:30] wasn't about to go investigate alone.
[1:35] Trusting his instincts, Jones recruited a friend who happened
[1:39] to be working in the area as well.
[1:42] Together, they approached the dumpster with a sense of extreme
[1:45] caution. They began to cautiously sift
[1:48] through the layers of debris inside, not fully sure what they
[1:52] were going to find. And then it happened, and their
[1:56] hands immediately stopped when they saw it.
[1:59] It was a woman's hand, pale and lifeless amidst the garbage in
[2:03] the dumpster. The cops were called and the
[2:06] woman would soon be identified as SU Ya Kim, who just hours
[2:10] prior had been full of life. To understand the depth of the
[2:15] tragedy, you have to understand the life that was stolen.
[2:19] SU Ya Kim's story was in many ways, the quintessential
[2:23] American Dream. In 1981, she and her husband, SU
[2:28] Yong Kim, married in their native Seoul, South Korea, and
[2:33] soon after made the monumental decision to move to the United
[2:37] States. They arrived in New York City, a
[2:41] place that has long promised a new start and potential wealth
[2:45] to those willing to work hard for it.
[2:48] The Kims began their journey in the bustling, chaotic world of
[2:52] flea markets, honing their business sense and saving every
[2:55] dollar they could. Their hard work paid off and
[2:59] they eventually achieved their dream of becoming business
[3:01] owners, opening 2 popular clothing stores.
[3:07] As their business grew, so did their family, and Suya and
[3:11] Suyang had two sons and the family was the center of their
[3:15] world. They eventually moved into a
[3:17] spacious apartment in Queens, a world away from the rundown flea
[3:21] markets where they had started. Just five days before she was
[3:25] slain, Suya and Suyang had celebrated their 10th wedding
[3:29] anniversary, a milestone of a life they thought they would
[3:33] share for decades to come. The day Sue Yakim disappeared,
[3:39] June 29th, 1991, began like any other Saturday.
[3:45] It was an ordinary afternoon, and she left her two young sons
[3:49] in the care of their grandmother and set out on a routine
[3:52] shopping trip. It was the kind of mundane task
[3:56] a busy mother and business owner performs without a second
[3:59] thought. But on this day, it was a trip
[4:02] from which she would never return.
[4:05] At 8:00 PM, SU Yung came home from work, expecting to find his
[4:09] wife and their home filled with the familiar sounds of life
[4:12] going on as normal. Instead, he was met with an
[4:17] unnerving silence, and SU Ya wasn't there.
[4:21] He made calls to friends and family members, but no one had
[4:24] seen her and no one knew where she could be.
[4:27] What followed was the longest night of SU Yung's life, a
[4:31] sleepless vigil filled with escalating dread and unanswered
[4:34] questions. The hope that she would walk
[4:39] through the door at any moment slowly eroded, replaced by a
[4:42] terrifying certainty that something was terribly wrong.
[4:47] The next day, his worst fears were realized when he was
[4:50] summoned to the medical examiner's office.
[4:53] There he was asked to do the unthinkable, identify the body
[4:58] of his wife, the woman he had built a life with.
[5:02] The mother of his children had been found slain, her body
[5:06] discarded, miles from their Queen's home in a part of
[5:09] Brooklyn she had no reason to be in.
[5:12] This geographic disconnect was one of the 1st and most
[5:15] significant hurdles for investigators.
[5:18] With no known destination for her shopping trip and no clear
[5:22] reason for her presence in Bedford Stuyvesant, there was no
[5:25] obvious primary crime scene. When detectives from the New
[5:31] York Police Department arrived at the scene, they were
[5:33] confronted with a crime of vicious personal violence.
[5:38] SU Yakim had the clothing removed from her body, and she
[5:41] had been stabbed 9 times. The medical examiner, however,
[5:45] found no evidence of an indecent assault, a crucial detail that
[5:49] complicated any attempt to profile the perpetrator.
[5:54] The crime appeared to have been an act of unrestrained rage
[5:57] towards a woman who had no known enemies.
[6:02] Joe Jones was deemed to be a credible eyewitness, and he
[6:05] provided a description of the suspect and his vehicle, which
[6:09] led to the creation of a police sketch that was circulated to
[6:12] the public. He was a white male with blonde
[6:15] or light brown hair, standing around 5 feet 6 inches with an
[6:20] average build. And I want you to keep this
[6:23] description in mind because I'm going to be coming back to it
[6:26] when we discuss theories of the case.
[6:30] But regardless of this starting point, the case went cold.
[6:34] And to understand why it's perhaps important to realize the
[6:37] magnitude of crime in NYC in 1991.
[6:42] In 1991, New York City recorded over 2500 slayings and to put
[6:48] that in perspective, in 2024 this number was just 377.
[6:55] And just to put this a little further into perspective, this
[6:58] was about 7 crimes of the most severe nature literally each
[7:02] day, every day. To say that detectives were
[7:07] overwhelmed and had little time to dedicated to cases would be a
[7:11] massive understatement. Detectives were assigned an
[7:15] unmanageable number of cases. Forensic labs were severely
[7:19] backlogged and patrol officers were in a constant state of
[7:23] response. The cops turned to the show
[7:26] Unsolved Mysteries to try to resolve her case, but ultimately
[7:30] this led to nothing and the case went cold.
[7:35] Over the years, numerous theories have been proposed on
[7:38] who committed this horrible act to sue ya.
[7:42] One of the most prominent theories points to Joel Rifkin,
[7:45] one of New York's most prolific serial predators.
[7:49] Rifkin was active from 1989 to 1993, a timeline that perfectly
[7:54] overlaps with Suya's attack in June 1991.
[7:59] He confessed to taking 17 lives, and his reign of terror haunted
[8:03] the city. However, a closer look at his
[8:07] methods reveals significant contradictions with the facts of
[8:11] the Kim case. Rifkin's victimology was
[8:16] chillingly consistent. He exclusively targeted
[8:19] vulnerable women whose disappearances he believed would
[8:22] go unnoticed or unreported. Sue Ya Kim, a married mother, a
[8:28] respected entrepreneur, and a woman with deep community ties
[8:32] doesn't fit his victim profile in any way.
[8:36] Furthermore, Rifkin's modus operandi was starkly different,
[8:40] and he took substantial efforts to prevent identification of his
[8:43] victims. Perhaps the most compelling
[8:46] evidence against this theory is Rifkin himself.
[8:49] Upon his capture in 1993, he provided A detailed, exhaustive
[8:54] confession to 17 slayings, even drawing maps to help police
[8:59] locate remains of a large percentage of these victims.
[9:03] He has never mentioned SU Yakim, and no direct evidence links him
[9:07] to the case. Notably, while the forensic
[9:12] sketch might appear to look like Joel Rifkin since it depicts a
[9:15] white male with light brown hair and glasses, other factors don't
[9:19] add up. Joel Rifkin stands about 6 feet
[9:23] 2 inches tall and had an imposing physical presence.
[9:28] Joe Jones described a short man of average build, and given that
[9:32] he was a security guard used to observing and reporting, I think
[9:36] we can put more weight on his assessment than normal.
[9:41] Some have also found a resemblance between Rex
[9:44] Heuermann and the forensic sketch, but again, like Rifkin,
[9:47] he exclusively targeted marginalized women.
[9:51] Also, again, the physical profile just doesn't fit with
[9:54] Heuermann since he's even taller and more physically imposing
[9:58] than Rifkin. Personally, I think the most
[10:03] probable explanation is the most chilling one of all.
[10:06] SU Ya Kim appears to have been the victim of a random violent
[10:10] crime. She was likely a tragic casualty
[10:13] of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a city teeming
[10:17] with violence. The perpetrator was likely not
[10:21] an infamous monster with a long list of victims, but an
[10:24] anonymous predator, just one more opportunistic attacker
[10:28] created by the city's chaos. He was a person who, after
[10:33] committing A brutal slaying, was probably able to disappear back
[10:37] into the anonymity of millions. His crime went unsolved because
[10:42] the system designed to catch him was too fractured and
[10:45] overwhelmed to do so. This is, of course, a conclusion
[10:49] that offers no comfort or potential neat resolution.
[10:53] Unfortunately, given the lack of any forensic evidence connected
[10:57] with the attacker, the chances of this cold case being solved
[11:00] anytime soon are slim, barring A confession from the perp
[11:04] himself. Marlene Santana was just three
[11:08] days old when she was forcibly abducted from her mother's arms
[11:12] in Brooklyn, NY on October 21st, 1985.
[11:17] The kidnapping occurred outside Brookdale Hospital as Marlene's
[11:21] mother was leaving the maternity ward to take her newborn
[11:24] daughter home. Moments earlier, Marlene's
[11:28] mother, 23 year old Francesca Santana, had encountered an
[11:33] unfamiliar woman near the nursery.
[11:36] This woman openly admired her baby, calling little Marlene,
[11:40] quote, the prettiest and most quiet infant there.
[11:44] Francesca appreciated the kind words and had no reason to
[11:48] suspect the stranger's intentions.
[11:51] She could not have imagined that this same woman would soon turn
[11:54] a joyful day into a nightmare. That evening, around 9:30 PM, as
[12:00] Francesca left the hospital accompanied by her little one
[12:03] and her relatives, the same woman confronted them holding a
[12:07] weapon. The stranger announced she had
[12:10] been waiting all day and suddenly pointed the weapon at
[12:13] the baby's head, threatening to shoot if they did not cooperate.
[12:17] The terrified mother and her two companions were forced to walk
[12:21] about 6 blocks away from the hospital into a desolate area
[12:24] near a junkyard. Initially, Francesca thought it
[12:28] might be a robbery, but the true motive became clear when the
[12:33] woman demanded that Marlene be handed over.
[12:36] Desperate to save her child's life, Francesca complied.
[12:40] And after all, what choice did she have when this woman had a
[12:44] weapon pointed at Marlene? In a final plea, the distraught
[12:49] mother even gave the abductor her phone number and begged her
[12:52] to call the kidnapper, then jumped into a waiting car driven
[12:56] by an accomplice and speed away with baby Marlene.
[13:00] With that, the Santana family's newborn daughter had vanished
[13:03] into the night, never to be seen again.
[13:08] Shocked and heartbroken, Francesca and her relatives
[13:11] rushed to notify the police immediately after the abduction.
[13:14] Investigators quickly mobilized and detectives were assigned to
[13:18] the case. Within hours, Francesca was able
[13:22] to provide details of the getaway vehicle, describing it
[13:26] as a white 1976 Chevy Malibu with red lettering on the door.
[13:32] This car was possibly an unlicensed taxi, which suggested
[13:36] the abductor had planned her escape in advance.
[13:39] At the hospital, police interviewed staff and witnesses
[13:43] to gather a description of the unknown woman who had interacted
[13:46] with the baby's mother. A sketch of the suspect was soon
[13:50] drawn from these accounts. And yes, this is one of those
[13:54] times where you're going to want to look at the screen if you
[13:57] just listen. I've seen a lot of police
[14:00] sketches before, but this woman's malevolence and cruelty
[14:03] is somehow perfectly captured by the forensic artist.
[14:08] The woman was described as being around 5 foot 2 and appeared to
[14:12] be in her mid to late 20s in 1985.
[14:16] Witnesses noted she had light reddish blonde hair, but that it
[14:20] was possibly dyed or a wig. According to witnesses, she was
[14:25] identified as likely being a Hispanic female, which some
[14:29] speculate may be why she targeted Marlene Santana.
[14:32] But I'll come back to that. From the beginning, law
[14:36] enforcement suspected that the kidnappers motive was deeply
[14:39] personal rather than financial. There was no ransom demand or
[14:44] contact from the abductor, despite the mother's plea to
[14:47] call her. Some investigators theorized
[14:50] that the culprit was not a professional criminal, but
[14:53] rather an emotionally unstable woman who was unable to have a
[14:57] child of her own. This profile fit a pattern seen
[15:01] in some infant abductions. A woman who has suffered A
[15:05] miscarriage or still birth and in desperation, abducts a baby
[15:10] to raise as her own. Because in these cases, the
[15:14] woman was already pregnant, the woman can simply register the
[15:18] abducted baby as her own, claiming that she gave birth at
[15:21] home. Notably, some have speculated
[15:25] that the mysterious woman may have abducted Marlene because
[15:28] she looked like she could plausibly be her own baby.
[15:32] Detectives pursued this angle by checking hospital records and
[15:35] investigating women in the area who had recently lost a baby or
[15:39] suffered a miscarriage. Despite these efforts, no viable
[15:43] suspect was identified. The trail was frustratingly
[15:47] cold, with the abductor having vanished without leaving clear
[15:50] clues to her identity. I do have to question how this
[15:54] woman had access to the maternity ward without leaving
[15:57] some form of identification with staff.
[16:01] But that said, I suppose maternity wards are accustomed
[16:04] to having visitors come and go, and security and privacy
[16:08] regulations in the 80s we're different beasts than they are
[16:11] today. In a strange coincidence,
[16:15] another infant was kidnapped in New York City just one day
[16:19] before Marlene's abduction. On October 20th, 1985, a 2 month
[16:26] old boy named Christopher Morgan was snatched from a Manhattan
[16:29] hospital by a woman impersonating a nurse.
[16:33] That case, however, saw a swift resolution.
[16:37] The baby boy was found safe a few days later at the home of
[16:40] his abductor. She had tried to pass him off as
[16:43] her own child after experiencing a still birth.
[16:47] Police soon arrested that woman and determined that her crime
[16:50] was unrelated to Marlene's disappearance.
[16:55] In the days and weeks following Marlene's abduction, the case
[16:59] received significant media attention in the New York area.
[17:03] Francesca made heart wrenching public pleas for her daughter's
[17:06] return. Despite widespread news coverage
[17:09] and the dissemination of the suspect sketch, detectives
[17:13] reported no major leads in Marlene's case.
[17:16] The lack of progress was understandably agonizing for the
[17:19] family. As months turned into years with
[17:22] no answers, the Santanas were left to grapple with fear and
[17:26] grief. Marlene's father, Thomas, had
[17:29] been in the Dominican Republic at the time of the birth, and
[17:32] after the incident, he and Francesca decided it was too
[17:36] painful to remain in the United States.
[17:39] They returned home to raise their other children, all while
[17:42] keeping hope alive that Marlene might one day be found.
[17:47] The family went on to have two more children back in the
[17:49] Dominican Republic. While some have suggested the
[17:52] family leaving the United States is potentially suspicious, the
[17:56] authorities have ruled out the family as being involved in the
[17:59] crime. Further, all members of the
[18:03] family were always fully cooperative and open with the
[18:06] police and the investigation. On the investigative front,
[18:11] Marlene's case has remained open and periodically received
[18:15] renewed attention. The way I personally found out
[18:18] about this case was through an old segment on Unsolved
[18:21] Mysteries and like many, the case has always stuck with me
[18:25] given the horror of it. This segment initially aired in
[18:29] January 1989 and was periodically re aired over the
[18:33] following decades before making its way onto streaming services.
[18:39] This segment has led to hundreds of leads over the years but none
[18:42] have panned out. Agencies have released age
[18:46] progressed images to show what Marlene might look like as she
[18:50] grew older. Law enforcement also publicized
[18:54] A distinctive detail that could help identify Marlene.
[18:59] She was born with a slight foot deformity, causing her feet to
[19:03] curve inward in AC shape. If Marlene is alive, this
[19:07] congenital trait might still be observable and serve as a clue
[19:10] to her identity. Today, Marlene would be nearly
[19:14] 40 years old and her case remains unsolved.
[19:18] Thankfully, her information is maintained in missing persons
[19:21] databases, including DNA profiles from her biological
[19:25] family in hopes of a future match.
[19:31] In the absence of a resolution, several theories have been
[19:34] explored regarding what happened to baby Marlene.
[19:38] The prevailing theory among law enforcement is that the abductor
[19:41] was a woman desperate for a child to call her own, and since
[19:45] I've already gone over that theory, there's no need to
[19:48] rehash it. Another theory, considered both
[19:51] by authorities in the public, is that Marlene might have been
[19:54] abducted for an illegal adoption or baby selling scheme.
[19:58] In the mid 1980s, there were fears of underground networks
[20:02] that would obtain infants and sell them to adoptive parents
[20:05] willing to pay. It's conceivable that the woman
[20:09] who took Marlene was acting as a broker or agent for such a black
[20:13] market adoption. Under this scenario, Marlene
[20:17] could have been handed off to another individual or family
[20:20] shortly after the abduction and raised far from New York.
[20:24] Some have speculated she might even have been taken out of the
[20:27] country as an infant, making her much harder to trace.
[20:31] However, investigators generally doubt that this was a
[20:35] professionally planned crime. The abductor's brazen approach?
[20:40] Grabbing a baby in person with a weapon and her emotional
[20:43] interaction with the mother suggest a crime of opportunity
[20:47] fueled by personal emotion. Notably, while trafficking
[20:52] operations do exist, no evidence of a wider adoption ring was
[20:56] ever uncovered in connection with Marlene's disappearance.
[21:00] On occasion, women of roughly Marlene's age have come forward
[21:05] wondering if they might be the missing child, especially if
[21:08] they grew up without birth records or with uncertain family
[21:12] histories. Authorities have investigated a
[21:15] few such cases, including conducting DNA tests to check
[21:19] for a match to Marlene's family, but so far none have confirmed
[21:23] her identity. The authorities continue to work
[21:26] under the belief that Marlene is alive, or at least that she
[21:30] wasn't slain by her abductor. While it is possible that
[21:34] Marlene did not survive long after the abduction, there is no
[21:38] direct evidence of harm and the consensus of investigators is
[21:43] that the kidnapper wanted the baby alive.
[21:47] So I feel like I've said this many times before, but this is a
[21:51] case that will likely be solved through the popularization of
[21:54] DNA testing services. If Marlene did survive, I
[21:59] imagine that one day she may hand her DNA over to find out
[22:03] all the details on her background and find out she has
[22:07] a bunch of familial connections that make no sense.
[22:11] Marlene's immediate family still lives in the Dominican Republic,
[22:15] but I hope they've entered their DNA into all the big testing
[22:18] services so they can match if this ever occurs.
[22:22] A young doctor vanished from her New York City home on the eve of
[22:25] a national tragedy, leaving behind a personal tragedy while
[22:30] the nation mourned. On the night of September 10th,
[22:34] 2001, Doctor Sneha Phillip was captured on a department store
[22:38] security camera near her lower Manhattan apartment.
[22:43] This was the last confirmed glimpse of her alive.
[22:46] The next day, chaos engulfed the city and Sneha never returned
[22:50] home. Nearly 25 years later, we're no
[22:54] closer to solving the mystery of this missing 31 year old
[22:58] physician with a bright future ahead.
[23:03] Sneha was a 31 year old Indian American physician living in New
[23:07] York City with her husband, Doctor Ron Lieberman.
[23:10] Born in Kerala, India and raised in New York, Sneha was known for
[23:13] her intelligence, creativity, and vibrant personality.
[23:17] She graduated from Johns Hopkins University and attended medical
[23:21] school in Chicago where she met Ron.
[23:25] They married in 2000 and settled into an apartment just a few
[23:28] blocks from the World Trade Towers.
[23:33] Professionally, Doctor Phillip was in the midst of her medical
[23:36] training, working as a resident at Saint Vincent's Hospital in
[23:40] 2001. However, her life was not
[23:43] without troubles. Earlier that year, she had been
[23:47] let go from a prior residency at Cabrini Medical Center amid
[23:51] allegations of attendance problems and alcohol related
[23:54] issues. One evening out with colleagues
[23:58] ended with Sneha spending a night in jail after accusing A
[24:01] fellow intern of groping her. This claim backfired into a
[24:05] charge of filing a false report, though it was never proven
[24:09] whether her claim was false. Given her disappearance,
[24:13] contrary to what many sources imply, her case was still making
[24:17] its way through the courts, and it's entirely possible that she
[24:21] hadn't made a false report at all.
[24:24] By September 2001, she had pleaded not guilty to that
[24:28] misdemeanor charge and had been temporarily suspended from her
[24:32] new residency for missing a required counseling session.
[24:38] Loved ones say Sneha was depressed during this time and
[24:41] sometimes coped by drinking and staying out late.
[24:45] Her family has always maintained that she and Ron were working
[24:48] through these challenges and hoped for better days ahead.
[24:54] On her day off on September 10th, 2001, Sneha spent the
[24:58] afternoon catching up with her mother.
[25:01] She mentioned plans to visit the Windows on the World restaurant
[25:04] atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center soon, where a
[25:08] friend's wedding was scheduled for next spring.
[25:11] Ending her call with her mom around 4:00 PM, Sneha ran
[25:15] errands in the neighborhood. She dropped off laundry at a dry
[25:18] cleaner, then went shopping at the Century 21 department store
[25:22] near the Twin Towers. Using her American Express card,
[25:26] she bought several items of clothing and bedding.
[25:29] A surveillance camera time stamped around 7:00 PM recorded
[25:33] her browsing the store's racks, the last confirmed sighting of
[25:38] Sneha. What happened after Sneha left
[25:42] the store remains a mystery. She didn't return to her
[25:45] apartment that night, and her husband, Ron, came home around
[25:49] midnight to an empty apartment. He wasn't alarmed.
[25:52] She often stayed out late and went to bed at about 4:00 AM.
[25:57] On the following morning, a call from their home phone to Ron's
[26:01] cell went unanswered. Ron slept through it.
[26:04] By 6:30 AM, when Ron left for work, Sneha still hadn't come
[26:09] home. That morning, catastrophe struck
[26:14] the World Trade Center. Ron hurried back to their
[26:18] apartment that evening, using his hospital ID to get through
[26:21] roadblocks. Inside, he found a surreal
[26:25] scene. A layer of grey dust from the
[26:28] collapsed towers coated every surface.
[26:31] The couple's two kittens had left tiny paw prints in the
[26:34] dust, but there were no human footprints, a sign that Sneha
[26:39] had never returned home. In the days that followed, Sneha
[26:44] was listed among the thousands of people missing in New York
[26:47] City. They plastered missing person
[26:49] Flyers with her face around Manhattan and contacted
[26:53] hospitals and shelters, but found no trace of her.
[26:57] Sneha officially became the only person on the missing list with
[27:01] no confirmed connection to the attacks of that day.
[27:06] Frustrated by the lack of official progress, Ron Lieberman
[27:10] began investigating on his own. He confirmed Sneha's shopping
[27:15] trip via credit card records and obtained the store's security
[27:19] footage, which showed her leaving alone without incident
[27:23] with police resources. Overwhelmed at the time, Ron
[27:26] hired a private investigator named Ken Gallant.
[27:30] Gallant uncovered 2 key clues suggesting Sneha may have
[27:34] returned to her apartment building on the morning of that
[27:36] fateful day. First, the mysterious 4:00 AM
[27:41] phone call from their home phone to Ron's cell hinted that Sneha
[27:44] might have come home briefly before dawn.
[27:48] Second, a lobby security camera captured A blurry silhouette of
[27:52] a woman entering the building at 8:43 AM, just minutes before the
[27:56] first plane struck. Notably, this person wasn't
[28:00] carrying any of the shopping bags Sneha had from the previous
[28:03] evening. That said, Despite that, the
[28:07] woman has never been conclusively identified and may
[28:10] have been the missing physician. Ron and his private investigator
[28:17] also considered whether Sneha might have deliberately vanished
[28:20] during the chaos, but they found no evidence of such plans.
[28:25] She left behind her passport, driver's license, credit cards
[28:30] except the one used that night, and even her glasses.
[28:35] No bank withdrawals or other signs indicated any plan to
[28:38] start a new life. With no other leads, the
[28:42] investigator and her husband eventually concluded that she
[28:45] most likely lost her life in the attacks that day.
[28:51] When the NYPD opened a formal missing person case, detectives
[28:55] uncovered aspects of her life that pointed to alternate
[28:58] scenarios. They learned of her job troubles
[29:01] and pending criminal charge, as well as reports of her late
[29:05] night socializing. According to the police, in the
[29:09] weeks before she vanished, Sneha often stayed out until early
[29:14] morning at downtown bars, sometimes going home with people
[29:17] she met. She spent significant time out
[29:21] at gay and lesbian establishments, and it's been
[29:23] speculated that she may have had relationships with women in the
[29:27] period leading up to her disappearance.
[29:32] Investigators even suggested her marriage was strained and cited
[29:36] an alleged argument between Sneha and Ron on the morning of
[29:39] September 10th, a claim Ron strongly denies.
[29:44] Sneha's family disputes much of this portrayal, calling it
[29:48] somewhere between exaggerated or false.
[29:51] They acknowledge she had a difficult period but insist she
[29:54] was not reckless or planning to abandon her life.
[29:57] Nevertheless, the NYPD theorized that Sneha's personal struggles
[30:02] meant her disappearance could have been unrelated to the
[30:05] broader world events of that day.
[30:09] For years after Sneha's disappearance, authorities were
[30:12] unsure whether to count her as a victim of the attacks that day.
[30:16] In 2006, a Manhattan court ruled that there wasn't sufficient
[30:20] evidence to link Sneha's presumed death to the attacks
[30:24] for legal purposes. Her date of death was set as
[30:27] September 10th, 2004, three years after she went missing.
[30:32] Her family challenged this decision, arguing that
[30:35] circumstantial evidence strongly suggested she perished at the
[30:39] World Trade Center. They also noted other cases
[30:42] where victims were included despite similarly minimal
[30:45] evidence. On January 31st, 2008, the
[30:50] appeals court reversed the earlier ruling, and the court
[30:54] concluded Sneha died in the attacks and ordered her name
[30:57] added to the official list. This, however, is cold comfort
[31:03] to those who want to know the truth of Sneha's disappearance.
[31:06] The potential plausibility of so many theories has ensured that
[31:10] Sneha's case will continue to receive attention for years to
[31:13] come, and will hopefully be solved one day in the future.
[31:17] Also, I don't generally ask this directly, but given how well
[31:21] known her case is, I'm interested in hearing everyone's
[31:25] theories about what happened to Sneha in the comments.
[31:31] On December 13th, 1982, nineteen year old David Thies and his
[31:35] family were gathered in their Manhattan apartment to honor his
[31:38] father's birthday. David had been acting strangely
[31:42] all afternoon, nervously flipping through TV news
[31:46] channels as if he were searching for or frightened by something
[31:49] he saw. His mother, Karen, later
[31:52] recalled her son seemed petrified with an inexplicable
[31:56] fear. During this period, the festive
[31:59] mood in the apartment quickly turned uneasy, but no one
[32:03] imagined it would be the last time they'd see David.
[32:06] Around 4:00 that afternoon, David stepped out into the
[32:10] hallway for a quick smoke break, telling his family he'd be right
[32:14] back. He never returned.
[32:17] In a matter of minutes, an ordinary afternoon transformed
[32:21] into every parent's nightmare as David Thies vanished without a
[32:24] trace. When David failed to come back
[32:29] inside after puffing on his cancer kazoo, his mother knew
[32:32] immediately that something was wrong.
[32:35] It was completely unlike him to wander off, especially in the
[32:39] middle of preparing a birthday dinner for his father.
[32:42] In fact, earlier that day, David had gone out to buy a gift for
[32:46] his dad and had even planned to help make a salad for the
[32:50] celebratory meal. For him to simply disappear
[32:53] during what should have been a happy family occasion was
[32:56] baffling and alarming. Karen stepped into the hallway,
[33:01] expecting to find David lingering, but he was gone.
[33:06] As minutes ticked by, with no sign of her son, panic set in.
[33:11] The family searched their apartment building and then the
[33:13] surrounding block, calling David's name and asking
[33:16] neighbors if they'd seen the tall, lanky teenager.
[33:20] But no one had. Desperate, his parents contacted
[33:23] the police and a full scale search was launched.
[33:27] Officers and volunteers scoured Manhattan for any clue of
[33:30] David's whereabouts, checking hospitals, shelters, and even
[33:35] morgues. Despite these efforts, the
[33:39] initial search turned up nothing.
[33:41] No witnesses, no accident reports, and no hints of where
[33:45] David might have gone. The lack of any evidence or
[33:49] sightings in those crucial first hours was bewildering to
[33:53] authorities. Friends and family were at a
[33:58] loss to explain the sudden disappearance.
[34:01] David was legally an adult at 19, but he still lived at home
[34:05] and hadn't mentioned any plans to leave or travel.
[34:08] He had left behind everything in his room undisturbed.
[34:11] There was no farewell note and no indication that he intended
[34:14] to be away for long. In fact, because he had stepped
[34:18] out so casually, he hadn't even taken any belongings with him
[34:22] besides the clothes on his back. Manhattan in the early 1980s was
[34:27] quite dangerous, but the idea that a young man could go
[34:30] missing in broad daylight outside his own home was still
[34:33] terrifying. In the wake of David's
[34:37] disappearance, Karen reflected on her son's behavior leading up
[34:41] to that fateful evening. By all accounts, David had been
[34:45] going through a rough patch. In the weeks prior, he had
[34:48] battled episodes of depression and anxiety enough that
[34:53] psychiatric social workers who knew his case warned that David
[34:57] exhibited tendencies against himself.
[35:00] His mother acknowledged that 19 year old David had been
[35:03] struggling with mental health issues and often seemed
[35:07] emotionally fragile. On the very day he vanished, his
[35:11] behavior had been particularly unusual.
[35:14] As mentioned, he was obsessively watching and switching between
[35:18] news channels on TV, appearing agitated and fearful of
[35:22] something he thought he saw or expected to see.
[35:26] While this does seem to point to a mental health trigger to his
[35:29] disappearance, investigators noted that there was no evidence
[35:32] that David took any actions against himself.
[35:38] Even more chilling was a revelation that came out a few
[35:40] months after the disappearance. In May 1983, Karen shared with a
[35:46] reporter that David had allegedly received threats in
[35:49] the period leading up to his disappearance.
[35:52] David didn't specify who made these threats or why, but this
[35:56] detail cast a new and frightening light on David's
[35:59] mindset. Karen, unfortunately, doesn't
[36:02] appear to have dug deep, or David wasn't willing to explain,
[36:06] but at any rate, the nature of these forces is unknown.
[36:11] If David truly believed someone wanted to harm him, it might
[36:15] explain his palpable fear that day.
[36:18] Karen even expressed A belief that her son may have been
[36:21] abducted by a religious cult against his will.
[36:25] While this belief may seem like a mother attempting to cope with
[36:28] the harsh reality of what actually happened to her son,
[36:31] there was evidence to suggest this was the case.
[36:34] Tips began flooding in, not from New York, but from California.
[36:40] In the months following David's disappearance, more than 40
[36:44] people contacted New York Police claiming they had seen someone
[36:48] matching David's description out in California.
[36:51] The tips indicated that he was selling trinkets on street
[36:54] corners and that he was spotted in the company of a group that
[36:58] was described as cult like. Investigators followed up on
[37:03] these California sightings as best they could.
[37:06] They coordinated with California authorities, checked shelters
[37:09] and St. Hangouts, and tried to track
[37:12] down the mysterious cult rumors. Unfortunately, none of these
[37:17] leads were ever substantiated and the case once again went
[37:21] cold and years passed with no solid information.
[37:27] Then, around 1985, roughly 3 years after David's
[37:31] disappearance, a new glimmer of hope emerged.
[37:35] Several tips came in claiming that David, or someone who
[37:38] resembled him, was back in New York City, possibly staying in a
[37:43] Manhattan homeless shelter. The cops canvassed the shelters,
[37:47] but ultimately were unable to find this man who allegedly
[37:50] matched David's description. The question of what happened to
[37:56] David has led to substantial speculation over the years, and
[38:00] several theories have been debated by investigators and
[38:02] armchair sleuths alike. 1 theory is that David ran away
[38:07] intentionally. This idea is bolstered by his
[38:10] known emotional troubles. It's conceivable that David
[38:13] chose to flee to escape his problems, whether those were
[38:17] internal or external. Some have speculated that his
[38:22] belief that there were threats against him may have simply been
[38:26] a manifestation of his worsening mental state.
[38:30] If he fled of his own accord, the sightings in California and
[38:34] later in New York might actually have been him living off the
[38:37] grid. People who subscribe to this
[38:41] theory think David could have assumed A transient lifestyle to
[38:44] hide from whatever demons were chasing him, whether they were
[38:47] real or imagined. Perhaps he hitchhiked across the
[38:51] country, dropped his former identity, and survived by
[38:55] panhandling or doing odd jobs. The fact that none of the
[39:00] sightings were confirmed means we can't know for sure if they
[39:03] were real or mistaken. That said, they leave the door
[39:07] open that David might have left to start a new life or simply to
[39:11] get away. If he believed that there were
[39:14] people threatening him, he may have believed he was actually
[39:17] saving his family by dropping off the radar like he did.
[39:21] If this scenario is accurate, David might still be out there
[39:24] today. Another prominent theory centers
[39:29] on the idea of cult involvement or abduction.
[39:32] The notion that David fell prey to a cult has been fueled by
[39:35] multiple pieces of circumstantial evidence. 1st,
[39:39] the numerous tips about seeing him with a cult group in
[39:42] California suggest that at least some people thought he was in
[39:45] the orbit of a religious or fringe group.
[39:48] Second, David's own mother voiced her belief that a cult
[39:52] could have been responsible, going so far as to suspect he
[39:56] was abducted into such a group against his will.
[39:59] If David had encountered a cult in New York, it's possible he
[40:03] got entangled. And was either brainwashed or
[40:07] coerced to leave his old life. Cults have targeted vulnerable
[40:11] young people since the dawn of time and David being depressed
[40:15] and anxious definitely fit the bill. 1/3 possibility that must
[40:21] be considered is foul play unrelated to a cult.
[40:24] Essentially, that David met with some kind of crime or accident
[40:27] after stepping out. New York City in 1982 had its
[40:31] share of crime, to say the least, and it's conceivable that
[40:35] David could have stepped outside at the wrong moment.
[40:39] Perhaps he witnessed something he shouldn't have, or crossed
[40:42] paths with a dangerous person on the street.
[40:46] The fact that he was never heard from again could imply that
[40:48] someone harmed him that very day and concealed his body.
[40:53] However, as of now, no forensic evidence has tied any John Doe
[40:57] to David, and there's no evidence that he met with foul
[41:01] play regardless. Finally, some have wondered if
[41:07] David experienced some form of psychological break or amnesia
[41:10] that caused him to lose touch with who he was.
[41:14] In this scenario, David might not have intended to disappear
[41:19] but became disoriented due to a mental health crisis.
[41:23] He could have wandered away in a dissociative state and not known
[41:26] how to get home or who to call. If his memory or sense of self
[41:30] was impaired, he may have ended up living homeless under a
[41:34] different name, not realizing a whole city and family were
[41:37] searching for him. This is speculative, but cases
[41:42] of dissociative fugue have been documented and some people
[41:46] actually find that they enjoy their new fugue life more.
[41:50] Given that David was suffering from depression in his regular
[41:53] life, it could be that he decided to just continue on with
[41:57] living his new life. Over 40 years later, the
[42:03] disappearance of David Thies remains an open and agonizing
[42:07] mystery. As of today, David Thies would
[42:11] be in his early 60s, a far cry from the teenager who
[42:14] disappeared in 1982. On a cold winter night in 1799,
[42:22] 22 year old Elma Sands left her Manhattan boarding house with a
[42:25] secret. She planned to elope with Levy
[42:28] Weeks. She never returned. 11 days
[42:32] later, her lifeless body was pulled from the bottom of a well
[42:35] in lower Manhattan, shocking the city and setting the stage for
[42:40] one of America's first sensational trials.
[42:43] The investigation and trial that followed would captivate the
[42:46] public, pit powerful lawyers against each other, and leave a
[42:50] mystery that still haunts New York history.
[42:55] Elma Sands lived in a Greenwich St. boarding house run by her
[42:59] cousins Catherine and Elias Ring.
[43:02] On December 22nd, 1799, she confided that she and Levy
[43:07] Weeks, a fellow border who had been courting her.
[43:11] We're going to marry in secret that night, around 8.
[43:15] That night, she left home, presumably with Levy.
[43:19] By 10, Weeks had returned alone, expressing surprise that Elma
[43:24] was still out and denying that they had been together earlier.
[43:28] When Elma didn't come home, alarms spread quickly.
[43:32] New York was blanketed in snow that evening, and some witnesses
[43:35] claimed they saw Elma riding in A1 horse sleigh with two men.
[43:40] One reportedly resembled Weeks, and the horse matched one owned
[43:44] by Levy's brother Ezra. Suspicion fell on Weeks as the
[43:49] last person seen with her, but nothing came of it just yet.
[43:53] A few days later, boys discovered a woman's hat
[43:57] floating in the water of a well in Manhattan in what's now the
[44:00] Soho area. It was recognized as Alma's
[44:04] pointing investigators to the well.
[44:08] On January 2nd, 1800, searchers pulled Alma's body from the
[44:12] bottom of that well. Her corpse showed clear signs of
[44:16] foul play, and authorities started to investigate, with
[44:20] Weeks swiftly deemed the prime suspect.
[44:25] Even before Weeks was brought to trial, the city was outraged
[44:29] over Alma's fate. The Ring family immediately
[44:32] accused Levy in public, sharing details of her disappearance
[44:36] with the press. New York newspapers ran with the
[44:39] story, and soon the case was the talk of the town.
[44:44] In the court of public opinion, Weeks was considered guilty
[44:48] before he was even arrested. In a macabre twist, Elma's body
[44:53] was put on public display at the boarding house for several days
[44:56] before burial. So many people came to view the
[45:00] victim's body that the coffin had to be moved outside to
[45:03] accommodate the onlookers. This grim exhibition further
[45:07] stirred emotions. Seeing Elma's pale form made the
[45:11] tragedy real and intensified calls for justice.
[45:15] By the time Weeks was indicted, angry crowds were clamoring for
[45:19] his swift execution. Levy Weeks was a young Carpenter
[45:24] who worked for his wealthy brother Ezra Weeks, one of New
[45:27] York's most prominent builders. Desperate to save Levy from a
[45:32] likely hanging, Ezra pulled in favors and used his connections
[45:36] to secure an extraordinary defense team.
[45:40] Notably, Ezra's company had built Alexander Hamilton's
[45:43] mansion, so to say he had some clout would be an
[45:46] understatement. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron
[45:49] Burr, usually bitter political rivals, agreed to join forces to
[45:54] defend Weeks. They enlisted 1/3 attorney Henry
[45:58] Brockholst Livingston, an experienced trial lawyer and
[46:02] future Supreme Court Justice. This dream team of counsel was
[46:07] unprecedented and turned the trial into a major public
[46:11] spectacle. The trial of Levy Weeks began on
[46:16] March 31st, 1800 in New York City Hall before Chief Justice
[46:21] John Lansing Junior. The case became so widely
[46:25] followed that crowds of onlookers from all levels of
[46:28] society packed the courtroom. The prosecution's case, led by
[46:32] Cadwallader Colden, was entirely circumstantial, with no
[46:37] eyewitnesses. Prosecutors argued that Weeks
[46:41] had seduced Elma with false promises of marriage and then
[46:44] eliminated her to escape the scandal, perhaps fearing she was
[46:48] carrying his child. Borders, from the Ring House,
[46:52] testified about Levy and Elma's relationship and the events of
[46:56] the night she vanished. One witness claimed to see him
[47:00] lurking around the well at night shortly before the crime.
[47:03] Another witness, a fellow Border, claimed that Levy was
[47:07] the type to get into intimate situations with young ladies and
[47:12] leave them high and dry. He claimed that Levy promised
[47:15] them marriage but insisted he couldn't do this without banging
[47:19] harder than a carriage wheel hitting cobblestone.
[47:24] Hamilton, Burr and Livingston vigorously countered these
[47:27] claims. The defense cast doubt on every
[47:29] aspect of the story. They argued there may not even
[47:33] have been a killing at all. To support this theory, they
[47:37] brought in medical witnesses who now asserted that Elma might
[47:41] have jumped into the well herself out of despair.
[47:45] Acquaintances described Elma as emotionally troubled before her
[47:48] death, even recalling that she had questioned the purpose of
[47:52] life. Further, they insinuated that
[47:55] she may have been having affairs with married men, including her
[47:59] cousin's husband. The trial was unusually long for
[48:03] its time, running into the early morning hours of the second day.
[48:08] As proceedings dragged past midnight, jurors struggled to
[48:12] stay awake. Justice Lansing refused to pause
[48:15] for rest and even denied the prosecutor a closing argument
[48:19] signaling that he found the evidence against Weeks Week.
[48:23] In his charge to the jury, Lansing bluntly stated that the
[48:26] proof was insufficient to convict.
[48:29] It took the jury only about 5 minutes to deliberate before
[48:32] returning a verdict of not guilty.
[48:35] Levy Weeks was acquitted, ending the trial in astonishing
[48:39] fashion. The verdict did not calm the
[48:43] public's fury. Many New Yorkers were outraged
[48:46] that Weeks walked free, believing that a rich man's
[48:49] influence had helped him escape punishment.
[48:52] Judge Lansing's conduct was widely criticized as a betrayal
[48:55] of justice. In the aftermath, Weeks was
[48:59] shunned and harassed. Unable to live in New York amid
[49:03] the hostility, he left the city and eventually settled in
[49:06] Natchez, Ms. where he quietly rebuilt his life as an architect
[49:11] until his death in 1819. No one else was ever charged for
[49:15] Elma's death, which meant the case remained officially
[49:19] unsolved. Some key figures in the trial
[49:22] later met tragic ends in 18 O 4. Burr and Hamilton's simmering
[49:28] rivalry exploded in their famous duel years later.
[49:33] In 1829, Judge Lansing vanished without a trace, leading some to
[49:38] whisper about a curse tied to Elma Sands.
[49:44] While it looks to me that there wasn't sufficient evidence to
[49:46] find Levy Weeks guilty, there's no denying that the proceedings
[49:50] carried a troubling stench of influence and favoritism.
[49:55] The entire case rested on circumstantial fragments, yet
[49:58] the speed with which the judge dismissed the prosecution's
[50:01] arguments felt unusual even by early American standards.
[50:07] Lansing's refusal to allow a full closing argument and his
[50:11] insistence on pushing the jury through exhaustion are odd
[50:14] choices. However, his pointed remarks
[50:18] about the weakness of the evidence creates the impression
[50:21] that the outcome had been shaped long before the verdict was
[50:24] delivered. Add to that the towering
[50:28] presence of Hamilton and Burr, both political powerhouses with
[50:32] deep ties to Ezra Weeks, and the appearance of a slanted playing
[50:36] field becomes hard to ignore. Levy may have walked free
[50:40] because the evidence wasn't strong enough, but the way the
[50:43] trial unfolded left many convinced justice had been
[50:46] openly bent. At 9:30 on the morning of August
[50:54] 1st, 2012, the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange
[50:59] signaled the start of a normal trading day.
[51:02] But for Knight Capital, it was the start of a nightmare, so to
[51:05] speak. Knight was one of Wall Street's
[51:08] top market makers, handling roughly 17% of all American
[51:12] stock trading volume at the time.
[51:17] But first, let me take a moment to do a quick aside on what a
[51:20] market maker is and why they accounted for such a large
[51:24] portion of volume. A market maker is a company, or
[51:29] technically even a person, that's always ready to buy and
[51:33] sell a stock so other people can trade quickly.
[51:37] They make money from the small difference between the price
[51:39] they buy at and the price they sell at, while keeping the
[51:43] market moving smoothly. Market makers profit by buying a
[51:48] stock at a slightly lower price and then selling it at a
[51:52] slightly higher price, pocketing the difference called the
[51:55] spread. Because they trade absolutely
[51:58] huge volumes of shares every day, even tiny spreads add up to
[52:02] big profits over the course of a year.
[52:05] Further, because they conduct so many trades so rapidly, they
[52:09] rely on algorithms to conduct these transactions.
[52:13] With that said, let's get down to how this incident occurred.
[52:19] On that fateful Wednesday morning, Knight Capital's
[52:22] systems went on a buying spree. The firm's algorithms
[52:26] unexpectedly started flooding the market with orders across a
[52:29] broad range of stocks. In the span of roughly half an
[52:33] hour, Knight accumulated positions in 154 different
[52:38] stocks, totalling about 397,000,000 shares.
[52:43] The automated programs didn't just buy, they bought and sold
[52:46] repeatedly at rapid fire speeds, ignoring normal trading limits.
[52:51] Stocks that Knight normally helped make markets in were
[52:55] suddenly whip sawing in price due to the sheer volume of
[52:58] erroneous trades. By the time Knight's team
[53:01] realized the extent of the problem, the company had
[53:04] unintentionally acquired around $7 billion worth of securities.
[53:09] These positions were unplanned, a massive inventory of
[53:13] overpriced stocks that no one at Knight actually intended to buy.
[53:19] The firm was now stuck holding huge long positions in some
[53:23] stocks and short positions in others, all accumulated by
[53:26] accident. As the losses mounted with each
[53:30] unintended trade, Knight's management scrambled to contain
[53:33] the damage. It took 45 frantic minutes
[53:37] before Knight Capital finally hit the switch and shut down its
[53:40] trading to stop the bleeding. But by then the damage was done.
[53:45] The firm's unplanned stock positions had to be unwound as
[53:48] quickly as possible to avoid even greater losses.
[53:52] Knight frantically sold off the trove of stocks it never meant
[53:55] to own. This was a task so large that
[53:58] Goldman Sachs stepped in to buy the entire pile of unwanted
[54:01] shares by the end of the day, but at a massive discount.
[54:06] Unloading that inventory came at a high price, and Knight
[54:09] ultimately lost around $440 million.
[54:12] When the dust settled in mere minutes, a glitch had pushed a
[54:16] powerhouse trading firm to the brink of bankruptcy.
[54:22] The story behind Knight's glitch turned out to be a perfect storm
[54:25] of lack of oversight, poor management, rushed changes and
[54:30] failed safety checks. Investigators and insiders
[54:34] pieced together the chain of events that led to the disaster.
[54:38] A retired trading feature called Power Peg had been dormant in
[54:42] Knight Software since 2001, but it's code was never fully
[54:46] removed. And yeah, there's more than a
[54:49] little bit of humor in the name of that trading feature, in my
[54:52] view. In 2012, Knight repurposed the
[54:56] old features of the algorithm, unknowingly reactivating some of
[55:00] the Power Peg logic in unintentional ways.
[55:04] I suppose you could even say that the algorithm appears to
[55:07] have been unintentionally set to pegging Knight Capital, but I'll
[55:11] come back to intentionality in a moment.
[55:16] Knight's team rolled out the new software, but one of its servers
[55:20] failed to update and continued running the obsolete code.
[55:24] This out of sync server was a ticking time bomb within the
[55:27] system. When the market opened, the
[55:30] rogue server started generating massive erroneous orders based
[55:34] on the old logic. Transactions multiplied
[55:38] uncontrollably. Millions of shares were bought
[55:41] and sold within minutes since the usual volume caps and fail
[55:45] safes had been bypassed. The immediate aftermath of the
[55:50] night capital glitch was as chaotic as the event itself.
[55:54] News of the incident spread fast and night Stock price plunged by
[55:59] nearly 50% in a single day. On the verge of collapse, Knight
[56:03] was forced to seek an emergency lifeline.
[56:07] Just days later, a group of firms poured about $400 million
[56:11] into Knight to stabilize it, since the removal of this firm
[56:14] from the playing board would decrease market liquidity big
[56:17] time. This rescue kept Knight Capital
[56:20] afloat, but at a steep cost. The new investors took a
[56:24] majority ownership stake at a fire sale price, diluting
[56:28] existing shareholders. Knight had essentially saved
[56:32] itself by selling itself off in pieces.
[56:37] The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an
[56:39] investigation and later fined Knight Capital $12 million for
[56:44] failing to have adequate risk controls.
[56:47] According to the SEC, Knight violated the market access rule,
[56:51] which requires brokers to have safeguards to prevent these
[56:54] kinds of trading disasters. The SE CS report made it clear
[56:59] that Knight Systems lacked the basic checks that could have
[57:02] stopped the avalanche of bad trades.
[57:05] For Knight Capital itself, there was no returning to business as
[57:09] usual. The firm limped on for only a
[57:12] few months, with its reputation and capital badly damaged,
[57:15] before it was fully taken over by one of the firms that had
[57:18] come to the rescue. Whenever a disaster of this
[57:23] scale happens, people naturally wonder if there is more to the
[57:26] story. Knight's 2012 glitch was
[57:30] officially attributed to a series of mistakes and bad luck,
[57:34] a perfect storm of human error. But in the aftermath, some
[57:39] observers floated theories that the event might not have been
[57:42] entirely accidental. Some have speculated that the
[57:46] error in the code was intentionally placed there,
[57:49] perhaps by a competitor in a cloak and dagger act of
[57:53] sabotage. Others have speculated that the
[57:56] error may have been inserted by a disgruntled employee or
[58:00] contractor to bring down this massive firm.
[58:04] More outlandish theories even suggest that the firm was taken
[58:07] out by a state actor, though the reasoning for this is unclear.
[58:14] These theories have essentially gained significant traction
[58:17] because they're interesting. However, the intentional glitch
[58:21] theory remains firmly in the realm of speculation.
[58:25] Most experts agree that Knight's own internal errors lit the
[58:29] fuse, and once the bomb went off, natural market forces did
[58:33] the rest. In essence, the real mystery is
[58:37] why there were no meaningful safeguards to prevent this
[58:40] event, a question which will likely never be answered.
[58:46] For more than 30 years after 1930, a lone woman would slip
[58:50] into a quiet Greenwich Village bar every August 6th and order
[58:54] two cocktails. She would raise one glass in a
[58:57] silent toast to her absent companion, then depart, leaving
[59:02] the second drink untouched. The woman was Stella Crater, and
[59:07] the toast was for her missing husband, Judge Joseph
[59:10] Forcecrater, who vanished on a warm summer night in 1930 and
[59:15] never returned. Crater's disappearance shocked
[59:18] the nation and became an instant media sensation.
[59:22] To this day, what happened to Judge Crater remains one of
[59:26] America's most notorious unsolved mysteries, a true tale
[59:30] of a man who stepped into a taxi and was never seen again.
[59:37] Joseph Force Crater was no ordinary missing person.
[59:40] He was a prominent New York judge and attorney at the height
[59:43] of a successful career. Born in 1889 to Irish immigrant
[59:48] parents in Pennsylvania, Crater climbed the ranks of the legal
[59:52] world through talent and political savvy.
[59:56] He practiced law in Manhattan and became deeply involved with
[59:59] Tammany Hall, the powerful Democratic political machine
[1:00:04] that dominated New York City politics.
[1:00:08] Through his work with Tammany leader Martin Healey, Crater
[1:00:11] earned lucrative court appointments and cultivated
[1:00:14] influential connections. In one notable case in 1929, he
[1:00:19] handled a hotel foreclosure that led to a spectacular profit for
[1:00:23] a well connected buyer, raising eyebrows about insider deal
[1:00:27] making in Crater's circle. By 1930, Crater's loyalty and
[1:00:32] networking paid off Governor Franklin D Roosevelt appointed
[1:00:37] him to fill a vacancy on the New York State Supreme Court, a
[1:00:41] prestigious judgeship, in April of that year.
[1:00:45] At just 41 years old, Crater was considered very young for the
[1:00:49] position and was seen as a rising star in New York's
[1:00:52] judiciary. Backed by both political
[1:00:55] patronage and genuine ability, Justice Crater was even seen as
[1:01:00] someone who may eventually make it on to the Supreme Court one
[1:01:03] day. Despite his marriage to Stella,
[1:01:09] Judge Crater had a reputation as a man about town, and he had no
[1:01:12] problem doing a little bit of pipe fitting work on the side.
[1:01:16] Tall, well dressed, and sociable, he loved the nightlife
[1:01:19] of Jazz Age New York. Friends nicknamed him Good Time
[1:01:23] Joe for his penchant for piano playing, dancing, and mingling
[1:01:28] with showgirls and Broadway speakeasies.
[1:01:30] He moved in both high society and more unsavory circles,
[1:01:34] rubbing elbows with politicians, business magnates and the
[1:01:39] occasional gangster. In the summer of 1930, only
[1:01:45] months after Crater joined the state Supreme Court, trouble was
[1:01:48] brewing in New York's halls of power.
[1:01:51] The Manhattan District Attorney had launched A corruption
[1:01:54] inquiry into Tammany Hall's practice of selling judgeships
[1:01:57] to the highest bidder. Judge Crater appeared
[1:02:00] unperturbed at first, vacationing with Stella at their
[1:02:04] lakeside summer home in Maine. But on August 3rd, 1930, Crater
[1:02:10] received an urgent phone call and abruptly announced to his
[1:02:13] wife that he had to return to the city to straighten things
[1:02:16] out. He promised to be back in Maine
[1:02:19] in time for Stella's birthday on August 9th.
[1:02:22] In reality, instead of immediately tending to any
[1:02:25] official business, Crater detoured to the beach resort of
[1:02:29] Atlantic City with a young showgirl, Sally Lou Ritz, in
[1:02:33] tow. And yeah, since I can't resist a
[1:02:36] good bit of humor, it appears that the good judge was
[1:02:39] straightening certain things out.
[1:02:41] At the very least, this secret jaunt with a chorus girl would
[1:02:46] only come to light later, hinting that Crater had personal
[1:02:50] matters or pleasures occupying his time even as political
[1:02:54] storms gathered. Judge Crater arrived back in
[1:02:58] Manhattan on August 6th, 1930, the last day he was seen alive.
[1:03:04] That morning he went into his chambers at the courthouse and
[1:03:08] spent a couple of hours methodically sorting through his
[1:03:11] files, even reportedly destroying some documents.
[1:03:16] He had his assistant cash 2 checks for him and withdrew the
[1:03:20] modern equivalent of almost $100,000.
[1:03:25] Crater and the assistant then brought 2 locked briefcases from
[1:03:28] his office to his apartment, after which the judge dismissed
[1:03:32] his aid for the day. These actions later struck
[1:03:35] investigators as suspicious, as if Crater were tying up loose
[1:03:39] ends or stashing something important.
[1:03:43] That evening, Judge Crater continued his routine of
[1:03:46] enjoying the town. He purchased a ticket for a new
[1:03:49] Broadway comedy at the Belasco Theater and then headed to
[1:03:53] dinner at Billy Hass's Chop House on West 45th St.
[1:03:57] His dining companions were William Klein, a fellow lawyer
[1:04:01] and friend, and the ever present Sally Lou Ritz, the showgirl
[1:04:05] from his Atlantic City trip. The trio ate, drank and laughed
[1:04:10] together, with Crater reportedly in fine spirits.
[1:04:14] Sometime around 9 that evening, as the group stood outside the
[1:04:18] restaurant, Crater hailed a taxi cab passing by.
[1:04:22] No one would ever definitively see Judge Joseph Crater again.
[1:04:28] At first, no alarm was raised, and when Crater failed to return
[1:04:32] to Maine for Stella's birthday, she grew annoyed but assumed her
[1:04:36] husband's work had delayed him. Crater's colleagues in New York
[1:04:40] also thought little of his absence, believing he was still
[1:04:44] vacationing in Maine. Only after a week passed with no
[1:04:48] word did Stella begin making anxious phone calls to friends
[1:04:52] in the city, searching for any sign of him.
[1:04:55] On August 25th, the New York courts reopened for a new term
[1:04:59] and were notably 1 Judge Short. Crater's fellow justices,
[1:05:04] realizing he was neither in Maine nor at work, initiated
[1:05:07] quiet inquiries into his whereabouts.
[1:05:10] When these discreet efforts turned up nothing, the police
[1:05:14] were finally notified on September 3rd, 1930.
[1:05:20] The story of the missing judge hit the front pages the next
[1:05:23] day, and a frenzy of speculation ensued.
[1:05:27] A massive investigation swung into motion.
[1:05:30] Detectives discovered that Crater's personal safe deposit
[1:05:33] box had been mysteriously emptied, and those two
[1:05:37] briefcases he'd taken home had vanished without a trace.
[1:05:42] These leads went nowhere, however, as tips and alleged
[1:05:45] sightings of the missing judge flooded in from all over.
[1:05:49] In October 1930, a grand jury was impaneled to examine the
[1:05:53] case in exhaustive detail. 95 witnesses were called, and
[1:05:58] nearly 1000 pages of testimony collected.
[1:06:01] The inquiry delved into Crater's bank records, phone calls and
[1:06:06] relationships, trying to piece together a puzzle with precious
[1:06:10] few pieces. Throughout, Stella Crater
[1:06:13] remained in Maine, refusing to face what she considered
[1:06:16] accusatory treatment by authorities and scandal hungry
[1:06:19] newspapers. In January 1931, after months of
[1:06:26] hearings, the grand jury concluded its investigation with
[1:06:29] a frustrating shrug. In short, they couldn't say if
[1:06:33] he was alive or dead, let alone what caused his disappearance.
[1:06:38] In a bizarre twist, just days after the grand jury disbanded,
[1:06:42] Stella Crater made a discovery that only deepened the mystery.
[1:06:47] While cleaning out her husband's dresser back in their New York
[1:06:50] apartment, she found a secret compartment containing 4
[1:06:53] envelopes. Inside were stacks of stocks and
[1:06:57] bonds, checks, life insurance papers and Craters Will, all
[1:07:02] documents that had been missed in prior police searches.
[1:07:06] There was also a handwritten note from Crater himself.
[1:07:10] In it, the judge had listed various debts owed to him and
[1:07:13] included a brief, poignant message to Stella that hinted at
[1:07:17] his despair and ended with a loving goodbye.
[1:07:23] The cash suggested that Crater might have anticipated some
[1:07:26] trouble, but it yielded no concrete clues as to his fate.
[1:07:30] He was officially declared dead in absentia in 1939, allowing
[1:07:35] Stella to collect life insurance.
[1:07:38] Decades later, in 1979, the NYPD finally closed the case without
[1:07:46] resolution. From the moment the story broke
[1:07:50] in 1930, the disappearance of Judge Crater generated a
[1:07:54] whirlwind of theories. Over the years, professional
[1:07:58] investigators and amateur sleuths alike have proposed many
[1:08:02] possible explanations, each as compelling as it is unprovable.
[1:08:07] The tale has all the ingredients of a great mystery, including
[1:08:11] political intrigue, gangsters, showgirls and a man who
[1:08:15] seemingly evaporated into thin air.
[1:08:20] One early theory was that Crater chose to vanish of his own
[1:08:24] accord. It seemed implausible that a man
[1:08:26] of his stature would abandoned his career and wife without a
[1:08:29] word. Yet some pointed to the large
[1:08:33] sum of cash he withdrew and the documents he took as signs of a
[1:08:37] planned getaway. In the years after 1930,
[1:08:42] reported Crater sightings cropped up across the country
[1:08:46] and even overseas, fueling the idea that he might still be
[1:08:50] alive under an assumed identity. Tipsters claimed to have seen a
[1:08:54] man resembling Crater in far-flung locales ranging from
[1:08:57] rural Canada to the South Pacific.
[1:09:01] Carnival workers, gold prospectors, and even a man in
[1:09:05] the French Foreign Legion were rumored to be the missing judge
[1:09:08] in disguise. Another theory suggested Crater
[1:09:13] met with an accidental death that was then covered up.
[1:09:17] For example, lurid rumors hinted he might have suffered a heart
[1:09:20] attack in the company of a lady of the night, and any witnesses
[1:09:24] disposed of the body rather than face scandal.
[1:09:28] After all, Crater was known for enjoying good times, so this
[1:09:32] didn't seem too unlikely. Given Judge Crater's ties to
[1:09:38] Tammany Hall and the timing of his disappearance, many have
[1:09:42] suspected that political corruption was at the heart of
[1:09:44] this mystery. Crater had been a cog in
[1:09:48] Tammany's powerful machine, and he literally owed his judgeship
[1:09:52] to their influence. He likely knew about the murky
[1:09:55] transactions involved in buying and selling public offices.
[1:09:59] In mid 1930, a state investigation was zeroing in on
[1:10:04] Tammany's judicial corruption, and Crater's mentor, Martin
[1:10:08] Healey, was under scrutiny. The theory goes that Crater
[1:10:12] might have been ready to talk, or at least that others feared
[1:10:15] he would talk. Eliminating the judge could have
[1:10:18] been a convenient way for higher ups to protect themselves.
[1:10:22] Some even whispered of a connection to Franklin D
[1:10:25] Roosevelt, who was then New York's governor and had
[1:10:28] presidential ambitions. The logic being that if a
[1:10:33] scandal about selling judgeships blew up, it could tarnish
[1:10:36] Roosevelt on the national stage. Notably, years later, foes of
[1:10:42] Roosevelt would insinuate that FDR's allies knew more about
[1:10:45] Crater's fate, darkly suggesting that he knew where the body was.
[1:10:51] While there's no proof of any connection to Tammany Hall, this
[1:10:55] powerful and corrupt organization had benefited from
[1:10:58] extrajudicial usage of force in the past.
[1:11:03] Closely intertwined with the political angle is the
[1:11:06] possibility that organized crime figures played a role.
[1:11:10] New York's underworld and its political world were often two
[1:11:14] sides of the same coin in that era.
[1:11:17] Judge Crater was known to enjoy late nights in the city's clubs
[1:11:21] and had rubbed shoulders with some infamous characters.
[1:11:25] He was friendly with Irish gangster Jack Diamond and
[1:11:28] distraught over the 1928 slaying of his acquaintance Arnold
[1:11:31] Rothstein. Such connections have long fed
[1:11:35] the theory that Crater knew too much about the criminal
[1:11:38] underbelly of the city. Perhaps he stumbled into
[1:11:41] information that made him a liability, or perhaps someone in
[1:11:45] the mob felt the judge hadn't delivered on a promise.
[1:11:50] Another set of theories suggests that he was blackmailed by
[1:11:53] someone he was having an affair with or a woman of whom he was a
[1:11:57] regular client. Under this theory, he had
[1:12:00] routinely been paying off large amounts of hush money to this
[1:12:03] woman in exchange for her silence.
[1:12:06] However, it's speculated that the last payment was
[1:12:09] insufficient and she had a local gangster take him out.
[1:12:13] Personally, I don't find this narrative to be incredibly
[1:12:16] compelling since if it's true, she permanently cut off the
[1:12:21] source of her extortion. After all, he was a politically
[1:12:25] well connected judge and he would have further money or
[1:12:29] influence to extort in the future.
[1:12:32] Simply put, I think this is likely just a lurid theory that
[1:12:35] was drummed up to sell newspapers back in the day.
[1:12:40] For decades, the mystery of Judge Crater remained stubbornly
[1:12:44] unsolved until a stunning potential clue emerged 75 years
[1:12:48] later. In August 2005, New York
[1:12:52] authorities announced they had obtained new evidence in the
[1:12:55] cold case, a handwritten letter left by a 91 year old widow
[1:13:00] named Stella Ferrucci Goode. This woman had been the wife of
[1:13:05] a detective, and in a letter opened after she had perished,
[1:13:09] she revealed an explosive story her husband had allegedly told
[1:13:13] her. According to Ferrucci Goode's
[1:13:15] letter, Judge Crater had indeed been slain back in 1930, not by
[1:13:21] mobsters or jilted lovers, but by two men, one of them who wore
[1:13:26] a badge. The letter named a New York City
[1:13:29] police officer, Charles Burns, and his brother Frank, who
[1:13:33] happened to be a cab driver. On the night of August 6th,
[1:13:39] 1930, the story went, the Burns brothers somehow intercepted
[1:13:43] Crater. They eliminated the judge and
[1:13:47] then buried his body under the Coney Island boardwalk in
[1:13:50] Brooklyn. Incredibly, the letter also tied
[1:13:54] Charles Burns to other violence of the era.
[1:13:59] Investigators in 2005 were initially intrigued, and they
[1:14:03] noted the area mentioned, W 8th St. on Coney Island, now the
[1:14:08] site of the New York Aquarium, had indeed been excavated during
[1:14:12] construction in the 1950s. And actually, let me just jump
[1:14:19] in here for a second, since as I was doing the editing on this
[1:14:22] video, I realized something. Coney Island isn't an actual
[1:14:26] island anymore, and hasn't been one for well over a century when
[1:14:30] an engineering project connected it to Brooklyn.
[1:14:35] Anyway, if a skeleton had been found, then, it was never
[1:14:39] reported. Police records showed no such
[1:14:42] discovery, and a preliminary check of municipal works didn't
[1:14:46] turn up any bones either. This late breaking confession
[1:14:50] left more questions than answers.
[1:14:53] No one could say if the detective's tale was true or if
[1:14:57] it was just a fanciful story that he told to his wife.
[1:15:01] Since Stella had already passed away by the time the letter was
[1:15:04] opened, there was no opportunity to question her about the
[1:15:08] contents of the letter further. Yet the evidence is hearsay from
[1:15:13] a person who isn't even alive, giving evidence about a supposed
[1:15:17] conversation with another person who also isn't alive.
[1:15:22] This is, of course, extremely problematic, as aside from
[1:15:25] confirming that her husband was indeed a police officer, nothing
[1:15:29] else could be known for certain. Stella herself could have simply
[1:15:33] been an avid follower of the case with a bit of a sick sense
[1:15:36] of humor, looking to insert herself into the investigation
[1:15:40] from beyond the grave. And if that was her intent,
[1:15:44] well, then she definitely succeeded.
[1:15:49] At any rate, no physical evidence was recovered to
[1:15:52] substantiate the claim, and skeptics pointed out
[1:15:55] inconsistencies in the years following Crater's
[1:16:00] disappearance. His name became a punch line and
[1:16:03] a piece of Americana, even as his wife quietly kept her vow to
[1:16:07] never forget him. The very phrase to pull a crater
[1:16:11] entered the lexicon as slang for vanishing without a trace, and
[1:16:17] from my research, it looks as though this phrase would have
[1:16:19] essentially been used in the same way we use the phrase
[1:16:22] ghosting today. Whatever the case, Justice
[1:16:27] Crater's disappearance likely remains such a popular unsolved
[1:16:31] mystery because there are so many possibilities as to what
[1:16:35] happened. Further, some of these
[1:16:37] possibilities credibly intersect with big names in both New York
[1:16:41] history and American history.

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