November 19, 2025 • 51 mins
Nearly half of homicide cases go unsolved in the US, and in today's episode, the boys try and get to the bottom of why that is. Joining NO SUCH THING this week are criminologist Dr. Brian Forst and homicide detective Chris McDonough. After learning about the importance of "community policing," Manny makes Noah and Devan concoct plans to whack each other, and presents said plans to the detective to see if they might get away with it.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, Manny here from No Such Thing. We are
so excited to share that No Such Thing was named
one of Apple Podcasts Best Shows of twenty twenty five.
If you've already been listening, thank you so much for
being a part of the No Such Thing community, and
definitely keep emailing us. We love chatting with you all.
If you're new to No Such Thing, do yourself a
favor and go through our catalog because none of it
(00:22):
is outdated. Each episode is a banger, so be sure
to go check that out. After that, make sure you
check out the full best of twenty twenty five collection
in the Apple Podcast app, and finally, enjoy this week's episode.
I'm Manny, I'm Noah, this is Devin, and this is
No Such Thing, the show where we settle our dumb
arguments and yours by actually doing the research. On today's episode,
(00:46):
we're gonna find out how easy it is to get
away with murder. I'm going to talk to a criminologist,
and then I'm gonna have Devin and Noah present their
plans to kill each other to a former detective.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
So that's that's my plan. What are your initial reactions there?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Well, first of all, it's messed up.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
But yeah, there's no such thing, no such thing, no
such thing, such thing, no such thing.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
All right, Fellas, I was watching some stand up recently
and I came across something that has to do with
this episode. So I want to play this clip for you.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
On Cold Case Files, they solve old murders, and it's
really interesting because what I learned from it is that
it was really easy to get away with murder before
they knew about DNA. It was ridiculously easy. Like what
was even going on back then? What was a murder investigation?
Like in nineteen thirty five, One cop would just walk
in and be like, detective, we found a pool of
(01:53):
the killer's blood in that hallway.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
He would just be like, hmmm, gross.
Speaker 6 (01:59):
Mapaa.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So I think part of what makes this funny is
that it has to be true, right Like back then,
before the advent of forensic or scientific investigation, these crime
scenes were littered with so much information telling you who
exactly the killer was, but they just could do nothing
about it. Obviously, it's been a very long time since
(02:22):
the setting of John Mulaney's joke, but it made me
think about the current state of criminology, Like what the
current status of that field is. And I did a
tiny bit of research. According to a report from the
New York Times, and despite all of the technological advancements
we've made since the thirties or whatever, nearly half of
(02:45):
all murders go unsolved.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Half.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, I want to get your guys a reaction to this.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Two that's pretty good odds.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Basically, if you commit a murder. I don't think statistics
works exactly like this, but if you commit a murder,
you have about a fifty percent chance of getting away
with it.
Speaker 7 (03:04):
That's pretty insane.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, and that's that's the United States, that's in America.
Speaker 8 (03:08):
Yes, especially considering how many people we have god damn prisons,
you know, not enough murderers apparently.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, let's change the quote is a little.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And what surprises me too, is that we know that
the homicide rate in the past thirty years or whatever
has gone gone down.
Speaker 7 (03:26):
They're gonna make it easier to solve murders. There's less of.
Speaker 8 (03:28):
Them happening, right, Yeah, that's a good point. There's less
stuff for them to do, so you think you'd be
more focused. Yeah, you know, I used to have one hundred.
Now we've got ten.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, I mean I wonder what the type of murders
that do happen are like in our head, and what
we're going to discuss later is more of these premeditated
schemes versus like I imagine most murders are more just like, yeah,
we're fighting at a moment, I'm gonna shoot you or something,
or like a robbery, something like yeah, domestic thing or
just like more either crimes of passion or just like
you know, exactly where immediate. That's what I'm just mean,
(04:01):
way easier to solve than like, right, you know, some mastermind.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Before reading the stat I would have thought that the
vast majority of murders would have one clear suspect and
then it would be easy to solve this. Yeah, I've thought, like,
the reason we don't really have serial killers today is
because of these kind of technological advancements in in forensics studies,
where yeah, if you kill like ten people, it's way
(04:25):
easier to figure out who you are than it was
in the seventies or whatever. But I'm surprised to hear
that that's not really been the case for your regular
run of the mill murders.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I mean, it's amazing, like I was reading about the
BTK killer kind of recently, you know, brushing up, and
it's like amazing. It's like this guy's killing a lot
of people, taking photographs all this stuff. Then he has
like his normal family life, and he basically got caught
because he was like essentially taunting the police by sending
them letters. And then like, I think he got caught
(04:55):
because he sent a flop He like asked the FBI
or someone like, would you guys be able to trace
me if I sent you a floppy disc? And they
were like no, And then he set the floppy disk
and it had like his logging for like his it
was like from his church computer something, and it's like,
if you just shut up, no one would have found
like maybe after you died they would have discovered something,
but yeah, you would have been fine. So he really could.
(05:15):
I think he blew it to be frank, he.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Was generational and bust.
Speaker 7 (05:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Well, I want to ask you guys two questions. The
first one has to do with this stat that nearly
half of murders go unsolved. Just curious, like what your guys'
take on why this might be without having done any research.
We're gonna we're gonna talk to someone who knows why,
but I want to get your thoughts.
Speaker 8 (05:36):
My initial reaction is the people who are murdered and
their murders aren't solved, are.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Poor people m not enough importance on the case. It's
so the.
Speaker 8 (05:47):
Cops don't care and resources really aren't put towards finding
because it's like, hey, you know, it's it's poor people
killing poor people.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
It doesn't affect us that their own thing.
Speaker 8 (06:01):
If something happens within that community, whatever, Yeah, it's sort of.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
Like it's not as important.
Speaker 8 (06:08):
And then I think there's the community has a distrust
for the police in those communities because of their lack
of actually helping. So I think people are less willing
to work with the police.
Speaker 7 (06:20):
In those communities.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That's a good hypothesis because I do remember a couple
of years ago the kind of national news about Gabby Petito.
Speaker 7 (06:28):
Do you realize yes, yes, so she.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Was kind of kidnapped, taken across the country by her boyfriend,
eventually murdered, and it just ended up being this like
kind of national news that a lot of people responded
to this by saying, well, you know, there are a
bunch of kind of poor black or brown victims where
the exact same thing is happening, but it doesn't get
treated the same way. So I could I could imagine
(06:50):
if if that's true, that might also be true within
the police departments, where they just have like a certain
level of apathy.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I guess to Devin's point, it's like there is like
that Long Island Beach killer and he's killing like sex workers.
So it's like these are people who probably maybe don't
even have a family. No one's looking for them, Yeah
they are gone, and then he seems like kind of
a weirdo loner gut like those things magic, it's like, yeah,
the victim's not high profile, or it becomes one, then
(07:18):
no one's looking, and then it's kind of like, well,
why are we going to spend all of our time
on this when there's other things going on or yeah,
what have you?
Speaker 9 (07:26):
So?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And then that's even in New York. It's like, imagine
more rural areas. In four areas, it's like it's only
gonna yeah, so you could easily see someone goes missing
and it's just not that much pressure if there's not
this kind of ground swell of attention.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Right, Yeah, but I've got another question for you guys.
When I read this stat I don't want to say
I'm like built different or anything, but I just felt like, Okay,
most people committing a murder are probably driven by something specific,
know the person, there's some kind of animosity. But I wonder, like,
(08:04):
if you know the three of us are relatively smart,
do you think you could get away with murder if
you really put your mind to it, if you sat
down and concocted a plant that you felt like would
elude police? Or do you feel like it's twenty twenty five.
They've got cameras everywhere, They've got the craziest technology you
(08:26):
can imagine. You're not getting away with it.
Speaker 7 (08:29):
No, you don't think you get away with it.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I mean, we'll see what the cop says later. But
in terms of why not, In terms of I just
think I don't have confidence in one my ability to
clean up after myself. Mm, like there would just be
something some way to trace me, Like, yeah, I wouldn't
be able to go deep enough. I don't think into
like being so careful about covering my steps both before
and after and as soon as I if I was
(08:53):
interrogated as a suspect, you'd fold even if I wasn't
a suspect, but if they were just talking to me like, oh,
you know this, you know this person, right? Like, I
think I would just I don't think I would be
I don't think i'd immediately confessed, but I think i'd
give enough signs that'd be like, let's talk to this
guy for maybe ten more hours, yeah, and then I'd
be like, yeah, yeah, maybe it was Actually I think
(09:14):
I would give in. I think I think it would close.
It would very quickly occur to me like I'll probably
just be better off if I'm good, and maybe I
can get out and see the sunlight one day.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
What about you, Devin, how do you feel?
Speaker 7 (09:27):
See?
Speaker 8 (09:27):
My thought on this is I do think I could
get a way with it. But that's also the same
reason I think I could get away with it is
the same reason why I wouldn't commit a murder.
Speaker 7 (09:36):
You know, I feel like I'm.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
No.
Speaker 8 (09:39):
I feel like we talk about this all the time
anytime there's a big murder case and someone gets caught
and you're like, why the hell did you do that?
Or what the hell is that happening? And I think
we forget these people are not in the right state
of mind this person they have decided to murder someone else,
So it's not like they're thinking in some ways. They're
thinking really logically. You're like, wow, you really planning this
(10:01):
cart out? And then they do something really dumb and
you're like why, you know, why do you still have
the gun? Like what why would you go and sit
down and eat out of McDonald's when you're on you know,
like things like that. So I feel like, planning wise,
I think I would be able to think through a
lot of stuff, right, But I think me as a person,
(10:22):
I think I would fall apart emotionally having killed a person.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
You would be able to live with the guilt.
Speaker 8 (10:28):
It would be tough to kill a person, you know.
I think it would be like, I've never been in
a fight. To go from never being in like a
true fist fight to killing a person is quite a nicey.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
That's why you'd be good because no one would suspect you.
WHOA yeah, he snapped.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Well, we're going to put these these hypotheses to the test.
We're going to talk to a former detective and I'm
going to have the two of you concoct a plan
to kill each other. We're going to present this these
plans to a former detective, just so that he could
poke holes in them figure out where you went wrong.
(11:08):
Or maybe he'll hear your plan and be like, actually,
that's that would be really difficult for.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Me to end up on a watch list.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, and then we will not be allowed to leave
the studio. But before we get to the former detective,
I think it's worth talking to a criminologist about this
stat that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode
about how half of murders go unsolved. What really could
be leading to the decrease of murder clearance rates, especially
because homicide rates have been on the fall for a
(11:35):
long time now, despite what you hear on Fox News.
But that's after the break. Okay, we're back. I'm Manny,
I'm Noah, and we were just discussing the stat where
fifty or nearly fifty percent of murder cases go unsolved.
(11:59):
It's time now to talk to a criminologist who might
have some insights for us. When I was looking for
a criminologist, I wanted to pick someone who's been doing
this for decades, like a really long time, so be
able to to really pinpoint the kind of movements in
this field, the developments, and you guys might like to
hear this. He is a professor at the American University
(12:20):
Fellow Eagle where the two of you graduated.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Once.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Always that's beautiful, We always say that that's lad to
ask him, that's just a little touch.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So you know what we said. So here's doctor Brian
Forrest from Washington, d C. Hi.
Speaker 9 (12:41):
My name is Brian Forrest. I'm a professor emeritus of Justice,
Law and Criminology at American University in the School of
Public Affairs, and I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
We're just gonna skip straight to the main question. Why
are there so many unsolved murders in the US today,
despite the facts that the murder rate has crashed since
the nineteen nineties. Doctor Forest said it has a lot
to do with what he calls community policing.
Speaker 9 (13:14):
What happened to community policing? Whatever happened to community policing.
The tragedy of the last twenty years or so has
been that policing has descended from the model that was
created in eighteen twenty nine by Sir Robert Peel, who
was the creator of the London Metropolitan Police Service, which
(13:38):
was a revolutionary way. It moved from the night watchmen
to creating police officers as professionals. They were trained to
be members of public. The police are the public, and
the public are the police, according to Robert Peel. And
so the idea was that the police didn't come into
a community as aliens stormtroopers. They came in as servants,
(14:03):
as members of the community who were respectful of the
members of the community, even if those members were not
always in good standings. And it was a model that
was at the heart of community policing movement in America
in the nineteen eighties and nineties. And during that period,
our crime rate went down, homicide rates went way down,
(14:26):
the clearance rates went up. We were trending in the
right direction. So the police really are at the heart
of the problem and the heart of the solution. And
we were moving in the right direction from nineteen ninety
to about the twenty teens, and then all hell broke loose.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
The growing outrage over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
But the shooting of eighteen year old Michael Brown has
opened a wound in the community.
Speaker 8 (14:54):
Shocking dash can video has been released of the fatal
police shooting of Philandel, castile.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
Protesters calling for justice for Breonna Taylor.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Peaceful demonstrations over the death of George Floyd yesterday turned
into violence.
Speaker 9 (15:07):
The policing went south, and it's a real shame. And
the question is can we find ways of returning to
the noble, decent ethic of community policing where the police
see themselves as members and servants of the community, rather
than as better than or entitled to use brutal force
(15:31):
willy nilly, as they are currently being encouraged from the
highest levels.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
What is it exactly about the departure from community policing
that affects the rate at which murders are solved.
Speaker 9 (15:50):
Yeah, there's a great question. It really comes down to
a matter of trust between the citizenry and the police,
and what community policing does is build and when the
police have good contacts within the community, the clergy, school
superintendents and principles and teachers, political war chiefs, they can
(16:13):
have better access to the community. And when they are
encouraged to despise the very idea of community, as we
saw with Sarah Palin a few years ago, you know,
I guess.
Speaker 8 (16:25):
A small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
Except that you have actual responsibilities.
Speaker 9 (16:38):
Police unfortunately brought into more of Sarah Palin's ideas and
less of Robert Peel's ideas of policing as community service.
There's a vicious cycle here. When homicide rates go up,
police resources get overloaded and their ability to solve crimes declinentes,
(16:59):
which only in Olden's the offenders so basically, if it's
easier to get away with crimes, and so they commit more,
which only creates more homicides, more overload of scarce resources,
and so it really is a vicious circle. And like
I say, we have to find ways of breaking it.
And then right now I don't see any on the horizon.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So I think the basic idea here is that if
I were thinking about committing a crime, for example, and
there were good community policing, I would either be less
likely to do it because I have been in contact
with these people I know who they are, or if
I did commit the crime, it would be a lot
easier to pin me as the suspects because of their
(17:41):
relationships with the community. And you know, you might be like,
hey man, he's in a bad way. Like point me
to where he is or whatever, and they'll come find me.
Whereas today there's such a distrust in policing that you'd
be shocked to hear of like regular citizens in some
cities in the US, like helping the police do something.
Speaker 8 (17:59):
I think people are a bit skeptical of community policing nowadays,
just because like the way that the system is set up,
it does not encourage the ideal version of it. But
I can see in a world in which your only
interactions with police are not them you getting in trouble
with them. If they understand the dynamics of the neighborhood.
(18:21):
Say me and Noah hate each other. If Noah's one day,
they may know.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I know you haven't, or just because they're familiar talk
with him, or they would at least have good enough
relationships with people around could be able to tell them that.
Speaker 8 (18:38):
But who was the last person you got an argument with? Yes,
and that sort of thing. You're not starting from zero.
Where this is a lot of criticism of the New
York Police Department in the city is that New York
City Police Department is that a lot of the police
officers live.
Speaker 7 (18:52):
On Long Island, so the.
Speaker 8 (18:58):
Area they're not they're working in areas that they don't
visit out so different and they don't live, say, they
don't have the familiarity with the community. They're just like
driving in, you know, putting on a uniform, standing in
a corner playing candy Crush, and then getting calls to
you know, arrest people or confront people. They're not like
(19:18):
walking around and be like hey miss.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, yeah, and then then use stories. And it's not
just like in cities. It's like people call. I think
there was one last week where you know, people call
the police for some other reason than they end up
getting shot or ye arrested or whatever for for another reason.
And it's like, well, yeah, I mean enough of those.
It's like, yeah, at least hesitate. If it's something where
it's not like an immediate danger, I might be like, yeah,
(19:44):
maybe I'm not going to call the copsle Yeah, they
try to sort a shout or call someone else.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah. So we learned a lot from the criminologist and
about community policing and how important it is. But now
I think it's time to bring in someone who has
some on the ground experience with actually solving homicide cases.
(20:12):
So joining us now is Chris McDonough. Would you mind
introducing yourself, Chris.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Well, thanks for the invite. My name is Chris McDonough.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
I'm a retired homicide guy. I'm also a director currently
with the Cold Case Foundation, and I still have a
job where I work with indigenous people and I investigate
crime still. So I'm kind of a fossil who will
not stop working. Forty two years in the business.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Wow, forty two years. Well, it's good to give me.
Great to talk to you, thenk since you have so
much experience, We've had this kind of question about this
stat that we read recently that nearly fifty percent of
murder cases go unsolved today. That is a decrease than
the rate was in the nineteen nineties, where it was
closer to sixty five to sixty nine. I'm just curious
(21:01):
about your on the ground experience working on homicide cases,
working on solving them in the past few decades. Why
you think that stat is so high.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
You know, it's an interesting question, and it's obviously a
disturbing statistic, right because every human life counts. It doesn't
matter what, when, way, or why. I think there are
going to be a couple of contributing factors. The first
one is we have these new investigators for lack of
a better term, who depend on technology. Okay, so I
(21:44):
think there's a shifting in terms of investigators losing the
ability to have critical thinking skills because they're not recognizing
if Google didn't say it or the lab didn't say it,
then how do I say it? How do I get
to the answer?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (22:04):
That's very problematic. If you're working south central Los Angeles
and you go into Compton and you don't have the
ability to respect people and or have the ability to communicate,
they end up putting up barriers, for lack of a
better term, even before they get to the scene because
(22:25):
they're thinking one way, well, if we get forensics evidence, okay,
that will solve the crime. And if they forget the
fundamental piece of human interaction is to do what we're
doing right now. Sitting here, We're going to have a conversation.
It may be uncomfortable for either one of us. It
(22:47):
doesn't matter. The point being is we have the ability
to communicate.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Or my time, we.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Didn't have what was DNA right? I started in nineteen
eighty two. What was DNA right?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
What's that my generation.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
Used to ring doorbells and kiss babies and shake hands
and shit with families while they cried and screamed and shouted.
And then you always get that one dude on the
side that says, hey, can I tell you someuntain of
the off the record, And you see, yeah, sure, what's up?
And you listen and the next thing you know that
(23:25):
that takes you to another place.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
How would you go about trying to fix this and
remedy this so that we could get back to a
place where police officers are in these communities and there
isn't a lot of animosity between the police departments in
their local communities.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
I mean, I can tell you a story. I won't
drop his street name, but he was a main street crip. Okay,
this guy's like hardcourt. Okay, he's out there swinging dope.
He's doing the whole game.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
I stopped him one night and he had his kid
in the back seat of his car. And I looked
in the back seat and I see this four year
old kid sitting on the seat and this is going
to answer your question, I hope. And I looked at
him and I said, dude, I know you're out here
slinging dope.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
You got to do what you got to do right.
Speaker 6 (24:16):
In some communities, you go to do what you have
to do to survive.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
So I said to him, I said, okay, where's your dope?
Speaker 6 (24:25):
And he kind of messed around a little bit and
he finally shows me his dope and I said, okay,
get out of the car and dump it.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
He says, what do you mean? I said, get out
of the car and don't dump you dope and step
on it. Crush it.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
They were all little rocks, right, so he crushes it.
I said, okay, you owe me. Now what I want
you to do at ten o'clock in the morning is
you're going to meet me at kmart And he goes
why I said, no, you owe me. He said, okay,
sure enough, ten am shows up. True story. WI walk
(25:00):
him into the store. I said, grab a car seat.
He goes, what do you mean? I said, pick a
car seat, and he gets one. We get the car sheet.
I take it out to his car. I said, put
it in, and I looked at him. I said, you
have a chance in life, but that four year old
does not until you give it to him. And you
(25:20):
driving around slinging dope with a four year old not
strapped in the back.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Sheet is not a good look. Okay.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Now, twenty three years later, my phone rings and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Who is it?
Speaker 6 (25:36):
He goes, Yo, he says mc They used to call
him McDuff. They could never pronounce my last name. This
is McDonough, so on the street it was always hey McDuff. Right,
I said, dude, how'd you get my number? Man, I've
been retired and all this other stuff. He's like, there's
waste today McDuff. I said, okay, cool, I said, I said,
(25:57):
what's up? And he goes, I want to invite you
to my son's graduation from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.
I was like blown away, okay, and then he says,
true story, I did it.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
I said, yeah, you did. You broke it, man, you
broke the cycle. So that.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
You can't invent that. Does that make sense? Studies can't
make that happen. That trust only comes when you give it.
Am I serving somebody? Or am I just managing a system?
And when you figure out it's about not always putting
handcuffs on people, It's about hearing their story and saying okay,
(26:43):
I see where you're coming from. You dump the dope,
and that's old school police work.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
After the break, it's the moment you've all been waiting for.
Devin and Noah present their plans to kill each other
to a detective. Before we get back to this week's episode,
(27:26):
we got a lot of feedback about last week's episode
answering all of your questions about laundry. Somehow we didn't
answer everything. One listener, Monica, asked about items that are
labeled dry clean only. We touched on dry cleaning briefly
when it comes to suits, but she wanted to know
if we can wash other items with this label on
(27:46):
our own. The laundry expert Patrick said yes, he takes
quote dry clean only to mean essentially wash with caution.
For more on this and other questions, including a bit
of controversy around the alleged health impacts of fabric softeners,
check out this week's edition of our newsletter at no
Such Thing Dot Show. Now back to this week's episode, So, Chris,
(28:14):
in order to get a better understanding of this kind
of old school police work, I thought it'd be interesting
to see it play out in real time, and so
what I've done is I've had Noah and Devin come
up with plans to off each other, so to speak,
and I'd love for you, as a former detective, to
essentially grade them. You might be able to be like, Okay,
(28:35):
these guys are idiots. They'd get caught in a heartbeat.
And so we'll start with uh, we'll start with Noah. Okay,
So Noah's gonna present his plan, and as he's talking,
you feel free to ask him questions about what he
would do here and there.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, feel free to jump in.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Let me let me grab a hand, real feished?
Speaker 7 (28:53):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Great, you need a lot of notes?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
All right, all right, ready, all right, hit may So
first of all, I'm gonna take my time with this thing.
I'm not rushing into.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
This, Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
So first, once I decide I'm gonna kill Devin, I'm
gonna with cash buy a laptop that's gonna be my
burner laptop, and I'm only gonna use it out and
you know, not in my home, not on my Wi Fi.
And I'm gonna use VPNs and I'm gonna use tour
dark web browsing.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Okay, got it so dark hopefully.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah. So then I was thinking, all right, I was like,
what do I know about Devin. I know he loves tea.
He drinks tea every day most you know, I think
three at least three cups. Yeah, I'm gonna make tea
poisoned tea. I was on my computer, my lap, my burner, laptop.
I'll be researching what types of flowers are poisonous. There's like,
(29:48):
you know, night shade. There's the leave of the Valley
for all the breaking bad heads out there, So I'll
procure these. At some point, I'm gonna kind of get
invited to Evan's apartment, maybe a movie night or something,
one on one hopefully so there's no one else around, okay,
or you know, wait till everyone's distracted, you go to
(30:08):
the bathroom or something. So I'm thinking I'll put I'll
throw gloves on real quick while you're in the bathroom,
sneak over, take my poison to out, put it back in,
seal it up nice hopefully, and then just sit and wait,
because you know, it might be a while before you
even get to my poisoned t bags. I'm hoping there's
some time passing so it's not like, oh yeah, no,
it was over for movie night and then the next day,
(30:30):
your stomach's exploding. Who knows what's happening. So that's that's
my plan. What do you What are your initial reactions there?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Well, first of all, it's messed up.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
But yeah, listen, I didn't enjoy doing this at all,
but I had to. You know, I'm trying to get
his stake in the podcast.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Very intricately thought out.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
Now, the interesting thing about poison is about ninety percent
of women will use poison as a weapon of choice,
ten percent of men. So you automatically would fit into
a rare category of homicide suspects.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
That's number one.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I have a question, because it's poison, would you then
be looking for all the women in Devin's circle first.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
Yes and no, And we'd have to see what the
environments are for you know, where Devon was living, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Are you married Devon? Can I? Maybe I should know?
Speaker 7 (31:28):
I'm not married?
Speaker 6 (31:29):
Okay, Yeah, So he's out there in the world and
he's probably got girls around him and that kind of stuff.
But that's going to be pretty quick to eliminate that
situation because you're.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
In that core, you're in the middle.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
Okay, we want to eliminate that medal first and then
work our way out all the ideas of going ghost
on you know, the digital footprint, etc.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Like that, that's not going to be real problem.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
There's some very serious software out there that the FEDS have,
and so we would collect your data, send.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
It back to the FBI and see if.
Speaker 6 (32:08):
They can rediscover some of those sites that you visited.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Quick question, so does going on those kind of VPNs
or tour browsers doesn't necessarily protect you from police activities?
Speaker 6 (32:21):
Now there are ways of making it all go away,
of course, but that's really you know, you've got to
hammer the hard drive or you've got to bleach it
and all this other stuff, right, But the fact that
he chose poisoning, okay, gives me the advantage. So it's
very rare for a guy to poison one of his friends.
(32:43):
So immediately I would want to know what your orientation
is in terms of if there's an attraction and that
went sideways, you know, not throwing my man Devin under
the bus for a second. But let's say the autops
comes back and says, hey, this is a poisoning. So
(33:04):
what I would do is I would interview all of
Devon's circle of influence the folks around him, and there's
what they call a victim risk continuum. It would say environment, situation, circumstance. Okay, low, medium.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Or high.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
So the question is what's the environment. Well, that's where
Devon was found. If it's his apartment, is that a low,
medium or high risk environment?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
What do you guys think.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
In your apartment would be a low risk I guess.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
Yeah exactly because if it was like down you know,
at times square at two o'clock in the morning. Yeah, right,
that Now that shifts a lot of happening, right, And
so what's the situation right you would go, oh, he's
hanging out with friends, you know, kicking it here, watching TV,
et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Is that a low higher medium risk activity?
Speaker 9 (33:55):
Right?
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Again, it goes to that low side. So everything in this.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
Murderer that Noah has planned here tells us it hits
on the low side.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Of the victim risk continuum.
Speaker 6 (34:08):
So statistically, the lower it shows up, the higher probability
he was a selected target.
Speaker 7 (34:15):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
So my first question to Noah would have been, Noah,
do you know why we're here today?
Speaker 2 (34:24):
No? No, no, sir, yeah, no worries, no worries.
Speaker 6 (34:28):
Many, tell me a little bit about your life.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Oh, I'm a podcaster. I do a show with two
living friends of mine, Devin and Manny.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I see them once a week, usually in the studio
when recording. And that's that's about it. Though, have a wife?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Cool? Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Connecticut?
Speaker 6 (34:50):
What I'm doing is I'm asking him questions that I
already know I'm going to get the answers to. Do
you know why we live three lives. It's our public,
our private life, and our secret life. Like that, our
secret life is where murder then all this other stuff
(35:12):
takes place.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
So my line of questioning for the very first question
to him was you know why you're here to see
how he's going to answer. And what he did is
he answered me and what persona public persona? Of course
I already knew that, okay, So I threw him a
bait question to see if he was going to say,
(35:37):
does this have anything to do with Devon.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Or anything like that?
Speaker 6 (35:41):
Well, so the answer is no, okay, So he didn't
even take me to his private life. His private life
is where Devon and he are buds. And so what
he's doing is he's projecting this persona that he wants
me to hear. So what I would do is I
would take him down this road of no problem. Let's
(36:04):
stay there, okay. And then when they start lying, hey,
they're covering their secret life, and it becomes very difficult
to do that because you can't always remember your lodge, okay.
And so eventually we would circle back to well, tell
me a little bit about Devon and his life. That's
(36:25):
what they call victimology, and we would dive into Devon
from what Noah may know about Devon.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Maybe at that point we'll say, you know, you want
a bag of chips, you want a coke, you want
a cheeseburger, you know, let's take a break.
Speaker 7 (36:38):
You know, good?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
And you know what I mean, right.
Speaker 6 (36:42):
Yeah, And I would ask you to take a sip
out of your coffee cup there, okay, And then I
would say, let me go get you a coke, or
let me go fill up your cup or something. Take
your cup and go out and hit it with a buckle, swab,
get your DNA that Coca cola and yeah, and then
(37:06):
come back in and hand you your cup back and sale,
all good, bro, Let's.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Keep So I'm curious that and that's perfectly legal to do,
to just get a swab of someone's uh, personal items
in the interrogation room.
Speaker 6 (37:20):
Yeah if if for an example, those were our coffee cups.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Right, Let's see, we.
Speaker 6 (37:24):
Walk in, she wants something to drink, she absolutely and you.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Hand him a coffee cup. If if he hits it, okay,
it's mine.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah. So basically with with Noah's playing here, just this
kind of circle back, it sounds like a low success
rate playing and to be fair to know what he
did say, he did say before we started here that
he didn't think he would be able to get away
with this.
Speaker 7 (37:53):
I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I'm not going to do it. I've been scared.
Speaker 7 (37:58):
Now, yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Was super fascinating. I've learned a lot in just that
small amount of time. So now let's let's go over
to Devin's plan to do the same thing to know,
uh and see what you might be able to glean
from this.
Speaker 8 (38:11):
My plan is a little bit more straightforward than Noah's.
Speaker 7 (38:17):
We're gonna have a.
Speaker 8 (38:17):
Boys weekend upstate, okay, and we're gonna invite Max too,
you know.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Okay, there's four of us.
Speaker 8 (38:25):
Four of us strategically because I need Manny and Max
to drive up together, and no I'm I'm gonna pick
up Noah.
Speaker 7 (38:34):
We're gonna have a great weekend planned.
Speaker 8 (38:36):
We're gonna stay for two or three days, and I'm
gonna have an event plan on the last day.
Speaker 7 (38:41):
So we're gonna be driving back when it's dark.
Speaker 8 (38:45):
Okay, I'm gonna purposely leave something in my back seat,
so many Manny and Max are gonna be driving back together.
Speaker 7 (38:54):
Yeah, me and Noah are gonna be driving back together
in a different car. In different car. You know, it's
a state. The roads are pretty dark.
Speaker 8 (39:01):
At one point, I'm going to say, hey, no you
mind reaching in the back and grabbing me. Let's say
get my bag for me. I have something in my bag,
some gum or something I want. As Noah takes off
his seatbelt to go in the back, I'm going to
crash the car.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Wow, as a bold one.
Speaker 7 (39:23):
I'm gonna have my seatbelt on.
Speaker 8 (39:25):
I'm going to try to crash it in the way
that I'm going to try to hit Noah head on
on his side. He is now not buckled into his
seat at all, right, and I'm going to go for it. Hey,
if I'm going to murder someone. I've got to take
a little bit of a I'm gonna end up a
little bit hurt. But I think that's I think that
helps with my alibi of like, why would I purposely
(39:46):
crash my car?
Speaker 2 (39:47):
You know a really bad guy?
Speaker 7 (39:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (39:50):
So yeah, my plan is to get into a car,
crash at a strategic time where Noah is not buckled in,
and crash into a tree on his side of the Okay.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
All right, say it. I'm injured, but not fully there.
Would you then like give me a little bludgeon to
finish the job. Like, what if I'm still alive?
Speaker 7 (40:10):
If you're still alive, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
DEVI or would you just be like a horrible accident.
Speaker 8 (40:15):
I'm gonna wait to call the if you're still alive
after and you're laying on the ground, say you're outside
of the car. Yeah, well I'm gonna wait it out. Yeah,
I see how long can I go? Hour or two
hours later? He's still there?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Wow, this kind of happened in Sopranos where they got
in a car accident. I don't want to spoil it.
I mean spoiler, I'll say two characters get in a
car accident. One of them then just plugs the other
one's nose until because then it's kind of hard to tell.
But but Chris, for the sake of simplicity, let's let's
say that Noah is killed in the car crash. He's not.
(40:50):
He's not crawling out of there. That's really interesting though.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
It's a pretty good one.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Let's hear from Chris.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
That is a good one, and.
Speaker 6 (40:59):
It's just as scandalous as so. The first thing is then, obviously,
when the cops or the ambulances or anybody gets on
the scene, are you going to be there.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
At that time?
Speaker 6 (41:15):
Devin, I mean, oh yeah, conscious, yes, I'm there.
Speaker 7 (41:19):
I'm hurt. Maybe even I'm calling the police.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, that's probably smart.
Speaker 8 (41:23):
Maybe I'm rehearsing my voice that I'm going to use
when I call.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
That'd be tough, you know, because they always play those.
Speaker 6 (41:30):
Calls back the Okay, So whatever story you're going to
tell initially is going to be the story we're going
to lock you into, right, Yes, so the very first
words out of your mouth on and that, by the way,
happens when you call nine one one. It doesn't happen
when the cops get there. So the first thing I
(41:50):
would want to do is go listen to the.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Nine to eleven two and here before you talk to me.
Oh yeah, absolutely, because I want to hear. I want
to hear what you say about the car accident and
what happened.
Speaker 9 (42:03):
Now.
Speaker 6 (42:03):
I'm not going to tell you that because I'm going
to own that. Okay, I'm gonna own that in my
own secret life. Okay, I'm say yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So I'm gonna tuck that. I'm gonna tuck that away, okay.
Speaker 6 (42:17):
And so then at some point, if you're okay health wise, right,
you're not hurt in the injury, but Noah's messed up
over there with no seatbelt because he's been launched out
into a tree somewhere, you know, off to the side
of the road. The first thing I would do is
try to get you back at the station. I want
(42:38):
to hear what you have to say about how this
whole thing went down.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
You know what mistake you made? Though?
Speaker 7 (42:44):
Oh so far, what mistake have I made?
Speaker 9 (42:48):
No?
Speaker 7 (42:48):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
You called nine one one?
Speaker 7 (42:52):
Oh I shouldn't call nine one one.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
No, I've got all that phone data with your location.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Oh wait, I.
Speaker 6 (43:02):
Can get a search warrant and pull all of your
phone data on when you were making phone calls and
to who okay, and so what I would do is
lock you into a story for the very first night.
I would say to you, Hey, Devin, after we got
to know each other right and all this other stuff,
(43:24):
I would say, hey, dude, you know, thank you so
much for coming down tonight. I'm so sorry that your
friend Noah passed away. I mean, I can imagine how
you're feeling. How do you feel.
Speaker 8 (43:40):
I just feel like it's all my fault. Obviously I
was the one driving. I feel horrible. I don't know
I'm going to face you know, his dog, his wife
now that I've done this horrible, horrible thing because I
just was not paying attention while I was driving.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
Yeah, that's messed up, my friend. I totally understand. Uh,
just out of curiosity. Where are you going to be
for the next two weeks.
Speaker 8 (44:07):
I'm going to be home. I don't know if I
can work. We obviously we're not recording a podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, I gotta get a guest.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
He's gonna go home. Little does he know, Noah has
already poisoned the tea.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (44:23):
Man of what I've just done by asking that question,
just out of curiosity, what are you going to do
for the next two weeks? I have triggered a stress
mechanism internally for him.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
M okay.
Speaker 6 (44:38):
So now what I've done is I'm putting back on
his heels because I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say, Devin,
thank you so much for coming down here tonight. We
really appreciate it. I'll tell you, what if there's anything
else that you can remember or think of, or something
I didn't ask you, Okay, would you would you do
(44:58):
me a favor and reach back out to me? Is
that okay, Devin?
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Would you do that?
Speaker 7 (45:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Of course, absolutely, Okay, no problem, bro.
Speaker 6 (45:06):
As you can tell, we're going to do a lot
of investigation on this thing, and I'll be in contact
with you.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
But thank you so much. Have a good night.
Speaker 6 (45:13):
Now, what I've done is I've kicked him out of
the door and bought rent space in his head.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Boom.
Speaker 6 (45:20):
Okay, Because now you're going to go home thinking what, Devin.
Speaker 8 (45:25):
Why do they want to talk to me? It's a
simple car crash, you know, like, what are you investigating?
What are you looking into? They must be onto me. M. Yeah, exactly.
Now he's got to be thinking, oh, crap, what did
I miss? You know, what should I have done?
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Differently?
Speaker 6 (45:41):
Show with me leaving that planet. In Devon's mind, the
bigger question for him is what are they doing for
the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Let's say both of these are probably low success rates
in terms of getting away with it. Was there one
plan that was better than the other, that was more feasible?
Speaker 9 (46:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (46:01):
Who's more likely to get away from murder.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
With these plans?
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Uh? I think the car plan would be a lot
tougher to prove.
Speaker 6 (46:10):
I think with Noah choosing poison, that was his mistake, okay,
because that puts him in a whole different category. And
all we would have to do is connect your relationship
between Noah and Devon, and you know that that relationship
would come from Devon's family. I would really spend a
lot of time with your family man and say, hey,
(46:33):
you know, what's his relationship with with Noah or with
this person or that person. And then it would be
a matter of you know, just taking your time and
interviewing people, and then at some point you realize, you
know what we used to call it DLR Okay, don't
look right or doesn't sound right, because we all wear
(46:55):
this mask of this secret life, and so Noah's mask
would fall pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
This has been so fascinating and so fun to listen to.
Before we let you go, just to circle back to
that stat where there's like nearly half of these murder
cases are going on solved. I'm curious in your personal
work before you retired, After you retired, what would you
say the percentage of the murder cases you've worked on
were cleared.
Speaker 6 (47:26):
God blessed me. In my career, I had a ninety
percent solve ability.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Oh my wow, Wow, it's the Michael Jordan.
Speaker 6 (47:34):
Yeah, I know enough to get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
How about that.
Speaker 6 (47:41):
Now, it didn't mean I could put the bracelets on you, okay,
But but what it did mean is I knew that
you knew there will be a destiny at some point.
So I was lucky. But I came from a group
of people. My mentors were really good investigators.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
They did what we're doing right now.
Speaker 6 (48:04):
I mean, look, look what I've learned here already, just
about you guys. That's what's important, and that's what will
solve more of these these homicide cases and you guys
are doing good work here by allowing old knuckleheads like
me to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
All right, that was an incredible conversation. I mean, I
feel like we had just learned so much about police work.
Probably not surprising that your plans were, you know, had
a low success rate. I guess like, it's not impossible
that you couldn't get away with it. His determination was that, like,
I'm pretty sure i'd get you guys.
Speaker 7 (49:12):
Yeah, well he was.
Speaker 8 (49:13):
He said, to be fair, I would be more likely
to get away with it.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
That's true, arguing that was a little bit.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
But you have to be a good you have to
be a really good actor for years. Yeah, like I
have a little more time on That's what That was
my focus.
Speaker 7 (49:27):
Or I need to crash good enough so I can't
call anybody.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Oh yeah, just some someone on the road has to
find you.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
But the thing too, is like we're forgetting like it
is about getting away with it. You might be the
number one suspect as long as they don't have enough.
Speaker 8 (49:41):
It's my thing. I was like, hey, you're gonna I
did drive the car. You know it's me. You're not
looking for anybody the guy. Now you got to prove
that I did this on purpose. Why would I crash
my car on purpose?
Speaker 4 (49:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, maybe because of our our love affair. Yeah, and
I'm trying to end.
Speaker 7 (49:56):
Don't tell, I'll tell your wife.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
What I've learned from this episode is you probably could
get away with murder unless the detective was someone like Chris,
from this old school way of policing where they really
get into the community.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah, we should get a current day all right, Grock closer,
You're good? How can't I say so?
Speaker 6 (50:25):
Croc?
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Is this true? No such thing as a production of
Kaleidoscope Content. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangeshkur.
The show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and
Devin Joseph. The theme and credit song was produced by
(50:47):
me Manny. The show is mixed by Steve Bone. Special
thanks to our guests this week, doctor Brian Forrest from
the American University and Detective Chris McDonough aka McDuff. Thank
you so much for joining us. It was such an
incredible conversation. For more information about this episode, visit No
(51:08):
Such Thing Dot Show and subscribe to our newsletter and
if you have feedback or a question to ask. Our
email is Manny Noah Deevin at gmail dot com. If
you're in the US, you can also leave us a
voicemail by calling the number in the show notes. We'll
be back with a new episode next week.
Speaker 7 (51:27):
Joe A
Speaker 4 (51:36):
Hell's as Hell's as Hell's, as Hell's as such Thing
Hey everyone, Manny here from No Such Thing. We are
so excited to share that No Such Thing was named
one of Apple Podcasts Best Shows of twenty twenty five.
If you've already been listening, thank you so much for
being a part of the No Such Thing community, and
definitely keep emailing us. We love chatting with you all.
If you're new to No Such Thing, do yourself a
favor and go through our catalog because none of it
(00:22):
is outdated. Each episode is a banger, so be sure
to go check that out. After that, make sure you
check out the full best of twenty twenty five collection
in the Apple Podcast app, and finally, enjoy this week's episode.
I'm Manny, I'm Noah, this is Devin, and this is
No Such Thing, the show where we settle our dumb
arguments and yours by actually doing the research. On today's episode,
(00:46):
we're gonna find out how easy it is to get
away with murder. I'm going to talk to a criminologist,
and then I'm gonna have Devin and Noah present their
plans to kill each other to a former detective.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
So that's that's my plan. What are your initial reactions there?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Well, first of all, it's messed up.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
But yeah, there's no such thing, no such thing, no
such thing, such thing, no such thing.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
All right, Fellas, I was watching some stand up recently
and I came across something that has to do with
this episode. So I want to play this clip for you.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
On Cold Case Files, they solve old murders, and it's
really interesting because what I learned from it is that
it was really easy to get away with murder before
they knew about DNA. It was ridiculously easy. Like what
was even going on back then? What was a murder investigation?
Like in nineteen thirty five, One cop would just walk
in and be like, detective, we found a pool of
(01:53):
the killer's blood in that hallway.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
He would just be like, hmmm, gross.
Speaker 6 (01:59):
Mapaa.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So I think part of what makes this funny is
that it has to be true, right Like back then,
before the advent of forensic or scientific investigation, these crime
scenes were littered with so much information telling you who
exactly the killer was, but they just could do nothing
about it. Obviously, it's been a very long time since
(02:22):
the setting of John Mulaney's joke, but it made me
think about the current state of criminology, Like what the
current status of that field is. And I did a
tiny bit of research. According to a report from the
New York Times, and despite all of the technological advancements
we've made since the thirties or whatever, nearly half of
(02:45):
all murders go unsolved.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Half.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, I want to get your guys a reaction to this.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Two that's pretty good odds.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Basically, if you commit a murder. I don't think statistics
works exactly like this, but if you commit a murder,
you have about a fifty percent chance of getting away
with it.
Speaker 7 (03:04):
That's pretty insane.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, and that's that's the United States, that's in America.
Speaker 8 (03:08):
Yes, especially considering how many people we have god damn prisons,
you know, not enough murderers apparently.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, let's change the quote is a little.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And what surprises me too, is that we know that
the homicide rate in the past thirty years or whatever
has gone gone down.
Speaker 7 (03:26):
They're gonna make it easier to solve murders. There's less of.
Speaker 8 (03:28):
Them happening, right, Yeah, that's a good point. There's less
stuff for them to do, so you think you'd be
more focused. Yeah, you know, I used to have one hundred.
Now we've got ten.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, I mean I wonder what the type of murders
that do happen are like in our head, and what
we're going to discuss later is more of these premeditated
schemes versus like I imagine most murders are more just like, yeah,
we're fighting at a moment, I'm gonna shoot you or something,
or like a robbery, something like yeah, domestic thing or
just like more either crimes of passion or just like
you know, exactly where immediate. That's what I'm just mean,
(04:01):
way easier to solve than like, right, you know, some mastermind.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Before reading the stat I would have thought that the
vast majority of murders would have one clear suspect and
then it would be easy to solve this. Yeah, I've thought, like,
the reason we don't really have serial killers today is
because of these kind of technological advancements in in forensics studies,
where yeah, if you kill like ten people, it's way
(04:25):
easier to figure out who you are than it was
in the seventies or whatever. But I'm surprised to hear
that that's not really been the case for your regular
run of the mill murders.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I mean, it's amazing, like I was reading about the
BTK killer kind of recently, you know, brushing up, and
it's like amazing. It's like this guy's killing a lot
of people, taking photographs all this stuff. Then he has
like his normal family life, and he basically got caught
because he was like essentially taunting the police by sending
them letters. And then like, I think he got caught
(04:55):
because he sent a flop He like asked the FBI
or someone like, would you guys be able to trace
me if I sent you a floppy disc? And they
were like no, And then he set the floppy disk
and it had like his logging for like his it
was like from his church computer something, and it's like,
if you just shut up, no one would have found
like maybe after you died they would have discovered something,
but yeah, you would have been fine. So he really could.
(05:15):
I think he blew it to be frank, he.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Was generational and bust.
Speaker 7 (05:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Well, I want to ask you guys two questions. The
first one has to do with this stat that nearly
half of murders go unsolved. Just curious, like what your guys'
take on why this might be without having done any research.
We're gonna we're gonna talk to someone who knows why,
but I want to get your thoughts.
Speaker 8 (05:36):
My initial reaction is the people who are murdered and
their murders aren't solved, are.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Poor people m not enough importance on the case. It's
so the.
Speaker 8 (05:47):
Cops don't care and resources really aren't put towards finding
because it's like, hey, you know, it's it's poor people
killing poor people.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
It doesn't affect us that their own thing.
Speaker 8 (06:01):
If something happens within that community, whatever, Yeah, it's sort of.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
Like it's not as important.
Speaker 8 (06:08):
And then I think there's the community has a distrust
for the police in those communities because of their lack
of actually helping. So I think people are less willing
to work with the police.
Speaker 7 (06:20):
In those communities.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That's a good hypothesis because I do remember a couple
of years ago the kind of national news about Gabby Petito.
Speaker 7 (06:28):
Do you realize yes, yes, so she.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Was kind of kidnapped, taken across the country by her boyfriend,
eventually murdered, and it just ended up being this like
kind of national news that a lot of people responded
to this by saying, well, you know, there are a
bunch of kind of poor black or brown victims where
the exact same thing is happening, but it doesn't get
treated the same way. So I could I could imagine
(06:50):
if if that's true, that might also be true within
the police departments, where they just have like a certain
level of apathy.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I guess to Devin's point, it's like there is like
that Long Island Beach killer and he's killing like sex workers.
So it's like these are people who probably maybe don't
even have a family. No one's looking for them, Yeah
they are gone, and then he seems like kind of
a weirdo loner gut like those things magic, it's like, yeah,
the victim's not high profile, or it becomes one, then
(07:18):
no one's looking, and then it's kind of like, well,
why are we going to spend all of our time
on this when there's other things going on or yeah,
what have you?
Speaker 9 (07:26):
So?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And then that's even in New York. It's like, imagine
more rural areas. In four areas, it's like it's only
gonna yeah, so you could easily see someone goes missing
and it's just not that much pressure if there's not
this kind of ground swell of attention.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Right, Yeah, but I've got another question for you guys.
When I read this stat I don't want to say
I'm like built different or anything, but I just felt like, Okay,
most people committing a murder are probably driven by something specific,
know the person, there's some kind of animosity. But I wonder, like,
(08:04):
if you know the three of us are relatively smart,
do you think you could get away with murder if
you really put your mind to it, if you sat
down and concocted a plant that you felt like would
elude police? Or do you feel like it's twenty twenty five.
They've got cameras everywhere, They've got the craziest technology you
(08:26):
can imagine. You're not getting away with it.
Speaker 7 (08:29):
No, you don't think you get away with it.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I mean, we'll see what the cop says later. But
in terms of why not, In terms of I just
think I don't have confidence in one my ability to
clean up after myself. Mm, like there would just be
something some way to trace me, Like, yeah, I wouldn't
be able to go deep enough. I don't think into
like being so careful about covering my steps both before
and after and as soon as I if I was
(08:53):
interrogated as a suspect, you'd fold even if I wasn't
a suspect, but if they were just talking to me like, oh,
you know this, you know this person, right? Like, I
think I would just I don't think I would be
I don't think i'd immediately confessed, but I think i'd
give enough signs that'd be like, let's talk to this
guy for maybe ten more hours, yeah, and then I'd
be like, yeah, yeah, maybe it was Actually I think
(09:14):
I would give in. I think I think it would close.
It would very quickly occur to me like I'll probably
just be better off if I'm good, and maybe I
can get out and see the sunlight one day.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
What about you, Devin, how do you feel?
Speaker 7 (09:27):
See?
Speaker 8 (09:27):
My thought on this is I do think I could
get a way with it. But that's also the same
reason I think I could get away with it is
the same reason why I wouldn't commit a murder.
Speaker 7 (09:36):
You know, I feel like I'm.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
No.
Speaker 8 (09:39):
I feel like we talk about this all the time
anytime there's a big murder case and someone gets caught
and you're like, why the hell did you do that?
Or what the hell is that happening? And I think
we forget these people are not in the right state
of mind this person they have decided to murder someone else,
So it's not like they're thinking in some ways. They're
thinking really logically. You're like, wow, you really planning this
(10:01):
cart out? And then they do something really dumb and
you're like why, you know, why do you still have
the gun? Like what why would you go and sit
down and eat out of McDonald's when you're on you know,
like things like that. So I feel like, planning wise,
I think I would be able to think through a
lot of stuff, right, But I think me as a person,
(10:22):
I think I would fall apart emotionally having killed a person.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
You would be able to live with the guilt.
Speaker 8 (10:28):
It would be tough to kill a person, you know.
I think it would be like, I've never been in
a fight. To go from never being in like a
true fist fight to killing a person is quite a nicey.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
That's why you'd be good because no one would suspect you.
WHOA yeah, he snapped.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Well, we're going to put these these hypotheses to the test.
We're going to talk to a former detective and I'm
going to have the two of you concoct a plan
to kill each other. We're going to present this these
plans to a former detective, just so that he could
poke holes in them figure out where you went wrong.
(11:08):
Or maybe he'll hear your plan and be like, actually,
that's that would be really difficult for.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Me to end up on a watch list.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, and then we will not be allowed to leave
the studio. But before we get to the former detective,
I think it's worth talking to a criminologist about this
stat that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode
about how half of murders go unsolved. What really could
be leading to the decrease of murder clearance rates, especially
because homicide rates have been on the fall for a
(11:35):
long time now, despite what you hear on Fox News.
But that's after the break. Okay, we're back. I'm Manny,
I'm Noah, and we were just discussing the stat where
fifty or nearly fifty percent of murder cases go unsolved.
(11:59):
It's time now to talk to a criminologist who might
have some insights for us. When I was looking for
a criminologist, I wanted to pick someone who's been doing
this for decades, like a really long time, so be
able to to really pinpoint the kind of movements in
this field, the developments, and you guys might like to
hear this. He is a professor at the American University
(12:20):
Fellow Eagle where the two of you graduated.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Once.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Always that's beautiful, We always say that that's lad to
ask him, that's just a little touch.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So you know what we said. So here's doctor Brian
Forrest from Washington, d C. Hi.
Speaker 9 (12:41):
My name is Brian Forrest. I'm a professor emeritus of Justice,
Law and Criminology at American University in the School of
Public Affairs, and I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
We're just gonna skip straight to the main question. Why
are there so many unsolved murders in the US today,
despite the facts that the murder rate has crashed since
the nineteen nineties. Doctor Forest said it has a lot
to do with what he calls community policing.
Speaker 9 (13:14):
What happened to community policing? Whatever happened to community policing.
The tragedy of the last twenty years or so has
been that policing has descended from the model that was
created in eighteen twenty nine by Sir Robert Peel, who
was the creator of the London Metropolitan Police Service, which
(13:38):
was a revolutionary way. It moved from the night watchmen
to creating police officers as professionals. They were trained to
be members of public. The police are the public, and
the public are the police, according to Robert Peel. And
so the idea was that the police didn't come into
a community as aliens stormtroopers. They came in as servants,
(14:03):
as members of the community who were respectful of the
members of the community, even if those members were not
always in good standings. And it was a model that
was at the heart of community policing movement in America
in the nineteen eighties and nineties. And during that period,
our crime rate went down, homicide rates went way down,
(14:26):
the clearance rates went up. We were trending in the
right direction. So the police really are at the heart
of the problem and the heart of the solution. And
we were moving in the right direction from nineteen ninety
to about the twenty teens, and then all hell broke loose.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
The growing outrage over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
But the shooting of eighteen year old Michael Brown has
opened a wound in the community.
Speaker 8 (14:54):
Shocking dash can video has been released of the fatal
police shooting of Philandel, castile.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
Protesters calling for justice for Breonna Taylor.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Peaceful demonstrations over the death of George Floyd yesterday turned
into violence.
Speaker 9 (15:07):
The policing went south, and it's a real shame. And
the question is can we find ways of returning to
the noble, decent ethic of community policing where the police
see themselves as members and servants of the community, rather
than as better than or entitled to use brutal force
(15:31):
willy nilly, as they are currently being encouraged from the
highest levels.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
What is it exactly about the departure from community policing
that affects the rate at which murders are solved.
Speaker 9 (15:50):
Yeah, there's a great question. It really comes down to
a matter of trust between the citizenry and the police,
and what community policing does is build and when the
police have good contacts within the community, the clergy, school
superintendents and principles and teachers, political war chiefs, they can
(16:13):
have better access to the community. And when they are
encouraged to despise the very idea of community, as we
saw with Sarah Palin a few years ago, you know,
I guess.
Speaker 8 (16:25):
A small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
Except that you have actual responsibilities.
Speaker 9 (16:38):
Police unfortunately brought into more of Sarah Palin's ideas and
less of Robert Peel's ideas of policing as community service.
There's a vicious cycle here. When homicide rates go up,
police resources get overloaded and their ability to solve crimes declinentes,
(16:59):
which only in Olden's the offenders so basically, if it's
easier to get away with crimes, and so they commit more,
which only creates more homicides, more overload of scarce resources,
and so it really is a vicious circle. And like
I say, we have to find ways of breaking it.
And then right now I don't see any on the horizon.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So I think the basic idea here is that if
I were thinking about committing a crime, for example, and
there were good community policing, I would either be less
likely to do it because I have been in contact
with these people I know who they are, or if
I did commit the crime, it would be a lot
easier to pin me as the suspects because of their
(17:41):
relationships with the community. And you know, you might be like,
hey man, he's in a bad way. Like point me
to where he is or whatever, and they'll come find me.
Whereas today there's such a distrust in policing that you'd
be shocked to hear of like regular citizens in some
cities in the US, like helping the police do something.
Speaker 8 (17:59):
I think people are a bit skeptical of community policing nowadays,
just because like the way that the system is set up,
it does not encourage the ideal version of it. But
I can see in a world in which your only
interactions with police are not them you getting in trouble
with them. If they understand the dynamics of the neighborhood.
(18:21):
Say me and Noah hate each other. If Noah's one day,
they may know.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I know you haven't, or just because they're familiar talk
with him, or they would at least have good enough
relationships with people around could be able to tell them that.
Speaker 8 (18:38):
But who was the last person you got an argument with? Yes,
and that sort of thing. You're not starting from zero.
Where this is a lot of criticism of the New
York Police Department in the city is that New York
City Police Department is that a lot of the police
officers live.
Speaker 7 (18:52):
On Long Island, so the.
Speaker 8 (18:58):
Area they're not they're working in areas that they don't
visit out so different and they don't live, say, they
don't have the familiarity with the community. They're just like
driving in, you know, putting on a uniform, standing in
a corner playing candy Crush, and then getting calls to
you know, arrest people or confront people. They're not like
(19:18):
walking around and be like hey miss.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, yeah, and then then use stories. And it's not
just like in cities. It's like people call. I think
there was one last week where you know, people call
the police for some other reason than they end up
getting shot or ye arrested or whatever for for another reason.
And it's like, well, yeah, I mean enough of those.
It's like, yeah, at least hesitate. If it's something where
it's not like an immediate danger, I might be like, yeah,
(19:44):
maybe I'm not going to call the copsle Yeah, they
try to sort a shout or call someone else.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah. So we learned a lot from the criminologist and
about community policing and how important it is. But now
I think it's time to bring in someone who has
some on the ground experience with actually solving homicide cases.
(20:12):
So joining us now is Chris McDonough. Would you mind
introducing yourself, Chris.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Well, thanks for the invite. My name is Chris McDonough.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
I'm a retired homicide guy. I'm also a director currently
with the Cold Case Foundation, and I still have a
job where I work with indigenous people and I investigate
crime still. So I'm kind of a fossil who will
not stop working. Forty two years in the business.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Wow, forty two years. Well, it's good to give me.
Great to talk to you, thenk since you have so
much experience, We've had this kind of question about this
stat that we read recently that nearly fifty percent of
murder cases go unsolved today. That is a decrease than
the rate was in the nineteen nineties, where it was
closer to sixty five to sixty nine. I'm just curious
(21:01):
about your on the ground experience working on homicide cases,
working on solving them in the past few decades. Why
you think that stat is so high.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
You know, it's an interesting question, and it's obviously a
disturbing statistic, right because every human life counts. It doesn't
matter what, when, way, or why. I think there are
going to be a couple of contributing factors. The first
one is we have these new investigators for lack of
a better term, who depend on technology. Okay, so I
(21:44):
think there's a shifting in terms of investigators losing the
ability to have critical thinking skills because they're not recognizing
if Google didn't say it or the lab didn't say it,
then how do I say it? How do I get
to the answer?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (22:04):
That's very problematic. If you're working south central Los Angeles
and you go into Compton and you don't have the
ability to respect people and or have the ability to communicate,
they end up putting up barriers, for lack of a
better term, even before they get to the scene because
(22:25):
they're thinking one way, well, if we get forensics evidence, okay,
that will solve the crime. And if they forget the
fundamental piece of human interaction is to do what we're
doing right now. Sitting here, We're going to have a conversation.
It may be uncomfortable for either one of us. It
(22:47):
doesn't matter. The point being is we have the ability
to communicate.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Or my time, we.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Didn't have what was DNA right? I started in nineteen
eighty two. What was DNA right?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
What's that my generation.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
Used to ring doorbells and kiss babies and shake hands
and shit with families while they cried and screamed and shouted.
And then you always get that one dude on the
side that says, hey, can I tell you someuntain of
the off the record, And you see, yeah, sure, what's up?
And you listen and the next thing you know that
(23:25):
that takes you to another place.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
How would you go about trying to fix this and
remedy this so that we could get back to a
place where police officers are in these communities and there
isn't a lot of animosity between the police departments in
their local communities.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
I mean, I can tell you a story. I won't
drop his street name, but he was a main street crip. Okay,
this guy's like hardcourt. Okay, he's out there swinging dope.
He's doing the whole game.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
I stopped him one night and he had his kid
in the back seat of his car. And I looked
in the back seat and I see this four year
old kid sitting on the seat and this is going
to answer your question, I hope. And I looked at
him and I said, dude, I know you're out here
slinging dope.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
You got to do what you got to do right.
Speaker 6 (24:16):
In some communities, you go to do what you have
to do to survive.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
So I said to him, I said, okay, where's your dope?
Speaker 6 (24:25):
And he kind of messed around a little bit and
he finally shows me his dope and I said, okay,
get out of the car and dump it.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
He says, what do you mean? I said, get out
of the car and don't dump you dope and step
on it. Crush it.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
They were all little rocks, right, so he crushes it.
I said, okay, you owe me. Now what I want
you to do at ten o'clock in the morning is
you're going to meet me at kmart And he goes
why I said, no, you owe me. He said, okay,
sure enough, ten am shows up. True story. WI walk
(25:00):
him into the store. I said, grab a car seat.
He goes, what do you mean? I said, pick a
car seat, and he gets one. We get the car sheet.
I take it out to his car. I said, put
it in, and I looked at him. I said, you
have a chance in life, but that four year old
does not until you give it to him. And you
(25:20):
driving around slinging dope with a four year old not
strapped in the back.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Sheet is not a good look. Okay.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Now, twenty three years later, my phone rings and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Who is it?
Speaker 6 (25:36):
He goes, Yo, he says mc They used to call
him McDuff. They could never pronounce my last name. This
is McDonough, so on the street it was always hey McDuff. Right,
I said, dude, how'd you get my number? Man, I've
been retired and all this other stuff. He's like, there's
waste today McDuff. I said, okay, cool, I said, I said,
(25:57):
what's up? And he goes, I want to invite you
to my son's graduation from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.
I was like blown away, okay, and then he says,
true story, I did it.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
I said, yeah, you did. You broke it, man, you
broke the cycle. So that.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
You can't invent that. Does that make sense? Studies can't
make that happen. That trust only comes when you give it.
Am I serving somebody? Or am I just managing a system?
And when you figure out it's about not always putting
handcuffs on people, It's about hearing their story and saying okay,
(26:43):
I see where you're coming from. You dump the dope,
and that's old school police work.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
After the break, it's the moment you've all been waiting for.
Devin and Noah present their plans to kill each other
to a detective. Before we get back to this week's episode,
(27:26):
we got a lot of feedback about last week's episode
answering all of your questions about laundry. Somehow we didn't
answer everything. One listener, Monica, asked about items that are
labeled dry clean only. We touched on dry cleaning briefly
when it comes to suits, but she wanted to know
if we can wash other items with this label on
(27:46):
our own. The laundry expert Patrick said yes, he takes
quote dry clean only to mean essentially wash with caution.
For more on this and other questions, including a bit
of controversy around the alleged health impacts of fabric softeners,
check out this week's edition of our newsletter at no
Such Thing Dot Show. Now back to this week's episode, So, Chris,
(28:14):
in order to get a better understanding of this kind
of old school police work, I thought it'd be interesting
to see it play out in real time, and so
what I've done is I've had Noah and Devin come
up with plans to off each other, so to speak,
and I'd love for you, as a former detective, to
essentially grade them. You might be able to be like, Okay,
(28:35):
these guys are idiots. They'd get caught in a heartbeat.
And so we'll start with uh, we'll start with Noah. Okay,
So Noah's gonna present his plan, and as he's talking,
you feel free to ask him questions about what he
would do here and there.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, feel free to jump in.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Let me let me grab a hand, real feished?
Speaker 7 (28:53):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Great, you need a lot of notes?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
All right, all right, ready, all right, hit may So
first of all, I'm gonna take my time with this thing.
I'm not rushing into.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
This, Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
So first, once I decide I'm gonna kill Devin, I'm
gonna with cash buy a laptop that's gonna be my
burner laptop, and I'm only gonna use it out and
you know, not in my home, not on my Wi Fi.
And I'm gonna use VPNs and I'm gonna use tour
dark web browsing.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Okay, got it so dark hopefully.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah. So then I was thinking, all right, I was like,
what do I know about Devin. I know he loves tea.
He drinks tea every day most you know, I think
three at least three cups. Yeah, I'm gonna make tea
poisoned tea. I was on my computer, my lap, my burner, laptop.
I'll be researching what types of flowers are poisonous. There's like,
(29:48):
you know, night shade. There's the leave of the Valley
for all the breaking bad heads out there, So I'll
procure these. At some point, I'm gonna kind of get
invited to Evan's apartment, maybe a movie night or something,
one on one hopefully so there's no one else around, okay,
or you know, wait till everyone's distracted, you go to
(30:08):
the bathroom or something. So I'm thinking I'll put I'll
throw gloves on real quick while you're in the bathroom,
sneak over, take my poison to out, put it back in,
seal it up nice hopefully, and then just sit and wait,
because you know, it might be a while before you
even get to my poisoned t bags. I'm hoping there's
some time passing so it's not like, oh yeah, no,
it was over for movie night and then the next day,
(30:30):
your stomach's exploding. Who knows what's happening. So that's that's
my plan. What do you What are your initial reactions there?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Well, first of all, it's messed up.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
But yeah, listen, I didn't enjoy doing this at all,
but I had to. You know, I'm trying to get
his stake in the podcast.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Very intricately thought out.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
Now, the interesting thing about poison is about ninety percent
of women will use poison as a weapon of choice,
ten percent of men. So you automatically would fit into
a rare category of homicide suspects.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
That's number one.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I have a question, because it's poison, would you then
be looking for all the women in Devin's circle first.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
Yes and no, And we'd have to see what the
environments are for you know, where Devon was living, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Are you married Devon? Can I? Maybe I should know?
Speaker 7 (31:28):
I'm not married?
Speaker 6 (31:29):
Okay, Yeah, So he's out there in the world and
he's probably got girls around him and that kind of stuff.
But that's going to be pretty quick to eliminate that
situation because you're.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
In that core, you're in the middle.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
Okay, we want to eliminate that medal first and then
work our way out all the ideas of going ghost
on you know, the digital footprint, etc.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Like that, that's not going to be real problem.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
There's some very serious software out there that the FEDS have,
and so we would collect your data, send.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
It back to the FBI and see if.
Speaker 6 (32:08):
They can rediscover some of those sites that you visited.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Quick question, so does going on those kind of VPNs
or tour browsers doesn't necessarily protect you from police activities?
Speaker 6 (32:21):
Now there are ways of making it all go away,
of course, but that's really you know, you've got to
hammer the hard drive or you've got to bleach it
and all this other stuff, right, But the fact that
he chose poisoning, okay, gives me the advantage. So it's
very rare for a guy to poison one of his friends.
(32:43):
So immediately I would want to know what your orientation
is in terms of if there's an attraction and that
went sideways, you know, not throwing my man Devin under
the bus for a second. But let's say the autops
comes back and says, hey, this is a poisoning. So
(33:04):
what I would do is I would interview all of
Devon's circle of influence the folks around him, and there's
what they call a victim risk continuum. It would say environment, situation, circumstance. Okay, low, medium.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Or high.
Speaker 6 (33:20):
So the question is what's the environment. Well, that's where
Devon was found. If it's his apartment, is that a low,
medium or high risk environment?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
What do you guys think.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
In your apartment would be a low risk I guess.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
Yeah exactly because if it was like down you know,
at times square at two o'clock in the morning. Yeah, right,
that Now that shifts a lot of happening, right, And
so what's the situation right you would go, oh, he's
hanging out with friends, you know, kicking it here, watching TV,
et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Is that a low higher medium risk activity?
Speaker 9 (33:55):
Right?
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Again, it goes to that low side. So everything in this.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
Murderer that Noah has planned here tells us it hits
on the low side.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Of the victim risk continuum.
Speaker 6 (34:08):
So statistically, the lower it shows up, the higher probability
he was a selected target.
Speaker 7 (34:15):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
So my first question to Noah would have been, Noah,
do you know why we're here today?
Speaker 2 (34:24):
No? No, no, sir, yeah, no worries, no worries.
Speaker 6 (34:28):
Many, tell me a little bit about your life.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Oh, I'm a podcaster. I do a show with two
living friends of mine, Devin and Manny.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I see them once a week, usually in the studio
when recording. And that's that's about it. Though, have a wife?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Cool? Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Connecticut?
Speaker 6 (34:50):
What I'm doing is I'm asking him questions that I
already know I'm going to get the answers to. Do
you know why we live three lives. It's our public,
our private life, and our secret life. Like that, our
secret life is where murder then all this other stuff
(35:12):
takes place.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
So my line of questioning for the very first question
to him was you know why you're here to see
how he's going to answer. And what he did is
he answered me and what persona public persona? Of course
I already knew that, okay, So I threw him a
bait question to see if he was going to say,
(35:37):
does this have anything to do with Devon.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Or anything like that?
Speaker 6 (35:41):
Well, so the answer is no, okay, So he didn't
even take me to his private life. His private life
is where Devon and he are buds. And so what
he's doing is he's projecting this persona that he wants
me to hear. So what I would do is I
would take him down this road of no problem. Let's
(36:04):
stay there, okay. And then when they start lying, hey,
they're covering their secret life, and it becomes very difficult
to do that because you can't always remember your lodge, okay.
And so eventually we would circle back to well, tell
me a little bit about Devon and his life. That's
(36:25):
what they call victimology, and we would dive into Devon
from what Noah may know about Devon.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Maybe at that point we'll say, you know, you want
a bag of chips, you want a coke, you want
a cheeseburger, you know, let's take a break.
Speaker 7 (36:38):
You know, good?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
And you know what I mean, right.
Speaker 6 (36:42):
Yeah, And I would ask you to take a sip
out of your coffee cup there, okay, And then I
would say, let me go get you a coke, or
let me go fill up your cup or something. Take
your cup and go out and hit it with a buckle, swab,
get your DNA that Coca cola and yeah, and then
(37:06):
come back in and hand you your cup back and sale,
all good, bro, Let's.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Keep So I'm curious that and that's perfectly legal to do,
to just get a swab of someone's uh, personal items
in the interrogation room.
Speaker 6 (37:20):
Yeah if if for an example, those were our coffee cups.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Right, Let's see, we.
Speaker 6 (37:24):
Walk in, she wants something to drink, she absolutely and you.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Hand him a coffee cup. If if he hits it, okay,
it's mine.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah. So basically with with Noah's playing here, just this
kind of circle back, it sounds like a low success
rate playing and to be fair to know what he
did say, he did say before we started here that
he didn't think he would be able to get away
with this.
Speaker 7 (37:53):
I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I'm not going to do it. I've been scared.
Speaker 7 (37:58):
Now, yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Was super fascinating. I've learned a lot in just that
small amount of time. So now let's let's go over
to Devin's plan to do the same thing to know,
uh and see what you might be able to glean
from this.
Speaker 8 (38:11):
My plan is a little bit more straightforward than Noah's.
Speaker 7 (38:17):
We're gonna have a.
Speaker 8 (38:17):
Boys weekend upstate, okay, and we're gonna invite Max too,
you know.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Okay, there's four of us.
Speaker 8 (38:25):
Four of us strategically because I need Manny and Max
to drive up together, and no I'm I'm gonna pick
up Noah.
Speaker 7 (38:34):
We're gonna have a great weekend planned.
Speaker 8 (38:36):
We're gonna stay for two or three days, and I'm
gonna have an event plan on the last day.
Speaker 7 (38:41):
So we're gonna be driving back when it's dark.
Speaker 8 (38:45):
Okay, I'm gonna purposely leave something in my back seat,
so many Manny and Max are gonna be driving back together.
Speaker 7 (38:54):
Yeah, me and Noah are gonna be driving back together
in a different car. In different car. You know, it's
a state. The roads are pretty dark.
Speaker 8 (39:01):
At one point, I'm going to say, hey, no you
mind reaching in the back and grabbing me. Let's say
get my bag for me. I have something in my bag,
some gum or something I want. As Noah takes off
his seatbelt to go in the back, I'm going to
crash the car.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Wow, as a bold one.
Speaker 7 (39:23):
I'm gonna have my seatbelt on.
Speaker 8 (39:25):
I'm going to try to crash it in the way
that I'm going to try to hit Noah head on
on his side. He is now not buckled into his
seat at all, right, and I'm going to go for it. Hey,
if I'm going to murder someone. I've got to take
a little bit of a I'm gonna end up a
little bit hurt. But I think that's I think that
helps with my alibi of like, why would I purposely
(39:46):
crash my car?
Speaker 2 (39:47):
You know a really bad guy?
Speaker 7 (39:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (39:50):
So yeah, my plan is to get into a car,
crash at a strategic time where Noah is not buckled in,
and crash into a tree on his side of the Okay.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
All right, say it. I'm injured, but not fully there.
Would you then like give me a little bludgeon to
finish the job. Like, what if I'm still alive?
Speaker 7 (40:10):
If you're still alive, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
DEVI or would you just be like a horrible accident.
Speaker 8 (40:15):
I'm gonna wait to call the if you're still alive
after and you're laying on the ground, say you're outside
of the car. Yeah, well I'm gonna wait it out. Yeah,
I see how long can I go? Hour or two
hours later? He's still there?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Wow, this kind of happened in Sopranos where they got
in a car accident. I don't want to spoil it.
I mean spoiler, I'll say two characters get in a
car accident. One of them then just plugs the other
one's nose until because then it's kind of hard to tell.
But but Chris, for the sake of simplicity, let's let's
say that Noah is killed in the car crash. He's not.
(40:50):
He's not crawling out of there. That's really interesting though.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
It's a pretty good one.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Let's hear from Chris.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
That is a good one, and.
Speaker 6 (40:59):
It's just as scandalous as so. The first thing is then, obviously,
when the cops or the ambulances or anybody gets on
the scene, are you going to be there.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
At that time?
Speaker 6 (41:15):
Devin, I mean, oh yeah, conscious, yes, I'm there.
Speaker 7 (41:19):
I'm hurt. Maybe even I'm calling the police.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, that's probably smart.
Speaker 8 (41:23):
Maybe I'm rehearsing my voice that I'm going to use
when I call.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
That'd be tough, you know, because they always play those.
Speaker 6 (41:30):
Calls back the Okay, So whatever story you're going to
tell initially is going to be the story we're going
to lock you into, right, Yes, so the very first
words out of your mouth on and that, by the way,
happens when you call nine one one. It doesn't happen
when the cops get there. So the first thing I
(41:50):
would want to do is go listen to the.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Nine to eleven two and here before you talk to me.
Oh yeah, absolutely, because I want to hear. I want
to hear what you say about the car accident and
what happened.
Speaker 9 (42:03):
Now.
Speaker 6 (42:03):
I'm not going to tell you that because I'm going
to own that. Okay, I'm gonna own that in my
own secret life. Okay, I'm say yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So I'm gonna tuck that. I'm gonna tuck that away, okay.
Speaker 6 (42:17):
And so then at some point, if you're okay health wise, right,
you're not hurt in the injury, but Noah's messed up
over there with no seatbelt because he's been launched out
into a tree somewhere, you know, off to the side
of the road. The first thing I would do is
try to get you back at the station. I want
(42:38):
to hear what you have to say about how this
whole thing went down.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
You know what mistake you made? Though?
Speaker 7 (42:44):
Oh so far, what mistake have I made?
Speaker 9 (42:48):
No?
Speaker 7 (42:48):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
You called nine one one?
Speaker 7 (42:52):
Oh I shouldn't call nine one one.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
No, I've got all that phone data with your location.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Oh wait, I.
Speaker 6 (43:02):
Can get a search warrant and pull all of your
phone data on when you were making phone calls and
to who okay, and so what I would do is
lock you into a story for the very first night.
I would say to you, Hey, Devin, after we got
to know each other right and all this other stuff,
(43:24):
I would say, hey, dude, you know, thank you so
much for coming down tonight. I'm so sorry that your
friend Noah passed away. I mean, I can imagine how
you're feeling. How do you feel.
Speaker 8 (43:40):
I just feel like it's all my fault. Obviously I
was the one driving. I feel horrible. I don't know
I'm going to face you know, his dog, his wife
now that I've done this horrible, horrible thing because I
just was not paying attention while I was driving.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
Yeah, that's messed up, my friend. I totally understand. Uh,
just out of curiosity. Where are you going to be
for the next two weeks.
Speaker 8 (44:07):
I'm going to be home. I don't know if I
can work. We obviously we're not recording a podcast.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, I gotta get a guest.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
He's gonna go home. Little does he know, Noah has
already poisoned the tea.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (44:23):
Man of what I've just done by asking that question,
just out of curiosity, what are you going to do
for the next two weeks? I have triggered a stress
mechanism internally for him.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
M okay.
Speaker 6 (44:38):
So now what I've done is I'm putting back on
his heels because I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say, Devin,
thank you so much for coming down here tonight. We
really appreciate it. I'll tell you, what if there's anything
else that you can remember or think of, or something
I didn't ask you, Okay, would you would you do
(44:58):
me a favor and reach back out to me? Is
that okay, Devin?
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Would you do that?
Speaker 7 (45:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Of course, absolutely, Okay, no problem, bro.
Speaker 6 (45:06):
As you can tell, we're going to do a lot
of investigation on this thing, and I'll be in contact
with you.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
But thank you so much. Have a good night.
Speaker 6 (45:13):
Now, what I've done is I've kicked him out of
the door and bought rent space in his head.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Boom.
Speaker 6 (45:20):
Okay, Because now you're going to go home thinking what, Devin.
Speaker 8 (45:25):
Why do they want to talk to me? It's a
simple car crash, you know, like, what are you investigating?
What are you looking into? They must be onto me. M. Yeah, exactly.
Now he's got to be thinking, oh, crap, what did
I miss? You know, what should I have done?
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Differently?
Speaker 6 (45:41):
Show with me leaving that planet. In Devon's mind, the
bigger question for him is what are they doing for
the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Let's say both of these are probably low success rates
in terms of getting away with it. Was there one
plan that was better than the other, that was more feasible?
Speaker 9 (46:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (46:01):
Who's more likely to get away from murder.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
With these plans?
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Uh? I think the car plan would be a lot
tougher to prove.
Speaker 6 (46:10):
I think with Noah choosing poison, that was his mistake, okay,
because that puts him in a whole different category. And
all we would have to do is connect your relationship
between Noah and Devon, and you know that that relationship
would come from Devon's family. I would really spend a
lot of time with your family man and say, hey,
(46:33):
you know, what's his relationship with with Noah or with
this person or that person. And then it would be
a matter of you know, just taking your time and
interviewing people, and then at some point you realize, you
know what we used to call it DLR Okay, don't
look right or doesn't sound right, because we all wear
(46:55):
this mask of this secret life, and so Noah's mask
would fall pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
This has been so fascinating and so fun to listen to.
Before we let you go, just to circle back to
that stat where there's like nearly half of these murder
cases are going on solved. I'm curious in your personal
work before you retired, After you retired, what would you
say the percentage of the murder cases you've worked on
were cleared.
Speaker 6 (47:26):
God blessed me. In my career, I had a ninety
percent solve ability.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Oh my wow, Wow, it's the Michael Jordan.
Speaker 6 (47:34):
Yeah, I know enough to get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
How about that.
Speaker 6 (47:41):
Now, it didn't mean I could put the bracelets on you, okay,
But but what it did mean is I knew that
you knew there will be a destiny at some point.
So I was lucky. But I came from a group
of people. My mentors were really good investigators.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
They did what we're doing right now.
Speaker 6 (48:04):
I mean, look, look what I've learned here already, just
about you guys. That's what's important, and that's what will
solve more of these these homicide cases and you guys
are doing good work here by allowing old knuckleheads like
me to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
All right, that was an incredible conversation. I mean, I
feel like we had just learned so much about police work.
Probably not surprising that your plans were, you know, had
a low success rate. I guess like, it's not impossible
that you couldn't get away with it. His determination was that, like,
I'm pretty sure i'd get you guys.
Speaker 7 (49:12):
Yeah, well he was.
Speaker 8 (49:13):
He said, to be fair, I would be more likely
to get away with it.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
That's true, arguing that was a little bit.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
But you have to be a good you have to
be a really good actor for years. Yeah, like I
have a little more time on That's what That was
my focus.
Speaker 7 (49:27):
Or I need to crash good enough so I can't
call anybody.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Oh yeah, just some someone on the road has to
find you.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
But the thing too, is like we're forgetting like it
is about getting away with it. You might be the
number one suspect as long as they don't have enough.
Speaker 8 (49:41):
It's my thing. I was like, hey, you're gonna I
did drive the car. You know it's me. You're not
looking for anybody the guy. Now you got to prove
that I did this on purpose. Why would I crash
my car on purpose?
Speaker 4 (49:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, maybe because of our our love affair. Yeah, and
I'm trying to end.
Speaker 7 (49:56):
Don't tell, I'll tell your wife.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
What I've learned from this episode is you probably could
get away with murder unless the detective was someone like Chris,
from this old school way of policing where they really
get into the community.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah, we should get a current day all right, Grock closer,
You're good? How can't I say so?
Speaker 6 (50:25):
Croc?
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Is this true? No such thing as a production of
Kaleidoscope Content. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangeshkur.
The show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and
Devin Joseph. The theme and credit song was produced by
(50:47):
me Manny. The show is mixed by Steve Bone. Special
thanks to our guests this week, doctor Brian Forrest from
the American University and Detective Chris McDonough aka McDuff. Thank
you so much for joining us. It was such an
incredible conversation. For more information about this episode, visit No
(51:08):
Such Thing Dot Show and subscribe to our newsletter and
if you have feedback or a question to ask. Our
email is Manny Noah Deevin at gmail dot com. If
you're in the US, you can also leave us a
voicemail by calling the number in the show notes. We'll
be back with a new episode next week.
Speaker 7 (51:27):
Joe A
Speaker 4 (51:36):
Hell's as Hell's as Hell's, as Hell's as such Thing
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