What Evil Looks Like: Inside Rusty's Investigations (Part 2)

In Part 2 of Alicia's conversation with investigator Rusty, they go deeper into one of the most disturbing child exploitation cases he's ever worked and the realities of tracking some of the internet's most dangerous offenders. Along the way, Rusty shares how investigators cope with the emotional weight of the job, why humor can be a survival tool, and the perspective that keeps him fighting for children every day. It's a sobering but ultimately hopeful look at the people working behind the scenes to make the world a safer place.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Alicia, and welcome back to the Alicia Kozac podcast.
And if you're new here, welcome either way. I'm so
excited that you're here. This is part two of my
conversation with my friend Rusty, who works for an unnamed
government agency where he tracks and apprehends some of the
worst offenders on the internet. In episode one, we open
the door into that world, but in the second one

(00:23):
we're stepping all the way in. We're going to dig
into one of the most heinous offenders I have ever
heard about, and believe me, I have heard a lot.
This is a case that Rusty helped take down, and
we're really going to sit in the details of what
the work looks like, and you're going to be so
grateful that there are people out there who are doing this.

(00:45):
But we're also going to balance it with some of
the weird, silly stuff that keeps people like him human,
including why he's basically the Ron Swanson of his agency.
And here is one of his favorite clips that he
sent me.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
This is your lunch.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
You should be able to do whatever you want to
with this.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
If you want to eat all of it, great, if
you want to throw it away in the garbage. That's
your prerogative. But here I come the government and I
get to take forty percent of your lunch. And that, Lauren, is.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
How taxes work.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
That's not fair.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
You're learning, uh oh, capital gains tax.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
And we're also going to ask the very serious question
of whether you should be concerned if the coworker keeps
a plumbus from Rick and Morty on their desk, and
from this next clip it sounds like it might raise
some liberals today.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
On how they do it. Plumbus is everyone has a
plumbus in their home. First, they take the dingle bop
and they smooth it out with a bunch of shleam.
The shleam is then repurpose for later batches. They take
the dingle bop and they push it through the grumbo

(02:04):
where the fleeb is rubbed against it. It's important that
the fleeb is rubbed because the fleeb has all of
the fleeb juice.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
And lastly, you're going to hear some surprising life advice
that might just inspire you to see the beauty in
this world even though there's all this filth. You already
know what the show's about, so consider this your head's up.
We're going darker, we're going deeper, and we're doing it
with someone who goes there pretty much every single day
of his life, Rusty. Thank you so much for joining

(02:33):
me today. I do want to talk a little bit
about Sea Sam and the material that you see. I
look back to the early days what it was called
kitty porn, which thankfully we don't hear at all anymore,
released that often, and then child pornography, which now thankfully

(02:54):
we are seeing Sea Sam and people are having a
better grasp on what that is. But you're talking about
the awful material that you see. What kind of material
do you do you really have to view? And is
it's it's a lot of material. We're talking about terabytes

(03:18):
at times and tons of images, right.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
I've had reviews that take weeks to finish because there's
so much data and at some point, i mean, depending
on what the case needs, depending on what it is like,
there's some sometimes you just do as much as you
need and you don't do the rest of it because
there's so much. I mean, if you've got somebody who

(03:44):
literally has terabytes, I mean that's I don't even know,
hundreds of thousands of images if not even more than that.
I mean it could be it could be a million images.
If they have like a giant library of just everything
they've ever downloaded, that's just impossible to look at, Like
you can't categorize all that and do it do all that.

(04:05):
So generally, you you take what you need to affect
the case and I I just bundle up everything that
I can and I parse it off to the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children to have them do
their hash matching and stuff on it to figure out,

(04:25):
you know, how many of these are are known victims
that type of thing. But I don't, I don't. I
mean there's a lot in most cases, I probably look
at everything, but if they have a giant volume, no,
I don't have time. You know, I can't sit there
for for weeks just looking at what all the crap
that somebody has collected, you know, over however long. But

(04:48):
but there is a high amount of having to view
the stuff. And you know, it's videos, it's it's you know, gifts,
it's it's just regular images. A lot of times you
get these collage type things where it's like multiple images
all in one, where you get a collage video that's
like a bunch of little video clips all put together,

(05:09):
so it's like one video, but it's really about fifteen
videos or something, and it ranges from everything from just
like just posing, you know, loot and lascivious display is
what that's called. You know, just sexual posing that all
the way up to all the way up to snuff.

(05:30):
I mean, just everything on the way. There's a whole
category of of c SAM called hurtcore, which is like
the the extreme bondage and torture and like injury, that
type of thing. And then you know, you've got just
everything child sex, trafficking overseas, child prostitution, you know, forced prostitution,

(05:55):
that type of thing. So you just all of that.
It's just everything. So some of the really twisted stuff
is like infants, you know, when when they're abusing infants
or doing full on torture. I've seen people set on fire.

(06:16):
I mean, you name it. It's just there's some wild
stuff out there. And how any of that is sexual
it is beyond me. I just can't even imagine how
how someone, how deeply disturbed somebody would have to be
to look at some of these things and be like,
oh yeah, that's my jam. It is I don't know, monstrous,

(06:39):
I just epically awful, evil stuff that exists.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Just true sadism.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, I worked one of the worst cases I've ever
worked in my career, if not the worst, probably the
worst recently, and it was just I mean I've seen
I don't know, I mean, I've seen a lot of
stuff in my time, and even that one was like, Wow,
this is off the charts, like this is this is
pretty crazy, to the point where I had to give
warnings to like prosecutors and stuff like this is way

(07:13):
beyond the normal, Like you need to guard yourself with
you know, with this material because it's this is like
damaging stuff. So it's pretty pretty awful. Was it torture, Oh,
it's like dismemberment, cannibalism. That guy had one that somebody

(07:37):
got set on fire during a sexual thing. I mean,
it's really really bizarre stuff, you know, children, mutilation, removal
of organs, I mean, you name it, just the whatever,
the most extreme thing you can think of. He probably
has it.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
I want to say, I'm so sorry you have to
to see that. I often I talked about it a
little bit earlier, but you and other investigators and the
prosecutors and whoever else has to see this are also
victims of this person in many ways that you have
to to look at that and experience it's it's so twisted.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
I'm I'm glad I get this case because I don't
think of like, the only reason I was able to
name that stuff off is because I'm like actively having
to think about it access it. I don't see any
of this stuff. I know a lot of people would
have a really really hard time with the content, and

(08:46):
I wouldn't. I wouldn't wish that case on anybody, like
another investigator, because it's so awful. But yeah, it's you know,
and there's there's lots of people out there that are
sitting in the chair doing these reviews just like me,
you know, having to deal with this stuff. So you know, sadly,

(09:07):
it's not unique to this one guy. So you know,
he didn't make well most of the videos and stuff,
he didn't make them. There somebody else did and they've
been distributed. So you know, how many people have you know,
been into this or seen it or whatever. So it's
it's definitely crossed somebody else's desk. I'm sure a few times.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
This is some really unimaginable material that you and so
many officers and agents have to look at. There has
to be an amount of a coping mechanism that exists, right,
Do you have any coping mechanisms that help you through this?

Speaker 3 (09:57):
I don't know if I would call it coping mechanisms,
I would say in general, no, I just I just
do it, and you know, every day I just go
in and do more. But I do have other things
I'm interested in, So I guess you could call that
like a hobby or whatever, distraction kind of thing. I

(10:18):
guess it's a distraction. I don't know, it's just something
else I'm meant to I don't really need a distraction,
but sure we'll call it. Then. I enjoy being prepared
in all the all the ways that can be so

(10:41):
I used to think. So. I don't know if anybody's
ever seen Doomsday Preppers. That's a great show. It's like
full of these lunatic people that are just all crazy.
There's like, in the end, I've seen all of it
because I'm fascinated by why some people do what they do.
And there's like maybe two or three guys max out

(11:01):
of that entire series, however many seasons.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
There were it's like your version of true crime. Yeah,
I don't know why people do the things they do
in this way.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Yeah, but there's there's like two or three guys out
of the whole thing that seemed even remotely normal. So
a lot of these people are like, oh, you know,
I prepped for the eruption of Mount Saint Helen's super
volcano or whatever. I'm not into all that kind of stuff.
I don't I don't prep for like a certain thing

(11:32):
that I'm fearful of. I like being prepared as like
an insurance policy. If if i'm if, I'm prepared in
all the different ways of being prepared. If there's a
natural disaster, I'm set. If there's an economic downturn, I'm set,
you know, if there's any problem. If I lose my
job and I just don't have any money, I can

(11:53):
still eat because I'm prepared, you know, to be self sufficient,
you know, for a long time. And so I look
at it as peace of mind, which I guess is
like a stress mitigator, you know, coping mechanism whatever. But
that so I do practical prepping. I'm into like skills,

(12:16):
I'm into, you know, prepping, actually storing stuff like all that.
But I don't do it in a way that's weird,
Like you could come to my house and not know
that I do anything. Like it's not obvious. I'm not
like a fanatic. I don't have like boxes of foods
back to the ceiling in every room or anything. But
I think it's like a personal responsibility thing to be

(12:39):
self sufficient and to be able to even help other
people because you are not immediately in need because of
any minor emergency. Most people don't have enough food to
get by for a week in their house, and that's
just weird to me. I don't know. I mean, I've

(13:03):
I've really put a lot of thought into various different
ways of prepping, like having medical supplies all that kind
of stuff. You know, what kind of food, what caloric
and nutritional value does long term food need to have.
You can't just have a whole bunch of like super
high salt, you know, junk, because that's not you're not

(13:27):
letting live on that, no, you know, although twinkies do
last forever, which is a clearly established fact, but you know,
I've put a lot of thought into it. It's also
something that I can kind of apply thinking to that.
That is a problem solving thing. So I get a
lot of enjoyment out of problem solving and that type
of thing. So I do like prepping. I used to

(13:50):
not call it prepping, but I guess I'm a prepper
but I'm not. I'm always crazy people, I don't know,
just being being prepared. I'm just ready for problems. And
then I'm like whatever, I'm a prepper. It's just easier.
But there's a you know what's funny is is after
you kind of start doing stuff and you talk to

(14:10):
people and they realize that, like you know about this,
a lot of people really have a bunch of questions.
They're very curious about it. And you'd be surprised how
many closet preppers there are out there, because I work
with some and these are not people that you would expect,
but they're like, oh, yeah, I'm you know, like how
what are you doing for for like you know, water

(14:31):
or whatever. And I'll tell them like my water plant
and they're like, oh that's great, and you know, so
they're they're on the journey too, but they're they're not fanatics,
they're not nutcases. There's no tenfoil hats. There's no you know,
fear of something happening that you're trying to you know,
avoid or whatever. It's just being generally prepared. Even FEMA

(14:53):
tells people you need three weeks of like food, water
and whatever, you need, medicine, you know, whatever it is
that that you need to survive, you should like have
three weeks of that. Three weeks goes by really fast,
by the way, But even they say that, and this
is like the government telling you this. So what is

(15:14):
it FEMA dot org, slash prepare or something like that
is the is the website, I think. But you know,
if the federal government is telling you to do like
you need to be prepared, like you should maybe pay
some attention to that because what they're telling you is
we are not going to be there to give you
all the things.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
That you need that they are not prepared.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, so ask the people in the mountains of North
Carolina about that one, because that's a group of people
that were left high and drive for a while, and
there are people from all over the nation driving, you know,
trailer loads of stuff over there just to keep these
people alive.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
You're amazing people who came to the rescue.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
The Trina, you know, another event that took a long
time before people actually got real aid. Like you definitely
needed to get by on your own for a while.
But every natural disaster of people and this happens, and
people like, well, they'll they'll bring me water and everything.
They'll just drop it on my roof. I'm like, no,

(16:22):
they won't trust me. Been there, done that. But yeah,
so I don't know. That's that's one of my hobbies.
I like shooting and doing that stuff too.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
So you had toilet paper during COVID, I.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Did have toilet paper. I do not hoard toilet paper.
My neighbor does hoard toilet paper, Like she has enough
toilet paper, probably for the rest of her life, Like
I don't even know like how long it lasts. But yeah,
she's like, I will not be without toilet paper. I
was like, that's a really interesting thing to hoard. This

(16:58):
is just her thing, Like she's serious about her bathroom time.
I guess, I don't know. It's like like I too
like to be comfortable and I have enough to get
me by, Like I'm never gonna like just run out
in a week or something. But I mean, I don't
know that I need like more than a year's worth
of toilet paper on handed, and given point, it seems

(17:20):
excessive to me.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
So I have made a decision just so you know,
if there is a zombie apocalypse or the alien invasion
or something terrible, I'm coming over because I know that
you have things. But also we're going to have to
invite the neighbor so that we have some toilet paper,
because that's like you might run out and she won't.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
This is true. Yeah, bring food, bring ammo. You're welcome.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
So we're now we're laughing, right, we're laughing. We went
from talking about really awful stuff and now we are
giggling about things. And that's a really important part of
this work too. And one of my favorite things about
being friends and close to law enforcement is that dark humor.

(18:12):
And I know that you are a big fan of that.
You have told me so many stories that I think
a lot of people from the outside might be like
ooh ooh, but I'm like cracking up. So I wanted
to ask if you could share some of those those
dark humor moments.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Oh man, yeah, I've got a few gallows. Humor is
definitely my thing. Some people say, oh, you have to
have it or you'll go crazy. And I'm like, I guess.
I mean I had it before I had stress, So
I don't know. It's always been my jam.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Just like an infant but dark humor.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, pretty much. If you work on like really serious
stuff all the time, you get kind of a twisted
sense of humor. It's just part of it. Like it's
just an automatic thing. Even like, you know, I work
with a wide range of people and and you know,
some people are really serious, some people are like almost immature,

(19:17):
so but everybody is kind of the same. After you've
worked on this stuff for a long time, like you
you tend to laugh at like stupid stuff or things
that that you shouldn't laugh at, or you know, inappropriate
stuff or whatever.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
But all right, so tell me this dildo's story. So
there's a guy, uh who you're in.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, you know it happens.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
So it happens. You make up one day and all
of a sudden, there's there's dilto's all over the place.
How did this happen?

Speaker 3 (19:49):
They just you know there you pour water on them
and they multiply, and so it just happens. You know,
you get one and then you eventually get another one
and now now they're everyone get.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
The after midnight terrible things happen, yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
For sure. So something that that we routinely do is,
you know, search houses, right, so you know, especially when
you initially go in, you have to make sure there's
no people hide mouth, so you have to look where
anywhere a person can be. One of those places is

(20:23):
the shower. I've got a couple of great shower stories.
So you know, sometimes you throw the curtain back or whatever,
and you just never know, you just never know where
you're going to find. Some of these bathrooms are just
just wrong. They're just so so gross. Like the level
of nasty that people will will willingly live in is

(20:47):
just mind boggling. But anyway, so there are some sexual
devices that come with a nice section cup on the
back and so you can position them how you would like. Well,
if you have a shower and you have a little
collection of these, you know, shower walls, you can really

(21:09):
get a suction cup on there pretty good. You know,
you can hang shelves, you could put your shampoo and
stuff on them, they'll stay there a long time. And
also put your dildos up there and make it look
like a porcupine wall coming at you, like throw the
curtain back and you get that and it's like, oh,
that's way too early in the morning for that, thank you.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
So you pull it and you see all of these
sex toys. Are they varying sizes?

Speaker 3 (21:39):
Oh yeah, they're all a little different, you know, that's
what makes it fun. Like you can't it's all the
same to just be boring, you know, too predictable. I'll
just like winking at you. Yeah. Now that that was
one that had another one we did a search that
this guy had a bunch of weird stuff too. But
so at some point in the search, somebody went to

(22:05):
like the hall bathroom and as soon as they walked
through the door, they I saw them. Look, I was
standing outside a little ways away ere I could see,
and I saw them go through the door. And this
is search. Now, this isn't like looking for people. This
is like looking for devices and stuff. So this is
the detail search. Walks through the door and he looks

(22:26):
over to the side and he goes, what the hell
is that? And he goes out and gets somebody else
and they walked through the door and they go, what
the hell is that? Now I'm like, what's in there? Like, yeah,
I was thinking it was like a dildo or something,
you know, because that's pretty normal in my line of work.
You know, somebody else is like curious, and they beat

(22:49):
me to it. So they walk in there and they're like,
what the hell is that? Like literally the same thing.
This is their response. And so we had a one
of our forensics guys, super super NERD goes through the
door and he goes, Oh, it's a plumbus. Like a plumbus.

(23:13):
This is a word I've never heard before. I had
to have it explained to me that it comes from
a cartoon Rick and Morty, I think it is. And
it's like a They never really say what the plumbus is,
but you're kind of led to believe that it's like
an alien sexual device. But it like looks really weird.
It's like an impossible thing.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
So they can't show it, but.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
He no, they show it, show ok. And but he
he walks in and identified this as if it was
a toaster, like just obviously it's a toaster. Oh, it's
a toaster, you know, And I mean just like completely
matter of fact. And so he had to explain to
us like what a plumbus was, and it was a

(23:59):
plumbus lamp. You can get him on Amazon there. I
don't know about fifty bucks or something, but it lights up.
And he had this thing in his bathroom as like
his like nightlight or something. It's kind of big and
it's like like that. And so for Christmas we got
the it or the forensics guy. We got him a

(24:19):
Christmas ornament that was a plumbus and he really liked that.
He hung that on his desk, stayed with him the
rest of the time he was with hus. So went
to do a search warrant at six oh four in
the morning out in the middle of nowhere, like way out,
and we're pretty sure the guy was up. He was,

(24:44):
so we smashed the front door and this guy is
standing in his living room completely naked. We later found
out that he weighs five hundred and ninety eight pounds.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
So he's almost my six hundred pound life. That's a show.
He's not quite there yet.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
We had to we weighed him on a cargo scale.
Is how we found out he was naked, and he
was actively crapping himself, just pooping straight onto the floor
of his living room. Which I will tell you was
not the first time he had done that, and it
had nothing to do with us smashing the door. He

(25:23):
was already doing that when we smashed the door. His
bathroom was the thing of nightmares, absolute nightmare fuel. Like
just that toilet had not flushed in I don't even
know a really really long time. He had used it
until you couldn't use it anymore. And then he just

(25:44):
like threw all cares to the wind and just started
just crapping as he walked, I guess, like an animal.
But yeah, that was that was something. He smelled really bad.
That was that was awful, Like just cracking the seal
of that door. I don't think so like he did.

(26:04):
He didn't even use it.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
I'm just very concerned about toilet paper now, but like,
what's the bath Oh my goodness.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah, he was the hands on a fender by the way,
Oh gosh, yeah, yeah, so he oh yeah, when we
when we took him so oddly enough walking up to
the front door, he had a Honda Civic. That was

(26:34):
his car. I'm going to go and tell you him.
Oh no, he hadn't been in that car in a while.
It was actually kind of newer, so it wasn't even old.
But he gained a lot of weight in the last
like year and a half before we got to him,
Like he'd gained like a couple of hundred pounds and
so yeah, but he he was. This is one of

(26:54):
the grossest searches I've ever been on because of the
level of poop was was off the charts, so that
he we had to transport him by ambulance and they
were pissed, like they did not want to do it,
but I'm like, you got to make it happen, Captain,
because I don't know how he's getting down there. That

(27:18):
was That was an interesting one. I'll never forget that guy.
He was so big that when he was sitting in
a chair, you couldn't tell if he was sitting or standing,
like he just like it made almost no difference for
him to sit in a chair because he was just
that big. So that was crazy.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
That's horrific.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
You can't even by the way, we didn't even handcuff him,
like there's you can't, like there's not any one there's
just no point, like you know what I mean, Like
there's he really can't do anything being that size. Its crazy.
We're just like, all right, well, come on, let's go.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Was he just ordering fuit?

Speaker 3 (28:01):
So he would actually every once in a while. He
didn't really have any money, so I don't think he
ordered much. I mean he ordered a little bit, but
it's not like you can do a lot of door
dash if you have no money, because that's kind of expensive.
But he would occasionally walk down to the corner gas station,
which was close. It's like three houses down, so this

(28:23):
isn't like a huge walk. It's not like he's getting
extra sense, and he would walk down and buy. He
lived almost exclusively. This will explain a lot of poop.
Lived almost exclusively. I'm not even kidding. This is true.
This is he lived off of frozen burritos from the

(28:47):
gas station. Oh I'm gonna go ahead and tell you
that that will wreck your insides.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
So he was not himself at all.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Oh no, no, But I can't even imagine the volume
of them that he must have eaten to like maintain
the weight, because but I don't know, it's absolutely disgusting.
But yeah, he had so many rappers, like these little
cellophane rappers that these burritos would come in. They were
like everywhere he had bags and bags of them, Like,

(29:24):
he didn't even take his trash out. He would bag it,
a lot of it, not all of it, would bag
it and it would just like they were just all
these bags of trash in his living room. He would
just like kind of toss them out of the way.
It's pretty crazy.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
So he just lived in that self.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
Yeah, it's pretty awful. So he wasn't a duplex. I
don't know how the neighbors didn't couldn't smell some of that,
Like they had to have been able to smell that.
They're probably pretty happy that he was getting hauled off
because I can't imagine that he was like an awesome
neighbor or anything. He's a child abusing poop factory on that.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Is a disturbing being. I'm so glad you caught him.
So he was a hands on a fender. Did he
also have see Sam then?

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Oh? Yeah, yeah he was producing. Yeah he was. He
was hands on and he was making the images and stuff.
It's pretty messed up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
We talk about how offenders so when I when I talk,
I really try to say that offenders can be anybody.
And when people say that, they tend to think like oh, okay,
So they can be like high society kind of people,
and yes, they can also be anybody and they could
be like this guy too.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Like it runs. I've been in. I've been in multi
million dollar houses, resting doctors. I mean, you name it that.
This is one thing that does not know a socioeconomic
you know group. It's not. It's not a you know,

(31:14):
this isn't a poor person crime or you know, middle
class crime or whatever. It's it's everybody. I've been in
in trailer parks, multimillion dollar neighborhoods, everything in between. It
used to be a long time ago that it was,
you know, it was a white guy crime. There's always

(31:35):
a white dude. That is definitely not the case anymore.
I Mean, I've had everything you can think of as
far as like a racial component. One thing that's pretty
consistent still is there's very few women involved in and
child exploitation. It does happen, but it's very few. It's

(31:59):
almost always a it's just it's like a unicorn case.
If you get one that's a that's a female, very
very few and far between.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
So yeah, the ones that I've seen are the ones
where the women are involved. For the man that they're
with or they want to be with that they're abusing
their child and they're sending it to a potential romantic
partner or a romantic partner, or they're abusing the child together.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
So I had one a little while back, ended up.
The primary bad guy was in another country in Africa,
and he was manipulating this girl to abuse her her
boyfriend's child, so the child was not related to her,

(32:52):
and that's how she kind of was able to wrap
her head around, you know, some degree of like really
twisted morality of like, well, at least it's not my kidation. Yeah. Yeah,
this girl's two and a half, so this isn't like,
you know, had you know, a good job on being
a decent person. Now it's a terrible person. She for

(33:12):
sure went to prison, but she was doing it to impress,
slash satisfied this guy and an African country, and so
that was pretty interesting. This is one of the very
few like female offender cases that I've worked. It's just

(33:35):
very few, so, which I guess is good. But at
the same time, you know, come on, guys, do better,
Like really what it's like always a dude, It's like,
come on, I.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Do wonder at some point there's going to be a
shift though with the consumption of pornography. I do wonder
if there's going to be that sort of evening out
at some point, or that that women are going to
become curious. But I hope not. I really I do

(34:14):
not like that to be a trend.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
I don't know that it will be. I mean, it
might slut like very very slowly increase. I just haven't
seen anything that would indicate to me that there's going
to be a you know, any kind of like landslide
shift in demographic biology is just different for men and women.

(34:38):
You know what drives men and women and women are
just typically just not into that stuff. So it's just
a very different like motivational origin, I guess.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
And what we see a lot with women is the
teachers that abuse their.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
That is by far the largest component that I'm aware
of is that scenario. That's a really odd one too,
because like a lot of times, like probably most of
the time, at least the ones I can think of
the teachers are attractive, like could they for sure could
get a guy? Like, no problem. There's plenty of legal, eligible,

(35:27):
decent looking guys that would you know, be good to
go for that, and they're like, oh, but this thirteen
year old, he's so mature for his age, and so
you know, there is still there is still a sickness there.
You know, even in the female community.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
It's like that. I really believe it comes down to
that that power and control, but also this need.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
For the taboo well.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
Even just absolutely, but also the need to have this
positive feed back from mm hmm. That.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
Yeah, it's it's a weird validation that goes into that, yeah, right, yeah,
and very strange dynamic.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah, it's that. That's really where the women are landing
with this recently, and there's more and more stories about that,
and it's something that I want to start talking about more.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
I had a female teacher, she was a coach and
also a teacher, and she was abusing a student and
a female student actually, and her whole thing was she
could never find anybody like she just had a series

(36:51):
of unsuccessful, you know, peer level relationships and for whatever reason,
and she just couldn't make it happen with whoever that
she had been meeting. And so you know, she there
was this girl in her one of her students that

(37:12):
you know, thought she was cool or whatever, and she
just kind of ran with that and wound up being
an abuser that way. She had this really odd like
explanation of like why that was okay for her to do,
And I mean she knew it wasn't okay, but that
was like her justification. I was just really odd. She's like,
I just couldn't find anybody you know, my own age, I,

(37:35):
you know, could carry on a relationship with. And I'm like, okay, well,
you know by all means, you know, just widen the
range a little bit. Just yeah, really weird justification, but
definitely looking for that validation, looking for maybe even a
level of control. I don't know, I'm not sure what

(37:58):
the motivation there was.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Well, now that validation to it is leaves the classroom
and they can text back and forth, so it's not
just you're in class in person with the student, but
that it can continue on. But there's also so much
more evidence because of that. It seems like a lot
of the cases are uncovered because a parent found that

(38:22):
this conversation or these photos were on their child's phone
and that was how it all was revealed.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
It's usually how it happens, so right, parents parents finally
catching you know, something that was going on. Yeah, that's
or a lot. Sometimes also with the students, sometimes it's
another student that will make a complaint too. I've had
I've definitely had that as well.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
We've talked about really disgusting and horrific things. But I
want to talk to you about welcome. Yes, thank you.
Our conversations are always so much fun. I just remember
the one day you messaged me and I was like,
is he happy? Like what you were? You were going
on to a warrant or something, and you're like, he's

(39:13):
got the frowny face. And now we have like this
running operation frownie face inside joke Rusty. Yeah, I need
to name it that. Rusty is always brightening my day here.
But you do.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
You're you.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Have a fun sense of humor, and we like to
joke back and forth that you're kind of like the
Ron Swanson of your of your line of work. And
you've even said that he's your spirit animal.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Is for sure my spirit animal. So if for some
reason you don't know who Ron Swanson is, any listeners
out there, immediately when you're done with this, go and
look him up, because you need to watch the entire
series of parks and rec your life will be better.

(40:06):
So Ron Swanson is a government employee who can't stand
the government. So he's like the absolute, you know, oxymoron
of employment. Like he he lives every day trying to
like undermine the the government in some way, like he

(40:29):
just despises all the overreach and everything. I mean, I'm
not trying to undermine anything, but I'm definitely like I'm
a I'm a small government guy just not into you know,
a police state or any of that kind of stuff
or you know, just I just like small government. I'm

(40:50):
just not a you know, the typical government employee, I guess,
but I'm just really I really feel and channel the
Ron Swanson effect. I just never thought that I would be,

(41:10):
you know, employed in such a way that I that
I am now, and it still surprises me sometimes. But
here I am the.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Ron Swanson of your mysterious agency.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
I'm actually wearing a don't tread on Me T shirt
as we speak. This is what I wore my my
my warrant today.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
So yeah, you worn't to a warrant, Oh for sure,
you don't have to wear like a uniform.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
I don't own a uniform. I don't. I don't wear uniforms.
I'm currently wearing a don't tread on Me T shirt
and combat pants. That's literally what I'm wearing.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
You've been doing this work for a while now, and
I wanted what is that first like high five moment
of yours? What was that first win where you were like,
this is what I'm supposed to be doing Because you
just said I never thought I would be here. I
never thought that this is what I would be doing.
What is that moment where you're like, oh, yeah, this
is this is this is right for me.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
So I don't know about like law enforcement in general,
but I will say that like one of my earliest,
like real big successes and like a case that I
that I kind of carry with me, not in a
traumatic way, but in like a win. It's to me,
it's like a trophy on the on the show I worked,

(42:40):
Oh man, how do I talk about this? Quickly? Had
a guy who had come from Lebanon and had become
a US citizen. He was injured during a surgical procedure
and won a giant malpractice suit. So he won like
a lot of money out of this, and he used

(43:02):
all that money to buy a bunch of like slum houses,
so he became a slum board and what he would
do and this went back. After I did a search
one I found pictures that went way way back. He
was I think fifty four when I arrested him. He
was already on the sex defender registry multiple times. This

(43:23):
is back when you could be on it multiple times.
They don't have it that way anymore. He was actually
on the registry two or three times. I kind of forget.

Speaker 5 (43:30):
Anyway, he was buying all these slum houses and he
would move these families in that were usually like illegals
or really really.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
Destitute families, so they just had nothing, and he would
take over their lives. So he would give them a
place to stay, he would give them a job. A
lot of times they worked for him, so he controlled
their money, their place to live. He would start grooming
their kids and like bringing buy him TVs and you know,

(44:05):
stuff like that, and ingratiate you know, himself with the
family and get really comfortable, and then he would abuse
their kids. And this happened multiple times, many many times,
this one particular family. I kind of forget how this
case came forward. It's been so long ago. I don't
remember how it broke, but it did. And he had
abused all the kids in this family. This family had

(44:27):
like six kids. I charged him with just many, many,
many charges. I don't even know. I know with one
one girl, he was into boys, but this one girl
was very boy looking, and this is like the only
girl he'd ever been with. He raped her thirteen times.

(44:49):
So I charged him with thirteen counts of first degree right.
He had a six and a half million dollar cash
bond and he posted it. So he actually showed up
with six and a half million dollars. This is way
more than what a bondsman will do. And they would
not let him. Yeah, he posted it. Took him a

(45:11):
month to post it, but he actually posted that. So
he had to sell property and stuff. So the cash bond,
you can't you can't post real estate. You actually have
to have cash. And he he made it happen, and
they called me. I was off the day that he bonded,
and somebody called me and said, you're not going to
believe who's walking out of here right now? And I

(45:32):
was like, I have no idea, and or said this
guy's name, and I was like, what how that's a
huge bond they posted so he it took three and
a half years to get through trial. He postponed everything

(45:53):
as long as he could, and he ultimately killed himself
on the way to his sentencing, pulled off on side
of the road and blew his brains out. And so
that's it. That was a success story. So he was
one of the most evil people that I had ever
encountered up to that point, and still one of the

(46:16):
worst I've ever dealt with. He had hundreds of victims.
I found pictures of him with kids, going to New Orleans,
to Disneyland, just all over the place, and he would
take five and six kids at a time. And this
went back to when he was in his like maybe
late twenties, early thirties. These are so these are pictures

(46:39):
that were sold. They were like weird sizes with like
the rounded edges and stuff, like they don't even make
them like that, like even then, you know, when I
had the case. But yeah, he was. He was terrible.
That's one of my like defining moments or whatever. I
was like, yeah, this is important, So it's not my
first expectation. What's that?

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Did he act alone?

Speaker 3 (47:03):
Mm? Hm, wow, yep, completely alone. So he had two
kids living with him when I when I arrested him.
That are kids that he had abused from a prior
uh situation. Not the kids that I was that were
my victims, but these are kids that had that were
older that that he had like kind of adopted. He

(47:30):
tried to adopt a bunch of kids. They would never
let him adopt, like He's actually filed paperwork to do
it and never could successfully do it. But he tried
multiple times to adopt kids.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
How did he get you were saying, you don't remember
quite how it came to life.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
I don't remember. I think one of the kids had disclosed,
but I don't remember. Yeah, Well, he made see Sam
like old school see Sam like photos like polaroids. He
had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pictures that he
had been keeping for years and years.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
And years, so ones that weren't digital, that were in
like a box or something.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
He didn't have any digital digital stuff. Everything with him
was hard copy. Wow. He had even written on the
back of a lot of the pictures like the age,
who it was or whatever. It's pretty crazy. Those are
his trophies.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
I was just about to ask that if they were
were trophies. Oh, I hope all those children are okay
and the families are okay. These people and the work
that you're involved in every day, like, I'm so close
to it. I've survived it, I've heard stories, I've seen it,

(48:50):
and yet there's just no there's no rock bottom here.
I've not gotten to the point where I'm like, oh, okay,
that's as bad as it gets, since there's no worse,
Like I'm sure that there is worse than that, but
that is I'm a little.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Can I tell you a funny story?

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Please?

Speaker 3 (49:16):
More gallows humor? I don't have normal funny stories, so
they're always weird. But so that reminded me like just
when you thought you've seen it all, like you get
something else. So, I mean I've seen a lot of stuff, right,
I mean there's like there's nary a kink I have
not seen in a case of while back, I got

(49:41):
a guy who was into sounding, and I'd never heard
of that term before, as as that term now the
activity I had kind of heard of, but it's vile.
But anyway, so sounding, I was like, what the heck
is saying sounding? Like what is that, and so I

(50:02):
had to go look it up. So, yeah, long story short,
it is shoving things up your urethraw and they make
Now it sounds pretty terrible. And so I had to
explain this to a state and a federal prosecutor and

(50:26):
I'm like, so part of this case involves sounding, And
I'm like, do you happen to know what that is?
And they're like what? And they're the same reaction for
both of Them's two completely different conversations, but they're they're
both like, what what is that? I'm like, it's nothing
like what it sounds like you might think it is.

(50:47):
And so I had to show them a picture of
his kit that he he had several, but one of
them like one of these kits he bought from China,
like from Timu or something. I don't know, but like
all these I don't something you know, wish or you know,
one of these things. I don't think you can get
them on Amazon. Maybe you can. But it looks like
a little little black case and like you open it

(51:09):
up and it's got like the red velvet insides, that's
all fancy, you know, it's got these little loops in there. Yeah,
and it's got all these like rods, like these stainless
steel looking like smooth rods that are all kind of
like different gauge sizes, you know, so it's like you
got like the little one, then they kind of work
their way bigger. And I was like, yeah, he uses

(51:31):
these to shove them up his p hoole and and
and they're just like oh, They're like how could that
be enjoyable? And I'm like, I don't know. I mean,
to me, it's like a toss up between the bamboo
shoots under your fingernails or that, and it's kind of
like I'm not sure which one's worse. I don't know.

(51:54):
I'll do the fingernails, I guess. But yeah, it's just vile.
But yeah, if you called sounding, I have no idea.
I didn't want to further look it up. I'm sure
there's a reason. Maybe it's because you make a lot
of sounds when you do it, because it's super uncomfortable.

(52:14):
I don't know. I've actually had pictures of this guy
doing it with somebody else, like mutually mutual sounding up
its next level. That's a messed up kink.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Correctly with a friend, that's a yeah, I don't I
don't want to kink shape party game. Yeah, probably somebody
out there's listening and they're like, that's what I do. Uh,
I have to say that just help uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
I don't think that is for the lack of any
better phrase here my cup of tea.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
No, no, you're you're on your own on that one. Well,
I will say that, you know, kind of referencing back
to the heavy hitter conversation, something that will get you
bumped up on my radar if I find out that
that you're like law enforcement, firefighter, position of trust person, teacher,

(53:19):
you know, clergy, that kind of thing. Any of those folks,
if you have one of those those hero jobs like military,
you know, if you're in the military or something like that,
you are automatically bumped to the top of my bile.
I go after them immediately because I look at it
this way. I don't I don't know what you want

(53:40):
to call this, like index or whatever, but I look
at it like the the the childhood hero index, Like
if a little kid wants to dress up like you
for Halloween or you know, you are their hero, or
you're like one of the paw Patrol or something like
that you are number one on my list because these

(54:02):
are to me, that is just extra dangerous. These are
kids that or you know, these are people that are
looking for kids, and kids would be fascinated with their
their job or their uniform or you know whatever, and.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
Would be honored to spend time with them, or to
have private time, or to have conversations with them. Yeah,
and you see a lot of those cases.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Go straight to the top. Oh yeah, I've arrested fire chiefs,
arrested multiple police officers in the past. I mean not
like all cops are into this or anything, but I've
had a few I've had I've had a couple of firefighters.
One was a higher ranking guy that was notable. I

(54:51):
mean teachers. I've had a number of teachers, coaches. Yeah,
just yeah, any any of those people welcome to the
top of my list. He just became my priority case.
So there kind of is a double standard because these

(55:12):
are all people who do know better and are held
at that like kind of hero position. So I do
kind of hold them to a little bit different standard
than you know, some guy that works third shift at
the gas station or something. I'm still going to get
him too, but I'm going to get starting here. Yeah,

(55:36):
I'm going to get the you know, the police officer, firefighter, whoever,
I'm going to get them first. But yeah, it's just
that's just unacceptable.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
So that's how you you triage them to start. What
you did This is so real. What you do is
like real real, for real, and it's we're laughing. And
I like that. This podcast is darker than a lot
of podcasts, but also lighter and maybe some very twisted,

(56:09):
disturbing ways. But True Crime is really a form of entertainment.
Like people are listening to this not just for educational
purposes and to other ones and watching the documentaries and
all these things because it's fun. It's fun to look
into something that is awful and to learn about the

(56:30):
fringes of society, and people are really fascinated by it.
But one thing I've been asking everybody is what would
you want the people who binge true crime to know
about the world that you work in every day? Like
what message would you have for them? Because we've talked

(56:50):
about the true crime fans in a different way in
this episode too, and that they are they're at risk
in some ways.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
Yeah, So I don't know, I guess in a in
a in a one statement thing, I would say, like,
guard your mind. You are are letting in evil things, right,
You're you're peering into the abyss and and one way

(57:24):
shape or form at some level. And you you just
need to be careful because sometimes the abyss will peer back.
And so you know, the more darkness you let into
your life, the more shadows gather. You know. I don't
know a better way to say that, but like you

(57:45):
just need to be really careful about like how how
deep you get into stuff, how fascinated you are. You
can you can find yourself moving away from a fascination
and maybe moving into more of a glorification of certain things,

(58:05):
or you know what I mean, Like you can kind
of find yourself slipping down a slope there. I think
it's fine to to be fascinated by things, but I
would say, you know, have some some diversity and what
you're into. You just don't want to focus on the
worst of humanity all the time. You need to do

(58:28):
something else, you know, also.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Get a hobby.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
Yeah, touch grass, you know, go outside, look at the sun.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
Don't look into the sun.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
Yeah, maybe not like stare into it, but you know,
be in the presence of it, generate some vitamin D.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Put down the device, stop doom scrolling.

Speaker 3 (58:54):
Yeah, just unplug a little bit, go do something else,
you know. I mean, I'm fast needed with stuff. You know,
I watch a lot of things like that, but I don't.
I don't fully dwell in it. Like even though I
work in it, I'm in a lot more than most
people are. But this isn't something that I take home.
This isn't something that's like my identity. I don't wear like,

(59:19):
you know, serial killer T shirts or something. This isn't
you know what I mean, Like I know about it,
but I don't. This isn't like my thing. Like I've
looked into the n V stuff a lot and studied
it and work cases and you know, to the point
where you know, I can teach and instruct on this stuff.
But like I'm still careful how much of that I

(59:44):
let in at one time, because I don't want to
let it be really familiar. Like I don't want to
be comfortable with it. At the point you're starting to
become comfortable with something that's evil, you need to kind
of think about that. Maybe you get a little bit
too close to it if it's not shocking anymore. If

(01:00:06):
it's now just like ooh, you know, then that might
be a level where you need to re evaluate a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
I see that in this score group on Facebook. Yeah,
that yours, where these people are like, they're making jokes
about somebody licking an axe after they put it through
somebody's skull that they just watched her They're like, oh,
this video, that video's really tame, and they were talking
about one where these two girls murder their best friend

(01:00:38):
by this was a recent case by They tell her
it's a surprise, and they tied to a chair and
then they they strangle her to death with a rope
and it's absolutely awful. And yeah, I thankfully have not
seen it, but I've read their descriptions of it, and
their descriptions are like, well, it's kind of boring, she
didn't really fight back, and yeah, the way they talk

(01:01:01):
about some of this is is scary. And then every
so often they'll hit a breaking point, and it's usually
having to do with an animal and sometimes a kid
where they're like, oh, yeah, this this is too far,
and then somebody else in the group will be like,
what do you think we're doing here? Like you shouldn't
be in this group then. So it's fascinating to watch,

(01:01:21):
and I'm glad that I fell into this because I'm
I'm I'm learning a lot about those sorts of people.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Yeah, and you know, these are people this desensitation that
we have, you know, towards all this stuff. These are
the same people that you know, look at the arena
Saruska Murder where you know, she's sitting there. This guy,
you know, he's not like surreptitious about it. He just

(01:01:52):
like straight up cuts her throat and nobody nobody does anything.
They don't even the lady sitting next to her does this.
She turns away. She look like purposely just looks away.
She doesn't even worried about herself, like at all, Like
you know, most people would be like, you know, don't

(01:02:15):
hurt me too, you know, just thinking that like they're
next or whatever. She just turns her head while this
this girl dies like three feet away from her, like
literally she could probably just lean forward, not even move
out of her seat and reach her.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
And you know, just offer even a comfort or something.
There's a bystander effect. But then, yeah, people are I
think some people are just really jaded now I do
have to say that video does continue and there are
a couple people who really did come to her aid,
but it was too late, and I just I appreciate

(01:02:52):
that those people did exist, and they often they're not
part of the story a lot of time. So there
are people, and that's situation who did do the right thing,
but the ones that we see on camera, they didn't.
They failed miserably, and their their public and their faces
are out there and shame on them. And people say,

(01:03:14):
you know, is there more evil in the world or
are we just hearing about it? And I think it there.
I do believe that personally that there is more evil
in the world, and a big part of that is
because of the Internet. And I don't just bean like
the Intronet is evil, but I mean that it's easier
to fall into certain things, to become obsessed with things,
to find a community of terrible things. And after everything

(01:03:36):
you've seen, do you think that evil is winning?

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
That's a it's a complex question.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
I just throw it at you too here, do you
do you think evil is winning?

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
So it definitely can seem like it is on the surface,
it appears that like everything is is sucking more. You know,
every day that goes by, right, because there's there's always
something new. You know. Now we've got Ai and what's
going to happen with that, you know, and all this stuff.

(01:04:13):
But when if I step back from that question and
look at it with some perspective, then then I say no.
And my reason for saying no is my faith. And
I believe that that Jesus is in charge, God is

(01:04:37):
in charge of the world. Evil will never win because
of how I believe. I don't see that as as
an end result. So things are bad. But when you
look at history, things have been bad from the very beginning.

(01:04:59):
There has been murder in the world. There has been
abusing children in the world, going way way way back
into ancient times. Ancient Rome was debaucherous in many ways.
Look at Caligula, look at you know, a bunch of
examples of all that stuff. Now, did they have the internet?

(01:05:19):
Were they taking pictures? No? But were they still you know,
raping children and killing people and doing all that stuff? Yep?
You know. So I mean it, really, there's nothing new
under the sun, you know, they say, you just see
more of it. Now. Everything is like on on blast,
everything is on you know, instant notification. You know that.

(01:05:42):
There's a term. I can't remember. Where was the CNN
phenomenon or whatever it was. You know, back when when
a news network went twenty four hour cycle and they
had to have something to show you, they could just
show the same stories over and over and over. They
to have something, so they were throwing everything up there.

(01:06:03):
And that's just kind of what everything has come to
social media. Everything, everything is just constant barrage of all
this information. If something happens in the world we used
to be you never know, like if there was an
earthquake and you know Malta, you'd never know about that.
I mean unless you just happen to know, like somebody

(01:06:24):
who traveled over there or something. Now you know about
it within minutes, you know. So you just know about
all the things all the time. And depending on what
your algorithm is pushing to you, which is a whole
other conversation, you were just bombarded with information that you
probably don't need and it isn't making your life better.

(01:06:46):
There's a statistic. I don't know what it is, but
there was a somebody else brought this up recently. I
thought it was interesting. I know a conversation. I had
kids that, especially girls that get involved with like Instagram
and that type of content. We'll just say from an
early age, have a like scientifically verifiable higher degree of

(01:07:14):
mental health issues, body image problems, all this stuff. And
it's like, what what benefit? What is the benefit you're
getting out of this that outweighs all the negativity of it.
So it's kind of funny because not only am I
the Ron Swanson of of my government area, I work

(01:07:41):
in high tech crime. Like everything I deal with is
like social media or something about that, and I hate
like all social media, Like I can't stand it. I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
I send you things to look out on Instagram and
you're like, I don't have Instagram, and I'm like, well
now I have to screen record those thinks.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
Thanks very, I don't have any of that stuff, Chris.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
I'm I'm really sending you things that are fun either, So.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Thanks for going through the extra effort to force me
to look at it. Not a kid, but yeah, I
just I just don't. I really honestly don't really see
the benefit because at best you're doom scrolling, you know,
and just looking at crap that waste your time. That's
like the best case scenario.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Really, it didn't used to be so bad. Do you remember, well,
you didn't really do the social media thing. But there
used to be a point I think I was on
Facebook where it was like you've reached the end and
you could not scroll anymore. It was like, oh, I'm done,
I've looked at everything for this day. And that was
the healthiest part of it. It was like a newspaper
where you would like read through it. But also it
was the social network. And now it is like the

(01:08:51):
society network and society as a wreck. We are not social.
We are not using it to connect or share joy.
And don't get me wrong, there's some hysterical, fun silly
videos out there and you can learn so much, and
you know, we're using technology to connect. Here. I have
lots of technology in front of me, and people will
be listening to this through technology. So it's not that

(01:09:14):
technology is technology. Yeah, technology is not bad. We like
it and we need it, but it is Uh, it's
definitely feeding us a lot of negativity these days.

Speaker 3 (01:09:25):
And so touch yeah, touch grass. You know, there's an
old saying somebody very wise came up with us at
some point that you know everything in moderation and and
and that could not be more true, you know, than
than today. I mean it's you have to you have

(01:09:52):
to moderate yourself because we'll just say the world. And
by the world, I mean all that apps and everything.
They are literally designed to keep you engaged, plugged in
and going and going and going, like you're like a
rat on the treadmill.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
That is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
What they want you to do. That. I mean. You
can watch a really good documentary I think it's Netflix,
called The Social Dilemma where the people actually created this
stuff talk about it and they're like, yeah, we created
a monster. We didn't mean for like this to happen,
and it is the people actually created the stuff and
coded it and with the developers of all these social

(01:10:37):
media apps and stuff. Please please go watch it if
you haven't seen it. It's very interesting. It's not very long.
It's very good though. It's good even for kids to watch.
I think that even they are would be interested, you know,
like teenagers and stuff. It's a lot of times they
want to know like why and how things work. They
tell you that, they're literally telling you like these these

(01:11:00):
apps and algorithms are designed to be very similar to
like a gambling uh you know machine. You're pulling the
lever just over and over and over, and you just
what's going to happen next? What's going to happen next?
And it's it's that type of thing. And if you
don't moderate your own content, then these apps are definitely

(01:11:24):
not going to do that. They're going to continue to
push a direction or an agenda or a content type
or whatever. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff that
gets into politics and everything, but this stuff and it's true,
I mean, look at it as verifiable, But you have
to do it yourself. Nobody can do it for you,

(01:11:45):
and nobody will do it for you. In fact, they're
all pushing against you doing it. So, you know, is
your life really better? Anybody who's been doom scrolling for
the last couple of years, like it, is your life better?
Would it be better to spend that time with you know,
family or doing something fun that you enjoy or you know,

(01:12:06):
your pets or whatever it is that you like to do.
So what has that replaced in your life? What do
you not do anymore that you used to do? Where
did that time go? So?

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
I don't know, by way of life is is so different,
and with that, the bad actors are so easily able
to to take over so many ways. And I'm just
so grateful that you exist and people like you exist
her out there who are fighting this every single day.

(01:12:45):
Who you I would like to thank me, but I
would like to thank you for all of the work
that you do. And I so appreciate our friendship for
so many reasons. You're somebody I definitely call when I'm like,
I don't think anybody can understand what I'm going through

(01:13:06):
right now, and you're there to listen, and I really
appreciate that because you have fought this for so long
and have done it on such a level and it's
it's so scary, and I hope people don't listen to
this and think, like, oh wow, the evil's winning in
the world. Is terrible and I hate everything. What we

(01:13:27):
need to do is make the world better, Like we
can all do that. We can all do that, we
all have the power. We can sit and we can complain,
and we can make videos where like everything's awful, or
we can plant some flowers and just bring some beauty
to the world. And I think that's what we all
really need to do. We need to beautify our spot.

Speaker 3 (01:13:49):
Even if you're not a flower planter like me, there's
still things you can do that are positive. But I
would encourage people, don't blackpill. Don't become hopeless in in
you know what's going on, or like I'm powerless to
do anything. You know, I can't do anything. I'm just
one person. It's always just one person. One person makes

(01:14:13):
everything happen. So you know, I find a way to
do something positive and never give up. And that's that's
just one thing that I would, you know, encourage everybody
is just never never acquiesced. Don't don't roll over and

(01:14:33):
die because stuff is hard. Things have been hard forever.
It's just you just now are noticing it. But it's
things have always been hard. Don't blackpill, keep up the fight.
Do something positive, affect your your community, you know, your family,

(01:14:55):
your loved ones, that kind of thing. Find a purpose
in something good and your life will just be a
lot better. If you find yourself in that situation where
you want a black pil, then you need to remove
yourself from that situation because there's a lot of good
stuff out there and you just are are not seeing

(01:15:16):
it because of your perspective at this point, So just
reorient yourself and you know, however that needs to happen,
and things will definitely look a little different. Evil is
not winning and it will not win.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
Well, thank you so much, Rusty. That was a very
positive Ron Swanson. There, very optimistic run Swanson. I love it.
But I'm inspired. Right now. It is almost midnight, so
I'm not going to go outside and touch grass, but
i have a four day weekend and I was going
to really sit and focus and work on some cases

(01:15:53):
and make some videos and really dig into some very
dark stuff that I talk about kinda in your honor.
I think I'm gonna go and touch some grass and
just go look at some beautiful things, because it's easy
to forget how precious life is and how beautiful it

(01:16:14):
really is, and how wonderful people are. We've talked about
some really sick, twisted, awful, horrible people, but there are
really great people like you who are out there just
being a big old rays of sunshine and taking out
that's me.

Speaker 3 (01:16:31):
I'm a ray of sunshine, aren't I?

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
Tonight? You are tonight, you are apparently in near midnight
you become a ray of sunshine. So how fun.

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
Well, thank you again for sharing all of this, for
being here, and thank you for what you do and
for making the world a better place.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
Well, thank you for having me and for putting some
information out there that hopefully is new and I hope
they can find it interesting but also helpful and maybe
even encouraging. That would be great if they're able to
get something positive out of all this craziness, that'd be awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
Thank you so much for tuning in. We really appreciate it.
We'll be releasing new episodes every Thursday. Make sure you
check out our YouTube channel and hit us up on
our social media on at Alicia Kozacpod for extra content
around each episode, and please remember to subscribe on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts.