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Speaker 1: Hey, Alphabet boys, listeners, this is Trevor Aronson. I'm here

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Speaker 1: to tell you about a new series from me and

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Speaker 1: Western Sound, Into the Madness. It's a very different kind

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Speaker 1: of series from me and well, a different kind of

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Speaker 1: series altogether, something very unique. Into the Madness is a

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Speaker 1: seven part investigation of the twenty twenty two mass shooting

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Speaker 1: in Highland Park, Illinois, a devastating attack during a Fourth

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Speaker 1: of July parade in the Chicago suburbs. Prosecutors charged Bobby

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Speaker 1: Cremo with the mass shooting. Creamo was a SoundCloud artist

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Speaker 1: who went by the stage name Awake the Rapper, but

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Speaker 1: the mass shooting near Chicago was part of something insidious.

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Speaker 1: Cremo had created an elaborate game, complete with cryptic videos,

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Speaker 1: a book of numbers, and an eerie online presence designed

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Speaker 1: to see a conspiracy theory about the massacre. Into the

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Speaker 1: Madness is a deep dive into the events leading up

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Speaker 1: to the mass shooting and the story of a woman

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Speaker 1: who became a confidant to Cremo and the final player

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Speaker 1: in his twisted game. Drawing from dozens of interviews in

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Speaker 1: more than forty eight hours of recorded calls with Cremo,

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Speaker 1: I tell a story that will challenge everything you think

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Speaker 1: you know about mass shootings, conspiracy theories, and the fragile

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Speaker 1: boundary between reality and illusion. Into the Madness explores the

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Speaker 1: rise of nihilistic extremism, the role of technology and fostering extremism,

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Speaker 1: and America's collective dissent into conspiracy thinking. You're about to

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Speaker 1: hear the first chapter of this series. To listen to

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Speaker 1: the full series, search for Into the Madness in the

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Speaker 1: Audible app or follow me Trevor Aronson on the Audible app.

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Speaker 1: You can start listening today when you sign up for

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Speaker 1: a free thirty day trial. Here's chapter one. A warning,

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Speaker 1: this series contains graphic language and descriptions of violence and death.

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Speaker 1: It also contains recordings of a man accused of committing

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Speaker 1: mass murder. We advise listener discretion among researchers. A violent

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Speaker 1: extremist A theory about a new type of threat is emerging.

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Speaker 1: Doomers extremely online young men who have embraced a bleak,

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Speaker 1: nihilistic outlook. They don't kill for a cause. The theory

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Speaker 1: suggests they don't kill to advance an ideology. They kill

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Speaker 1: because they believe and nothing at all. This idea is

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Speaker 1: reflected in an online video created by a suburban Chicago

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Speaker 1: man named Robert Krema the Third, or Bobby as he's known.

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Speaker 2: Where am I going?

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Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't care. There is no past

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Speaker 3: or future, just the now. I need to leave now.

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Speaker 3: I need to just do it. It is my destiny.

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Speaker 3: Everything has led up to this. Nothing can stop me,

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Speaker 3: not even myself. Is there such thing as free will?

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Speaker 3: Or has this been planned out like a cosmic recipe?

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Speaker 1: After posting this video, Bobby was arrested for committing a

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Speaker 1: mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois,

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Speaker 1: which left seven people dead and forty eight others injured.

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Speaker 1: Police found surveillance footage showing Bobby dressed as a woman

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Speaker 1: earbuds in walking to and from the rooftop where the

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Speaker 1: shots were fired, and on the sidewalk they found a weapon.

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Speaker 1: It discarded AR fifteen style rifle registered to Bobby. After

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Speaker 1: his arrest, prosecutors announced that Bobby had confessed.

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Speaker 4: He was questioned in the Highland Park Police department. He

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Speaker 4: was read his miranda, warnings, offered attorneys, etc. He went

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Speaker 4: into details about what he had done. He admitted to

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Speaker 4: what he had done.

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Speaker 1: The video Bobby posted before the shooting seemed to suggest

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Speaker 1: that he had been signaling about his plans all along.

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Speaker 1: I need to just do it, Bobby said. Nothing can

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Speaker 1: stop me, not even myself. But the video is more

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Speaker 1: than a cryptic prelude to the shooting. It acts as

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Speaker 1: a trailer, an introduction to something bigger. Bobby posted a

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Speaker 1: series of videos online, each one part of a dark,

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Speaker 1: twisted game, a puzzle he created for anyone willing to

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Speaker 1: play along. Bobby didn't carry out the Highland Park mass

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Speaker 1: shooting for political reasons. He wasn't driven by ideology. His

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Speaker 1: motive was simpler. He did it as part of a game.

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Speaker 1: Bobby Kremo appears to be proof of the Doomer theory.

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Speaker 1: But here's the most unsettling part the game Bobby created.

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Speaker 1: It didn't end with the shooting.

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Speaker 5: Okay, in yougording none?

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Speaker 1: No, this is real.

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Speaker 5: This holy was a false slight, void by the people

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Speaker 5: who hide behind the FBI.

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Speaker 1: The witnesses are actors. The interview, even from his jail

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Speaker 1: cell as he waits trial, He's still pulling the strings,

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Speaker 1: still playing the role of game master with a player

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Speaker 1: on the outside.

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Speaker 6: The suspect in the Highland Park parade. Massacre has kept

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Speaker 6: his phone privileges despite some concerning behavior. The Chicago Sun

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Speaker 6: Times is reporting that a woman recorded a phone call

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Speaker 6: with the suspect, and Robert Kremo claimed that the shooting

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Speaker 6: was quote false flag and that the FBI orchestrated it.

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Speaker 6: He also names two alleged FBI agents.

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Speaker 1: And Bobby's reality warping game isn't over.

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Speaker 7: It's not so much just like a bunch of puzzle

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Speaker 7: pieces thrown together. There's meaning behind it.

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Speaker 1: This is the story of a new kind of threat,

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Speaker 1: a new kind of killer, not one driven by any

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Speaker 1: sort of traditional ideology, but by a performative need for

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Speaker 1: an audience, like an Internet troll brought to life as

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Speaker 1: a mass shooter. I'm Trevor Aronson from Western Sound. This

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Speaker 1: is Into the Madness an audible original Chapter one. The

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Speaker 1: journalist and the murderer's friend.

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Speaker 7: So okay, So none of my friends were really into

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Speaker 7: like the LOFI or the SoundCloud rap at that time,

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Speaker 7: but I was. And I was the huge dork for

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Speaker 7: being into SoundCloud rap. They all made fun of me

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Speaker 7: for it, So I was really surprised to find out

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Speaker 7: that they were going to have a SoundCloud rapper come through.

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Speaker 7: I was really excited. Though.

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Speaker 1: This is Jamie, or, as she prefers, James, her nickname.

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Speaker 1: You'll hear her refer to by both names, Jamie or James.

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Speaker 1: She first meets Bobby Kremo in a club in Indiana

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Speaker 1: in November twenty sixteen, when the hip hop subgenre known

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Speaker 1: as SoundCloud rap is beginning to reshape American music. The

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Speaker 1: music streaming platform SoundCloud disrupted the industry by allowing independent

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Speaker 1: artists to cultivate their own followings, cutting out the record

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Speaker 1: label middleman, and pushing the boundaries of what hip hop

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Speaker 1: can be. With its emo, grungesthetic SoundCloud rap stood apart

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Speaker 1: from the brash, chest beating bravado of more commercial hip hop.

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Speaker 1: Its lyrics often romanticize Xanax and suicide, set against down

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Speaker 1: tempo beats that are purposely distorted and degraded, as if

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Speaker 1: the songs are playing from an old, worn out cassette.

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Speaker 1: Jamie was surprised to learn that a SoundCloud rapper from

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Speaker 1: Chicago was coming to a club in her small Indiana town.

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Speaker 7: And Bobby came in and introduced himself to the owner,

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Speaker 7: and I was standing up front talking to all of them,

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Speaker 7: and he introduced himself to me, and he's got like

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Speaker 7: this languid type of like it's almost like velvety, quiet

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Speaker 7: voice all the time. So he introduced himself to me,

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Speaker 7: and at that time, I remember I'm looking like a

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Speaker 7: kid with like a backwards cap, and he was just like, hey,

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Speaker 7: what's up. I'm Bobby, and I was.

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Speaker 1: Like, hey, just sixteen years old. Then, Bobby only had

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Speaker 1: two tattoos, a small cross on his finger and the

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Speaker 1: eye of Horace on his arm. Most of the famous

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Speaker 1: SoundCloud rappers had tattoos on their faces, necks, and hands,

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Speaker 1: a trademark look for SoundCloud rap, but Bobby at the

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Speaker 1: time didn't have much ink. So when Bobby introduced himself

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Speaker 1: to Jamie, she never imagined this was a SoundCloud rapper

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Speaker 1: from Chicago. He just didn't look the part.

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Speaker 7: He didn't say Hi, I'm awake the rapper. He just

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Speaker 7: said hey, what's up, I'm Bobby until it was time

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Speaker 7: for him to go on, and then I was like, oh, so, okay,

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Speaker 7: so this probably is gonna suck. This is going to

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Speaker 7: be a horrible show because it's like this quiet little kid, like,

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Speaker 7: what what SoundCloud rapping is? He going to do when

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Speaker 7: he talks like this and he's so self spoke, canna apply.

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Speaker 7: But he was really good. It was really good. I

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Speaker 7: wish I had video of it to show you. I wish,

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Speaker 7: but I don't.

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Speaker 2: So I stop for a second and think to myself,

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Speaker 2: and so need you or anything else? I will mortal

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Speaker 2: in these pages that discontinue. I'm an issue why he

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Speaker 2: made in some swing patient and Brent away the sleepways

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Speaker 2: so much or not enough at all.

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Speaker 1: They talked more after the show Drugs.

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Speaker 7: It's just he wasn't trying to like dominate the room.

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Speaker 7: He wasn't interested in like chatting about a bunch of bullshit,

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Speaker 7: which I'm not good at small talk. I don't care.

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Speaker 7: He wasn't on his phone, he wasn't taking a bunch

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Speaker 7: of selfies. I'm not interested in that either. Like he

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Speaker 7: was very in the moment and watching everybody, and that's

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Speaker 7: what I tend to do. So we were very content

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Speaker 7: to be off to the side, just kind of having

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Speaker 7: a quiet conversation about like nothing. But I immediately felt

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Speaker 7: very connected to him and like comfortable with him, Like

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Speaker 7: I just I just genuinely liked him. I really liked him.

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Speaker 1: Something about Bobby drew Jamie in. She felt she understood

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Speaker 1: him even from that one brief encounter. Back then, Jamie

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Speaker 1: was a nursing school. She didn't have much time for

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Speaker 1: friendships and relationships, but she and Bobby kept in touch

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Speaker 1: off and on.

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Speaker 7: Was just Snapchat and Instagram that I followed him on,

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Speaker 7: but he tends to disappear from the Internet from time

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Speaker 7: to time completely. He would just rip everything down and

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Speaker 7: delete everything, and I tend to do the same.

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Speaker 1: Thing over the next few years. Through their sporadic exchanges

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Speaker 1: amid Bobby's repeated houdiniacs on social media, Jamie catches fleeting

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Speaker 1: glimpses of Bobby. As he changes, Bobby gets more and

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Speaker 1: more tauch hues, he begins to resemble the other SoundCloud artists,

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Speaker 1: the number forty seven etched into his right temple, a

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Speaker 1: tally mark beneath his right eye, and the word awake

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Speaker 1: scripts it elegantly above the other coiled around his neck,

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Speaker 1: a thorny rose stem across his knuckles, and black ink

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Speaker 1: f U c K l O VE fuck love. Other

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Speaker 1: than meeting at that club, the relationship between Bobby and

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Speaker 1: Jamie exists entirely online. It's been months since they'd communicated,

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Speaker 1: and then comes July fourth, twenty twenty two, the annual

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Speaker 1: parade in downtown Highland Park, Illinois. Hundreds of people line

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Speaker 1: the streets, some sitting in folding chairs. A marching band plays,

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Speaker 1: and floats promote local businesses and politicians. What you're about

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Speaker 1: to hear from that morning is disturbing. At ten fourteen am,

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Speaker 1: the gunshots begin in first most assume it's fireworks, that

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Speaker 1: what happened harmless. Then the crowd erupts in panic. On

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Speaker 1: July fourth, twenty twenty two, Gamie's at home nursing a

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Speaker 1: bird with a broken wing and looking through videos on YouTube.

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Speaker 7: I was trying to find soothing bird music for an

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Speaker 7: angry bird. But then I saw that there was this

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Speaker 7: live on because there was this active shooting in you know,

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Speaker 7: Highland Park, Chicago, which I have other friends that live

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Speaker 7: in that area and not just Bobby. So I was like,

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Speaker 7: oh my god. So I turned it on and just

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Speaker 7: started kind of following it throughout the day, from pretty

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Speaker 7: much the time that they went live on the news

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Speaker 7: until he was arrested. So I had no idea it

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Speaker 7: was Bobby. I was just following it because I was

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Speaker 7: home well the ten search for the gunman lasted for hours,

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Speaker 7: of course, until we finally heard police caught the suspect

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Speaker 7: in Lake Forest near Wesley and US Highway forty one.

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Speaker 7: Here's a map theory. It wasn't until they showed the

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Speaker 7: picture of him sitting in the back of the cop car,

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Speaker 7: because like they showed the live of him being arrested.

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Speaker 7: I watched all of that unfold. But then I saw

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Speaker 7: the picture of him in the back of the cop car,

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Speaker 7: and it was the eyes, like he his eyes are

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Speaker 7: very unforgettable. He's got they're almost they're sad. Even when

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Speaker 7: he's happy, he's just they're like puppy dog eyes all

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Speaker 7: the time kind of they're very unforgettable, very memorable. So

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Speaker 7: there's a picture of him that was posted and he's

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Speaker 7: sitting in the back of a cop car and he's

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Speaker 7: looking up at an officer. And that was when it

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Speaker 7: kind of hit me that, like, Okay, I know him,

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Speaker 7: I do know him, and he did not, like he

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Speaker 7: didn't look right in the face to me, And I

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Speaker 7: was like, this has to be like some kind of

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Speaker 7: a psychotic break or something like, there's no way that

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Speaker 7: this person that I met and talked to has done

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Speaker 7: these things that they're saying.

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Speaker 8: Fourth of July is great, love it, but it gets

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Speaker 8: old sitting like trying to get your seat because people

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Speaker 8: go out like a day before and put their chair

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Speaker 8: down in all of this.

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Speaker 1: This is Rachel Walstein, a longtime resident of Highland Park, Illinois.

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Speaker 1: She's talking about the city's popular Fourth of July parade. She,

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Speaker 1: her mom, and one of her kids decided to skip

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Speaker 1: the crowd at the parade instead get breakfast nearby in

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Speaker 1: downtown Highland Park.

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Speaker 9: As soon as we got out of the car, I

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Speaker 9: heard fireworks, like really loud, and we saw everybody just

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Speaker 9: running and strollers turned over and absolute chaos. And then

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Speaker 9: we went to a coffee shop in Highwood, which is

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Speaker 9: the next town over, and I mean we understood then

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Speaker 9: when had happened, and they just tried to wrap our

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Speaker 9: minds around it. I mean, it was like it was

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Speaker 9: crazy because Highland Park, first of all, I've always felt

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Speaker 9: incredibly safe here and just that you know, something like

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Speaker 9: that could happen in our town and on the Fourth

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Speaker 9: of July, and it just it didn't make any sense

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Speaker 9: until people started calling me and texting.

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Speaker 8: Me saying it's the Where's Waldo guy?

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Speaker 1: The Where's Waldo guy? That's Bobby Cremo. After the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty election, Rachel had been active in protest in the

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Speaker 1: Highland Park area against Donald Trump's Stopped the Steal movement,

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Speaker 1: which promoted to lie that Trump had been cheated out

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Speaker 1: of the presidential line. This is a video Rachel recorder

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Speaker 1: during one of the counter protests. Across the street. In

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Speaker 1: the middle of the crowd waving Trump flags stands Bobby Cremo.

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Speaker 1: He's dressed in black jeans, black converts, round glasses, and

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Speaker 1: a red striped shirt with a stocking cap, looking like

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Speaker 1: where is Waldo? But instead of participating in the protest,

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Speaker 1: he's just standing there looking blankly holding a can of

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Speaker 1: red bull.

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Speaker 9: So I started diving into his background because I knew

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Speaker 9: what I knew about these Stopped the Steel rallies and

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Speaker 9: Hyland Park is a third Jewish We have more juice

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Speaker 9: per capita than New York. And I had started to

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Speaker 9: see some things being posted online, and then also people

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Speaker 9: were sending me things saying that you know, he had

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Speaker 9: this discord channel. I'll calleds and take a look at

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Speaker 9: these posts we grabbed.

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Speaker 1: After the shooting Bobby Krimo left behind a massive digital footprint,

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Speaker 1: dozens of videos, multiple Twitter accounts, messages on discord servers

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Speaker 1: and online forums, and a whole discography of his music.

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Speaker 1: As Awake the Rapper, Rachel starts sifting through Bobby's materials,

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Speaker 1: which leads her to believe that Bobby is a far

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Speaker 1: right Trump supporter and an anti Semite. He posted offensive

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Speaker 1: statements about Blacks, Asians, and Jews on an obscure website,

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Speaker 1: and his videos appear to reference Christian nationalism and right

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Speaker 1: wing political movements. Among the videos Rachel finds is one

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Speaker 1: of Bobby wearing black jeans, a black hoodie, and red

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Speaker 1: and white high tops, painting the words God's Not Dead

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Speaker 1: on the side of his house. It's a reference to

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Speaker 1: the low budget Christian propaganda film starring Kevin Sorbo, the

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Speaker 1: actor best known for his role as Hercules in the

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Speaker 1: nineties TV series. The photos and videos of Bobby at

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Speaker 1: Stop This Deal, and another picture of him draped in

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Speaker 1: a Trump flag lead Rachel and much of the news

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Speaker 1: media to assume that Bobby had been radicalized by Trump's rhetoric,

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Speaker 1: that this is an act of far right political violence.

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Speaker 1: Bobby had named a discord Channel SS, and he also

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Speaker 1: had those two letters tattooed on his hand. Rachel assumed

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Speaker 1: that Bobby's SS is a Nazi reference, but much of

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Speaker 1: Bobby's online in real world presence is tailored to create

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Speaker 1: these kinds of illusions. At first glance, it seems to

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Speaker 1: confirm whatever narrative you expected, but on closer inspection it

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Speaker 1: raises more questions. The SS on Bobby's hand could have

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Speaker 1: been for Nazi stormtroopers. Rachel's conclusion isn't outlandish under the circumstances,

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Speaker 1: but it isn't accurate for Bobby SS stands for Sleepy

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Speaker 1: squad rap Collective yet formed he attended Stop the steal rallies,

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Speaker 1: so he must have been a Trump supporter, but he

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Speaker 1: was dressed as Where's Waldo? Was he really a Trump

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Speaker 1: supporter or was it all some form of performance an

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Speaker 1: elaborate troll. The reason it's easy to assume Bobby Cremo

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Speaker 1: is ideological is that he had borrowed images and symbols

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Speaker 1: from various sources religious texts, political movements, video games, movies,

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Speaker 1: altering them slightly to create a branded, but ultimately superficial

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Speaker 1: identity for himself. The videos Bobby left behind on the Internet,

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Speaker 1: borrowed heavily from other hip hop artists and online culture

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Speaker 1: more broadly, filled with references to memes, video games, internet jokes,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Some of the videos are just

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Speaker 1: music videos for a wake the rapper, like this Onegad Bobby,

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Speaker 1: his hair dyed red and pulled in the pigtails, is

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Speaker 1: wearing welding goggles and what appears to be a cheap,

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Speaker 1: oversized astronaut Halloween costume. He's dancing and walking through a

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Speaker 1: deli in Convenienced or his father once owned in Highland Park, Illinois.

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Speaker 4: This smell of you.

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Speaker 3: Running out in Time's.

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Speaker 1: Other videos are intentionally cryptic. In this video, Bobby stands

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Speaker 1: just inches from the camera. All you can see is

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Speaker 1: his face from the nose up, framed by his tattoos.

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Speaker 1: He's staring intently at something off camera, the glow of

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Speaker 1: a screen reflecting in his eyes. In the background, you

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Speaker 1: can hear a track from Mike Wallace's nineteen fifty eight

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Speaker 1: interview with Brave New World author Aldus Huxley. Right off

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Speaker 1: the bat, let me ask you this as you see it,

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Speaker 1: Who and what are the enemies of freedom here in

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Speaker 1: the United states in another video, which the news media

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Speaker 1: play up to dramatic effect, Fallow in the shooting, Ladies

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Speaker 1: and gentlemen, welcome you. Bobby stands in what seems to

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Speaker 1: be a classroom cladden, a long sleeved black T shirt

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Speaker 1: emblazoned with a large, bright yellow smiley.

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Speaker 10: Face, your eyes on my mind and cutey with the

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Speaker 10: fast I wanna makeumon. I'm running at its arm shotty

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Speaker 10: his good class, smoke and show.

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Speaker 1: Then about halfway through the video, Bobby, seated at school desk,

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Speaker 1: reaches into his backpack. The screen goes black and the

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Speaker 1: music turns ominous. Bobby reappears, his head encased in a

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Speaker 1: black helmet fitted with a GoPro camera. He wears a

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Speaker 1: tactical vest, holding an Ammo cartridge for an AR fifteen

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Speaker 1: style rifle. He lets bullets tumble from his hand onto

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Speaker 1: the classroom floor. Although no gun is ever seen, the

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Speaker 1: intent is unmistakable. A grim visual commentary on school shootings,

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Speaker 1: but in the aftermath of the Highland Park Parade shooting,

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Speaker 1: this portrayal took on an ominous and unsettling sognificance, as

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Speaker 1: if he were role playing his future crime. Viewed in

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Speaker 1: the aftermath of the Highland Parks shooting. Bobby's videos and

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Speaker 1: images seem to suggest he's planning the attack and hinting

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Speaker 1: at it for months, but it's hard to say if

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Speaker 1: that's truly what they communicate. Seen in isolation, the messages

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Speaker 1: aren't so clear. After mass shootings and other tragedies. There's

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Speaker 1: a tendency to search for meaning to make sense of

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Speaker 1: what happened, but in that search it's easy to confuse

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Speaker 1: noise for signal. A few years after Bobby meets Jamie

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Speaker 1: in Indiana, he starts to cultivate a life in the

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Speaker 1: darker corners of the Internet, where racist and fascist commentary

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Speaker 1: often flourishes, including forums where users share extremely violent videos

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Speaker 1: and then make fun of other suffering. However, Bobby's writings

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Speaker 1: in these forums aren't truly ideological. He's ironic and nihilistic,

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Speaker 1: not serious. That's the culture of these forums. Everything's a

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Speaker 1: joke or fodder patrolling, even a gruesome death captured on video.

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Speaker 1: Extremism researchers believe this kind of radical nihilism, a philosophy

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Speaker 1: that no information can be trusted and nothing is what

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Speaker 1: it seems, has the potential to transform into violence just

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Speaker 1: as Islamus extremists in the West became radicalized by watching

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Speaker 1: propaganda for al Qaeda or the Islamic State. The theory

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Speaker 1: goes the so called dumers may become radicalized by the

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Speaker 1: modern Internet, which left algorithms can become a personal fire

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Speaker 1: hose of conspiracy theories and misinformation. The Dumer idea suggests

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Speaker 1: a total lack of belief can be just as radicalizing

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Speaker 1: as a dogmatic belief. After the Fourth of July mass shooting,

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Speaker 1: the assailant drops the rifle on a sidewalk in Highland

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Speaker 1: Park before fleeing the area. The rifle traces back to

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Speaker 1: Bobby Cremo. Several hours later, police pull over Bobby while

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Speaker 1: he's driving his mother's silver Honda Fit on a road

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Speaker 1: just outside Highland Park. Here's what reportedly happens during those

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Speaker 1: several hours. Bobby, dressed as a woman, drives to his

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Speaker 1: dad's house. He changes it to men's clothing. From there,

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Speaker 1: he heads to Northbrook, another Chicago suburb, where he apparently

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Speaker 1: stops for a drink of water. Bobby continues on to Wisconsin, where,

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Speaker 1: just outside Madison, he buries his phone in the parking

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Speaker 1: lot of an auto body shop. Then Bobby returns to

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Speaker 1: the Chicago area, where he's arrested. Police say Bobby considered

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Speaker 1: but abandoned a plan to attack a second parade in Wisconsin.

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Speaker 1: He h had another rifle in the car. Bobby's action

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Speaker 1: suggests some sort of panic, a plan that didn't work out,

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Speaker 1: or maybe there wasn't much of a plan at all.

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Speaker 1: Back in Indiana, Jamie's watching the man hunh play out live.

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Speaker 1: She's shocked to learn that her distant friend might have

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Speaker 1: committed the mass shooting.

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Speaker 7: At first, I thought, Okay, it's got to be like

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Speaker 7: a mental health thing. It's got to be some kind

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Speaker 7: of undetected, undiagnosed, untreated, ignored mental health kind of crisis thing.

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Speaker 7: That has to be what's happening here? That was my

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Speaker 7: first thought.

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Speaker 1: Just like Rachel Walkstein, Jamie starts examining as much of

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Speaker 1: Bobby's digital footprint as she can, But Jamie comes to

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Speaker 1: a much different conclusion than Rachel and the media do.

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Speaker 1: She finds the videos strange. She starts to wonder is

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Speaker 1: Bobby trying to send a message. Inconsistent and contradictory news

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Speaker 1: reports from the crime scene, which are not uncommon following

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Speaker 1: violent chaotic events, only fuel Jamie's suspicions. It's not that

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Speaker 1: Jamie thinks Bobby wasn't there at the crime scene. He

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Speaker 1: clearly was. The surveillance video of Bobby dressed as a

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Speaker 1: woman and his rifle left on the sidewalk are indisputable

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00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: pieces of evidence. But Jamie thinks the real story might

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Speaker 1: be more more complicated than the one told in the

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Speaker 1: news media and in court filings. Why else, Jamie's thinking goes,

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Speaker 1: would there be so much conflicting information. For example, on

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Speaker 1: the day of the shooting, a man at the parade

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Speaker 1: tells the news media he saw the gunman on the street,

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Speaker 1: even though the shellcasings were found on a rooftop.

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Speaker 11: I had a good look at this guy who was

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Speaker 11: not on a rooftop. He was on the street. He

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Speaker 11: was right behind the street post that had a stop

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Speaker 11: sign on it, and he was shooting from behind. That

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Speaker 11: this information about being on a rooftop. Just because there

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Speaker 11: was an access to the rooftop doesn't mean he was there.

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Speaker 1: And there are other odd or conflicting reports. The shooter

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Speaker 1: fired more than seventy rounds, but fifteen of those bullets

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Speaker 1: were fired not into the crowd, but instead into a

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Speaker 1: knee wall on the roof, and the Highland Park Police

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Speaker 1: tell the news media that they believed Bobby had planned

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Speaker 1: the attack for weeks, but the FBI leader says he

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Speaker 1: had planned it for years.

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Speaker 7: That math does not math for me. There's a whole

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Speaker 7: lot of math doesn't math, but that especially does not.

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Speaker 1: So Jamie sets out to investigate. She requests to be

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Speaker 1: added to Bobby Krima's contact list in jail. There, he

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Speaker 1: has access to a tablet that, depending on the restrictions,

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Speaker 1: let some text and call people on the outside.

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Speaker 7: And I waited and I waited and I waited for

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Speaker 7: him to message me back, and it took a while,

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Speaker 7: but he did answer me.

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00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:32,160
Speaker 12: Hello, this is a prepaid debit call from It's Bobby Cremo.

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Speaker 12: This call is from a correctionion facility, and it's subject

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00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 12: to monitoring and recording. Thank you for your thing.

431
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 7: Like, hey, how are you? It took about god about

432
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 7: a month, but once he was given the tablet, he

433
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 7: started texting and calling NonStop and it was like nothing

434
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 7: ever happened, like we had just met at the venue yesterday.

435
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 7: Wait to done.

436
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 5: I'm doing nothing. What are you doing?

437
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 7: You're doing something?

438
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: I'm always doing nothing in time. As Jamie gets Bobby

439
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 1: to open up, she starts recording her conversations with him,

440
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 1: making more than forty eight hours of tape. Been all.

441
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: She wants to know more about the shooting, and the

442
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 1: recordings give her a record.

443
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 5: What are you doing?

444
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 7: He never addressed anything for a very long time, and

445
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 7: I didn't ask.

446
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 10: How's the weather?

447
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 7: Every single day he asks the same three questions, What's

448
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 7: for dinner, how's the weather? What am I wearing every day?

449
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: What's for dinner?

450
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 7: Dinner? Like I'm thinking about dinner like Bobby, it is okay,

451
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 7: it's you're an hour behind. Well, I just ate a

452
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 7: huge fucking breakfast burrito. Actually, I was very careful not

453
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 7: to ask him any questions other than you know, do

454
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 7: you need anything? Are you okay?

455
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 5: I'm being yellman and doing him in pain.

456
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 7: I don't know what human things.

457
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 5: Walking and talking and cooping, sure, researching.

458
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 7: I don't think I started pressing him for answers until

459
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 7: this past summer. But initially, no, I didn't ask him

460
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 7: anything because I knew he wasn't going to say anything.

461
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: Most of the calls are just hours of meaningless banter.

462
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: Bobby sounds lonely, like he's just using Jamie as someone

463
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: to talk to. It's also clear that Bobby is keenly

464
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: aware he's being recorded not by Jamie but by jail officials.

465
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: When he talks about the shooting or conspiracies about the shooting,

466
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: he speaks obliquely.

467
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 5: See I've been here. I've been around many mountains, I've

468
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 5: been over many hells. I've gotten over every single one

469
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 5: of them. Here, I said, blacked out, and it's big.

470
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 5: You know, I'm living in my very own episode in

471
00:29:55,200 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 5: the Twilight Zone, where everybody thinks of cartoon character and

472
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 5: they're living in their own little cartoon world.

473
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 7: I don't take you're a cartoon character.

474
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: None of it is real. That's Bobby insisting that we're

475
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: all witnessing a staged reality, with him cast unwillingly as

476
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: the villain the mass shooter. Jamie responds with sympathy. I

477
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: don't think you're a cartoon character, she says, echoing his words.

478
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 1: But how much of that sympathy is genuine and how

479
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 1: much is part of her own cartoon character to coax

480
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: Bobby into talking more about the shooting and what led

481
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: up to it, that's unclear in these early conversations I.

482
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 7: Don't think you're a cartoon character, Bobby.

483
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 5: Of course, all I ever want is for the truth

484
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 5: that he knows.

485
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 7: But that's what I'm trying to do.

486
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 5: But if you then I don't put my hope in it,

487
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 5: because I know that God is my witness and no

488
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 5: matter what, it will always be all right. You know.

489
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 5: They can beat me, torture me, start me, all the

490
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 5: things that they've done, but all He've ever done walk

491
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 5: the truth, you know, that's all that they're But even

492
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 5: the content, I don't care what they say.

493
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 12: I don't care what they do.

494
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 7: It has nothing to do with me.

495
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 5: I'm just in the middle.

496
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 4: Of it, you know.

497
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: At times, Bobby weaves Christian themes into his monologues. He

498
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: claims to be on the right side, walking in the

499
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: light of God, but he also alludes to a vast

500
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: government conspiracy.

501
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 4: I'm just simply a pawn.

502
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 5: You're pond, We're all pause, We're not we're not the

503
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 5: most rich in powerful. We're just you know, humans for

504
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 5: them to suck every out of the life and money out.

505
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 1: At other times, he's just plain cryptic. No one's telling

506
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 1: the truth, he says.

507
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 5: People nowadays all around have become sick, whatever it is,

508
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 5: they no longer desire to create a healthy relationship or

509
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 5: or hell, you.

510
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 12: Have one minute, Bobby.

511
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 5: The amount of people who why nowadays is both people

512
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 5: and that's fundamentals.

513
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 7: Are you gonna call me back?

514
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 5: Oh?

515
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 12: You put me back?

516
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 7: Please?

517
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 11: Why?

518
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 7: I'm not finished?

519
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 12: I have thank you for you being global girling Jesus Christ.

520
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 7: This fucking guy, this fucking guy.

521
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: Sometimes Jamie's frustration seeps through Bobby's cryptic, meandering responses testing

522
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: her patients. Each direct question she poses is met with

523
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: vague evasions, as if he's playing a game only he understands.

524
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: And there's another concept in the conversations the birds. Jamie

525
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: often records their calls outside under the canopy of trees

526
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: near Indiana Yard, where bird feeders dangle lazily. The bird song,

527
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 1: a gentle, almost hypnotic chorus, becomes a quiet, persistent ampanion

528
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: to their exchanges.

529
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 5: Dude, it's a pre paid get it call from Bobby.

530
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: During their conversations, Jamie and Bobby build a playlist, which

531
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: becomes a way for Jamie to keep Bobby engaged when

532
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: he refuses to answer her questions or is too cryptic.

533
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 7: So the duration of these calls, most of the time

534
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 7: is spent with him wanting me to play him music

535
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 7: because he no longer has the ability to strain music

536
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 7: on his own. So most of the calls can you

537
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 7: play me a song? Can you play me a song?

538
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 7: Can you play me a song? Like yeah, I can.

539
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 7: Can you answer a fucking question for me, because I'd

540
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 7: love to know what the fuck it is you're doing.

541
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 7: But after that there wasn't really much conversation because all

542
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 7: he wanted he just wanted to hear music.

543
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:53,480
Speaker 1: One of the songs they add to the playlist no

544
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: psycho Killer. By talking heads, you're.

545
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 5: Saying, well, but you're not saying anyone.

546
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 7: Yeah, this is like a big, perfect song. So totally

547
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 7: apropro of you.

548
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 1: That Jamie is playing the song psycho Killer to an

549
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: alleged psycho killer is not lost on her.

550
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 7: You're adding, you have a psychokiller, Bobby, we can't say.

551
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,719
Speaker 7: You can't say hey, hey, hey, we can't say the

552
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 7: name of that.

553
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: On the phone, Jamie keeps playing songs for Bobby, trying

554
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: to build this trust, and when the moment seems right,

555
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: she has questions about the case. Slowly she starts asking

556
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 1: him about the year leading up to the shooting. She

557
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 1: wants to know about a website he frequented that hosted

558
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: extremely violent videos, and about a mysterious Skype call that

559
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 1: was always running and never disconnected. Both the website with

560
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 1: the violent videos and the skype call also became primary

561
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: interest for the FBI during its investigation of the Highland

562
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: Park shooting.

563
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 7: How do I find this Skype group?

564
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 5: Wh then you know, girls talk about like walking on

565
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 5: the bed here.

566
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 7: Or I'm so happy to talk to you about those

567
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 7: things after you answered this one question for me and

568
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 7: then I'm done.

569
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,720
Speaker 1: Jamie has become intrigued with the series of videos Bobby

570
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 1: uploaded to the Internet before the shooting. The videos are

571
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: filled with numbers, symbols, and cryptic references that seem to

572
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 1: connect to each other, leading to what appears to be

573
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: a cipher, a twenty seven page book of numbers. It

574
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 1: appears that Bobby created a puzzle. Jamie asked Bobby how

575
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:35,760
Speaker 1: to solve it, but he never gives her clues, only

576
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: pushes her to keep playing the game, and the calls

577
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: between them aren't one sided. Sometimes Bobby asked Jamie to

578
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 1: take on specific tasks.

579
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 5: Okay, so I would like you to figure out the yeah,

580
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 5: the the green captures green recoring and been on top

581
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:56,879
Speaker 5: of that, yeah yeah yeah, So on top of that

582
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:00,800
Speaker 5: and the event had that found you create that ghetto

583
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 5: ass thing that he tried to do, or he set

584
00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 5: up another phone on top of it looking poying at it.

585
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 1: So Jamie gives me copies of these phone recordings because

586
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 1: she wants my help to investigate what led up to

587
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 1: the Highland Park shooting. If we could dig into Bobby's

588
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 1: life during the year before the attack, maybe we could

589
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: solve the riddle he created and uncovered the message hidden

590
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: in those twenty seven pages of numbers. That's Jamie's goal.

591
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 1: Jamie also tells me that she started to toy with

592
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:38,359
Speaker 1: a provocative theory. Buried in Bobby's massive digital footprint are

593
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 1: multiple references to the FBI. In some of his photos,

594
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: he's wearing a black hat with FBI written across the

595
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: front in white letters. In one video, he refers to

596
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: an FBI agent. Jamie believes Bobby is trying to send

597
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:54,919
Speaker 1: a message.

598
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 7: That was a smoke signal and nobody picked.

599
00:36:57,920 --> 00:36:58,359
Speaker 11: Up on it.

600
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 1: That's why she came to me in the first place.

601
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,240
Speaker 1: I've spent much of my career investigating the FBI, so

602
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: she asked me for my help, and I agree, but

603
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 1: I don't tell Jamie that I see a very different story.

604
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: Jamie wants me to investigate what led up to the

605
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 1: Highland Park shooting. Maybe she thinks Bobby had been coerced,

606
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 1: maybe the FBI was behind it. But from the start

607
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 1: I know that won't be the case. The story I

608
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 1: want to tell, the story I will tell, is about

609
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:38,760
Speaker 1: how Jamie becomes the final player in a violent domer's

610
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 1: twisted game. But even I couldn't have anticipated where this

611
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: story would lead. Into the Madness explores the rise of

612
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 1: nihilistic violence, the role of technology and fostering extremism, and

613
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: America's collect to dissent into conspiracy thinking. All seven chapters

614
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: are now available on audible. Search for Into the Madness

615
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 1: on the Audible app, or follow me Trevor Aronson on

616
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: the Audible app. You can start listening today when you

617
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,399
Speaker 1: sign up for a free thirty day trial. For more

618
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,240
Speaker 1: on Into the Madness or my other reporting projects, subscribe

619
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:21,720
Speaker 1: to my newsletter at Trevor Aaronson dot com. Subscribers receive

620
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 1: news and updates, as well as promo codes to access

621
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