WEBVTT - In Minecraft

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<v Speaker 1>Col Zone Media.

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<v Speaker 2>On Sunday, May twenty first, twenty seventeen, Monroe County Sheriff's

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<v Speaker 2>Deputy Diana Torres pulled into the parking lot outside of

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<v Speaker 2>a Burger King on Route One. There were plenty of

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<v Speaker 2>empty parking spots, but she wasn't there for lunch. She

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<v Speaker 2>positioned her patrol car directly behind a blue suv, blocking

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<v Speaker 2>it in, and got out of her car. As she

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<v Speaker 2>approached the restaurant, the door opened and a man walked out.

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<v Speaker 2>Before he had a chance to react, she grabbed him

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<v Speaker 2>by the wrist and started handcuffing him. For all his

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<v Speaker 2>tough talk online, Brandon Russell went quietly. He would later

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<v Speaker 2>say that he just needed to get out of town

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<v Speaker 2>to clear his head after what he'd experienced on Friday night.

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<v Speaker 2>He'd come home from work to find two of his

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<v Speaker 2>roommates dead in their bedroom, murdered by a young man

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<v Speaker 2>he'd considered his best friend. But when officers searched the car,

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<v Speaker 2>they didn't find the kind of luggage you'd expect someone

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<v Speaker 2>to have for a weekend trip to the Florida Keys.

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<v Speaker 2>There wasn't so much as a toothbrush in the vehicle.

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<v Speaker 2>Instead of t shirts and swim trunks. They found rifles

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<v Speaker 2>and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, some of it already

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<v Speaker 2>loaded into four high capacity magazines. Three hundred miles away

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<v Speaker 2>in a jail cell in Tampa, a murderer was begging

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<v Speaker 2>for a meeting with the FBI. He claimed he knew

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<v Speaker 2>exactly why his roommate was driving around South Florida with

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<v Speaker 2>a car full of guns. I'm Molly Conger in this.

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<v Speaker 1>It's weird. The guys.

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<v Speaker 2>When we left off last week, two men were in

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<v Speaker 2>custody and two men were dead. The actual facts of

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<v Speaker 2>the story are fairly straightforward, and it would make for

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<v Speaker 2>a pretty short episode. Devon Arthur's eventually pleaded guilty to

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<v Speaker 2>two counts of second degree murder for the murderers of

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<v Speaker 2>Andrew Anoschach and Jeremy Hemmelman, as well as three counts

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<v Speaker 2>of kidnapping for the three people he held at gunpoint

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<v Speaker 2>at the Strip Mall. Brand and Russell pleaded guilty to

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<v Speaker 2>federal charges of possessing an unregistered destructive device and improper

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<v Speaker 2>storage of explosive materials. Devon was sentenced to forty five

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<v Speaker 2>years in a Florida state prison, and Brandon was released

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<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty one, after serving most of a five

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<v Speaker 2>year sentence. The narrative tension in this story. It's not

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<v Speaker 2>in what happened, but why and what it might mean.

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<v Speaker 2>Hundreds of pages of police reports, years of filings in

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<v Speaker 2>their respective criminal cases, scores of news reports, at documentary

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<v Speaker 2>TV interviews, There's no shortage of material laying out the facts.

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<v Speaker 2>But it all leaves me with more questions than answers.

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<v Speaker 2>I've spent some time on the show ruminating on one

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<v Speaker 2>of these big questions before. It's one probably better left

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<v Speaker 2>to a philosopher than a podcaster. But it's about the

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<v Speaker 2>nature of truth. What does it even mean to say

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<v Speaker 2>that something is true? In this story? We have a

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<v Speaker 2>set of truths. Sure, we know that these men are

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<v Speaker 2>guilty of the crimes they committed. We know it because

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<v Speaker 2>a court said, so, Devin killed two people, Brandon had

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<v Speaker 2>a garage full of explosive materials.

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<v Speaker 1>That's true.

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<v Speaker 2>But because neither of them took their case to trial,

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<v Speaker 2>that's all we can really legally speaking say we know

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<v Speaker 2>for certain. Maybe at trial there would have been a

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<v Speaker 2>more aggressive exploration of Devon's claims that he'd killed his

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<v Speaker 2>roommates to prevent the terrorist attack they were planning. Maybe

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<v Speaker 2>if Brandon had gone to trial, the government would have

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<v Speaker 2>had to prove to a jury what he was going

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<v Speaker 2>to do with those explosives, but they didn't, so we

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<v Speaker 2>don't know, and we're left trying to construct our own

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<v Speaker 2>version of what might be true. Aside from the concrete facts,

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<v Speaker 2>the physical evidence, the bullet casings, the autopsy reports, the

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<v Speaker 2>crime scene photographs, the rest of the pieces that we

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<v Speaker 2>have in this quest to assemble some version of the

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<v Speaker 2>truth are probably lies. So let's go back to where

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<v Speaker 2>we were last week, May nineteenth, twenty seventeen. The murders

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<v Speaker 2>happened on a Friday evening. Tampa police responding to nine

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<v Speaker 2>one one calls about an armed man at a strip

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<v Speaker 2>mall found eighteen year old Devon Arthur's holding three people

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<v Speaker 2>hostage a smoke shop. As he was being handcuffed, he

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<v Speaker 2>told the officers that his roommates were dead in his

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<v Speaker 2>apartment across the street and he'd be happy to show

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<v Speaker 2>them which unit it was if they would.

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<v Speaker 1>Drive him there.

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<v Speaker 2>As the police pulled up out front, another man walked

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<v Speaker 2>out the front door of the apartment and collapsed on

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<v Speaker 2>the ground in front of them sobbing hysterically. Brandon Russell

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<v Speaker 2>had arrived home from work minutes after the murders and

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<v Speaker 2>discovered the dead bodies of Andrew Anoshack and Jeremy Himmelman. Inside,

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<v Speaker 2>officers found not just the bodies of Devon's murder victims,

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<v Speaker 2>but Brandon's bomb making workshop. The crime scene was a

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<v Speaker 2>complicated one. When officers first arrived on the scene Friday evening,

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<v Speaker 2>they saw the bodies, of course, you couldn't miss them,

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<v Speaker 2>but they immediately noticed some other very concerning things lying

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<v Speaker 2>around the apartment. Geiger counters an unusually large number of batteries,

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<v Speaker 2>electric matches, piles of military gear, gas masks, bookshelves full

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<v Speaker 2>of white supremacist literature, a Nazi flag tacked to the wall,

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<v Speaker 2>a framed photograph of Timothy McVeigh, a backpack in the

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<v Speaker 2>living room with some kind of device inside that looked

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<v Speaker 2>like a bomb. Those first responding officers saw all of this,

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<v Speaker 2>and they got out of there in a hurry. There

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<v Speaker 2>was nothing they could do for the two men lying

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<v Speaker 2>dead in the bedroom. That much was very obvious, based

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<v Speaker 2>on the state of the bodies, so they secured the perimeter,

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<v Speaker 2>evacuated the neighboring apartments and waited for the experts to arrive.

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<v Speaker 2>All night. As Brandon and Devon sat waiting at the

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<v Speaker 2>police station, officers worked on the crime scene. Members of

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<v Speaker 2>the Tampa Police Department's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team entered first

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<v Speaker 2>to try to figure out how volatile the situation was.

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<v Speaker 2>The only reports I have access to were written by

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<v Speaker 2>Tampa police officers, so I can only see what they

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<v Speaker 2>said about their interactions with agents from the FBI and ATF,

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<v Speaker 2>but based on the crime scene logs. Bomb technicians from

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<v Speaker 2>the FBI arrived a few hours later, and agents from

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<v Speaker 2>the ATF arrived after midnight. It was the middle of

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<v Speaker 2>the night by the time Devon and Brandon were interviewed

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<v Speaker 2>by a homicide detective in the early morning hours of

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<v Speaker 2>May twentieth. Brandon Russell asked for a lawyer. He'd been

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<v Speaker 2>talking for over an hour already, but when the FBI

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<v Speaker 2>agent in the room pressed him a little too hard

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<v Speaker 2>about what they might find if they searched his computer,

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<v Speaker 2>he didn't want to talk anymore. He wasn't under arrest,

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<v Speaker 2>He was there voluntarily. He wasn't being detained. They weren't

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<v Speaker 2>technically investigating him at all. He had just happened to

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<v Speaker 2>come home from work and stumble into a crime scene,

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<v Speaker 2>so if he didn't want to talk anymore, he was

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<v Speaker 2>free to go. Around six am, a Tampa police officer

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<v Speaker 2>drove him home. The explosives experts had finished their sweep

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<v Speaker 2>of the residents and signed off on it being safe

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<v Speaker 2>to enter, so detectives were starting to arrive to execute

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<v Speaker 2>search warrants. Brandon waited outside in the parking lot while

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<v Speaker 2>a detective entered the condo to find his car keys,

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<v Speaker 2>and then he was on his way. His apartment was

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<v Speaker 2>a crime scene and his mother lived in the Bahamas,

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<v Speaker 2>so he planned to drive to Palm Beach to stay

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<v Speaker 2>with his dad, or at least that's what he told

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<v Speaker 2>the FBI. There's a lot of uninteresting details here about

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<v Speaker 2>the memorandum of understanding between the FBI and the ATF,

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<v Speaker 2>but they share primary jurisdiction when investigating possible federal crimes

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<v Speaker 2>involving explosives, and both agencies have explosives experts. But ultimately,

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<v Speaker 2>the decision as to whether the materials found in the

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<v Speaker 2>garage constituted a violation of federal law was up to

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<v Speaker 2>the ATF. And by the time the ATF briefed the

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<v Speaker 2>FBI on what they found, Brandon Russell was gone. The

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<v Speaker 2>federal criminal complaint was signed by a judge by midday

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<v Speaker 2>on Saturday, just a few hours after Brandon Russell drove off.

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<v Speaker 2>No problem though, right he told them where he was going,

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<v Speaker 2>and if he drove straight there, he should have already

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<v Speaker 2>arrived at his dad's house in Palm Beach. FBI agents

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<v Speaker 2>called Brandon's dad, a Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputy. But

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<v Speaker 2>not only was Brandon not there, his dad hadn't even

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<v Speaker 2>heard from him and had no idea where he might be.

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<v Speaker 1>So how did.

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<v Speaker 2>They find him? He could have gone anywhere. I couldn't

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<v Speaker 2>find anything in the court filings that indicated that they

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<v Speaker 2>had tried to ping his phone or that they got

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<v Speaker 2>a warrant for his banking information. They don't seem to

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<v Speaker 2>have tracked him down using his digital footprint. But they

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<v Speaker 2>found him pretty damn quick, and he was arrested the

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<v Speaker 2>very next day. Here's where we waded into versions of

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<v Speaker 2>the truth told by liars, where we start guessing about

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<v Speaker 2>what these breadcrumbs might mean. Last week I played some

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<v Speaker 2>clips for you of the police interrogation video recorded on

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<v Speaker 2>the night of the murders, and in that interview, Devon

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<v Speaker 2>Arthur's very quickly settled into a story that positioned him

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<v Speaker 2>as some kind of hero. He knew it was wrong

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<v Speaker 2>to kill, but he had to do it. It was the

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<v Speaker 2>only way to save thousands of innocent lives. And I

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<v Speaker 2>told you that. I think he was lying, but it's

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<v Speaker 2>a lie built around the truth. Devon shot his friends

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<v Speaker 2>because they made fun of him. He'd converted to Islam

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<v Speaker 2>a year earlier, and the neo Nazi community did not

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<v Speaker 2>take it well. He was pushed out of leadership in

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<v Speaker 2>Adam Woffin, a group he'd helped found. He was banned

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<v Speaker 2>from Iron March, the online Nazi message board where he'd

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<v Speaker 2>found friendship and a sense of belonging, but he stayed

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<v Speaker 2>involved with Adam Woffin, and he's stayed best friends with

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<v Speaker 2>Brandon Russell, the group's leader. He lived with Brandon. He

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<v Speaker 2>traveled with Brandon when he drove cross country to visit

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<v Speaker 2>Adam Woffin cells or to buy and sell weapons for

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<v Speaker 2>use by the group, And on the day of the murders,

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<v Speaker 2>he was chatting online all day with other members of

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<v Speaker 2>Adam Woffin. He was very much still involved, despite his

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<v Speaker 2>claims after the fact. But as he's sitting there in

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<v Speaker 2>this interrogation room, I think a few things are happening. Psychologically,

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<v Speaker 2>he's trying to find a way to rationalize his actions.

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<v Speaker 2>He needs to find a way to justify what he's done,

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<v Speaker 2>and he also realizes that he's made himself a very

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<v Speaker 2>nasty enemy. Killing two members of the Nazi terror cell

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<v Speaker 2>makes him a target of the Nazi terror cell. It

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<v Speaker 2>makes his family a potential target, and he knows what

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<v Speaker 2>kind of people he's just crossed, and he doesn't want

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<v Speaker 2>to go to jail, so he lands on a story

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<v Speaker 2>that potentially solves all three problems. If he tells the

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<v Speaker 2>cops everything, they'll take down Adam Woffen. Then he's safe

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<v Speaker 2>from retribution and he's a hero. He can convince himself

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<v Speaker 2>that he isn't a monster who shot his friends in

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<v Speaker 2>the head over a disagreement, and maybe he'll even get

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<v Speaker 2>a good deal in exchange for all this information and

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<v Speaker 2>won't have to go to prison. So I do think

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<v Speaker 2>he's lying about this being his actual motivation for the murders.

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<v Speaker 2>He wasn't trying to stop a terrorist attack. But the

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<v Speaker 2>lie came so easily because regardless of his intentions, when

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<v Speaker 2>he pulled that trigger, he may have actually ended up

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<v Speaker 2>stopping a terrorist attack. The things he told that detective

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<v Speaker 2>weren't made up. As he's sitting in that room rattling

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<v Speaker 2>off a list of explosive materials that he knows Brandon

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<v Speaker 2>kept in the apartment, the bomb squad is at the

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<v Speaker 2>crime scene and they're inventorying those exact items. And if

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<v Speaker 2>that part was true, maybe other parts of his story

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<v Speaker 2>were too. When I first saw where Brandon Russell was arrested,

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<v Speaker 2>I wasn't sure what to make of it. He's from

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<v Speaker 2>the Bahamas, so maybe he was going home. He has

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<v Speaker 2>Behamian citizenship, most of his family lives there. Maybe that's

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<v Speaker 2>where he was going and he just wanted to avoid

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<v Speaker 2>the airport. Admittedly, geography is not my strong suit, so

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<v Speaker 2>I thought it might make sense that you would take

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<v Speaker 2>a boat from the Keys to the Bahamas. And you

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<v Speaker 2>can sure, but it looks like typically you take a

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<v Speaker 2>ferry from Fort Lauderdale, not the Florida Keys. And then

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<v Speaker 2>you have to ask yourself if he was there because

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<v Speaker 2>he was trying to get home to the Bahamas. Why

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<v Speaker 2>had he picked up a friend first, Why had they

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<v Speaker 2>paid cash for two new rifles, and why hadn't he

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<v Speaker 2>contacted anyone to let them know where he was going.

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<v Speaker 2>He wasn't going home, And the cops found him as

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<v Speaker 2>quickly as they did because they knew exactly where to

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<v Speaker 2>look for him, because Devin told them.

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<v Speaker 3>He's planning on building mortar and firing it into a

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<v Speaker 3>There was a nuclear plant off the Cosa of Florida,

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<v Speaker 3>and it's off the COASA Miami and it's used to

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<v Speaker 3>power that entire city in Fort Lauderdale and that kind

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<v Speaker 3>of thing, and they're planning on firing that mortar of

0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.760
<v Speaker 3>nuclear materials in it at that plant into the coolank

0:15:57.800 --> 0:15:58.760
<v Speaker 3>things that are in the water.

0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.640
<v Speaker 2>The FBI alerted authorities in Monroe County, Florida, to be

0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:10.240
<v Speaker 2>on the lookout for Brandon Russell's vehicle. Deputy Torres didn't

0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.080
<v Speaker 2>find him in that Burger King parking lot by accident.

0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:19.120
<v Speaker 2>She was out looking for him. We had his picture.

0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:21.880
<v Speaker 2>We were told that he could possibly be.

0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.800
<v Speaker 1>Going up near Turkey Point for some type of terrorist act.

0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:26.200
<v Speaker 1>That's all we knew.

0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.640
<v Speaker 2>Turkey Point is the name of a nuclear power plant

0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.400
<v Speaker 2>when Brendan Russell was handcuffed outside that Burger King in

0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:43.960
<v Speaker 2>Key Largo. He wasn't alone. Documents filed in federal court

0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.440
<v Speaker 2>don't name his friend, but police reports from this initial

0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.680
<v Speaker 2>encounter do. He was traveling with another Adam Waffin member

0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:57.000
<v Speaker 2>named William Chantra. When Brendon left Tampa on Saturday morning,

0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:02.080
<v Speaker 2>he didn't drive to his dad's house in Palm b Instead,

0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.879
<v Speaker 2>he drove forty five minutes south to Bradenton, Florida, and

0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.840
<v Speaker 2>he knocked on his friend's front door. He'd been up

0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:15.240
<v Speaker 2>all night. He's still wearing his military uniform. Remember, he

0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.440
<v Speaker 2>discovered the bodies in his apartment when he got home

0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:21.000
<v Speaker 2>from work on Friday evening, and work in this case

0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:26.119
<v Speaker 2>was National Guard drill. He hasn't slept at all. He

0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.520
<v Speaker 2>doesn't even have his cell phone. But he drives to

0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.000
<v Speaker 2>Bradenton and he gets William Chantra out of bed and

0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:38.400
<v Speaker 2>he tells him what happened. You can't ever really say

0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.359
<v Speaker 2>what you would do in someone else's shoes in a

0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.520
<v Speaker 2>situation you've never found yourself in. But I can use

0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.560
<v Speaker 2>my imagination, and I think I would probably be pretty

0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:53.399
<v Speaker 2>overwhelmed at first. If I'm William Chantra. You know, your

0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:57.120
<v Speaker 2>friend is standing there on your front porch, exhausted and traumatized,

0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.680
<v Speaker 2>and he's telling you that these other two guys, both

0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.560
<v Speaker 2>friends of yours, are dead and he can't go home

0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:09.760
<v Speaker 2>because their dead bodies are in his apartment. I think

0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.560
<v Speaker 2>my next move would probably be to say, I don't know,

0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.399
<v Speaker 2>you know, hey, man, come inside, let me get you

0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.560
<v Speaker 2>some clean clothes, something to eat, maybe some tea. You know,

0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:22.600
<v Speaker 2>probably offer to let him stay on the couch for

0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:26.040
<v Speaker 2>a few days until he can figure something out. Something

0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.840
<v Speaker 2>like that, something that involved everyone going inside and sitting

0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:34.960
<v Speaker 2>on the couch. Like I said, that's not a situation

0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.520
<v Speaker 2>I've ever been in, So I don't know exactly what

0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.440
<v Speaker 2>I would do, but I can tell you with one

0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:46.200
<v Speaker 2>hundred percent, ironclad certainty what I would not do, and

0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.840
<v Speaker 2>that's quit my job, withdraw the entire balance of my

0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.760
<v Speaker 2>savings account, and get into that man's car heading out

0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.160
<v Speaker 2>of town. That just doesn't make any sense at all

0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.800
<v Speaker 2>to me, but that's exactly what William Chantra did.

0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:02.120
<v Speaker 1>He had three.

0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.800
<v Speaker 2>Thousand dollars in cash, and on their way out of town,

0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:06.720
<v Speaker 2>they stopped at the Chick fil A where he worked

0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.719
<v Speaker 2>to let them know he wouldn't be back, and then

0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:15.200
<v Speaker 2>they hit the road. There's not a lot of specificity

0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.040
<v Speaker 2>in the timeline, so I don't know what route they took.

0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.760
<v Speaker 2>But later that day they stopped at a bass pro

0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.920
<v Speaker 2>shop near Fort Lauderdale, and they spent most of Chantra's

0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:29.240
<v Speaker 2>cash on guns and ammunition. After a night in a hotel,

0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:35.479
<v Speaker 2>they headed south again toward the Florida Keys. After his arrest,

0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.440
<v Speaker 2>Brandon wasn't in the mood to talk anymore. He admitted

0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.840
<v Speaker 2>that there were guns and ammunition in the car, but

0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:48.520
<v Speaker 2>when he was asked about Adam Woffin, he stopped talking. Chantra,

0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:52.119
<v Speaker 2>on the other hand, he was happy to chat. He

0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.560
<v Speaker 2>wasn't under arrest, and as far as I can tell,

0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.760
<v Speaker 2>he's never been charged with anything, and he had no

0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:02.520
<v Speaker 2>problem telling the officers about Adam Woffin. He was a member,

0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.040
<v Speaker 2>of course, and he'd met Brandon on Iron March, that

0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:11.000
<v Speaker 2>neo Nazi online forum. In this conversation with FBI agents,

0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.000
<v Speaker 2>he describes himself as a fascist, a national socialist, and

0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.000
<v Speaker 2>a neo Nazi. Believes he shares with his best friend

0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:24.359
<v Speaker 2>Brandon Russell. Sometimes they would go shooting together and they'd

0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.960
<v Speaker 2>recently been discussing the possibility of him moving to Tampa

0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:34.439
<v Speaker 2>into the condo with Brandon, Jeremy, Andrew, and Devin. They

0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.679
<v Speaker 2>were all friends and they were all members of Adam Woffin.

0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.560
<v Speaker 2>He helpfully explained that sure, most members of Adam Woffin

0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.760
<v Speaker 2>use iron March, but Adam Woffin is actually much more

0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:51.399
<v Speaker 2>exclusive than that. Not anybody can just join. In fact,

0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.639
<v Speaker 2>Brandon screen's potential members to ensure that they share the

0:20:54.640 --> 0:21:01.520
<v Speaker 2>group's ideology and aren't quote complete idiots, which is an

0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:06.360
<v Speaker 2>incredible statement, really, considering this is behavior that you might

0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:11.480
<v Speaker 2>expect from me, a complete idiot. That thing I said

0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:13.960
<v Speaker 2>a minute ago about how he quit his job because

0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:15.960
<v Speaker 2>he didn't know if he was ever coming home again.

0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.800
<v Speaker 2>We only know he felt that way because he said

0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:25.680
<v Speaker 2>it to an FBI agent. And for the second time

0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.080
<v Speaker 2>that weekend, the FBI was sitting across the table from

0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:49.280
<v Speaker 2>Brandon Russell. This time, though he was in custody, it

0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:51.119
<v Speaker 2>took a little bit of time to get through the

0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:54.840
<v Speaker 2>process of transferring him from one district to another. He

0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.679
<v Speaker 2>was arrested in South Florida, but his case was in

0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.280
<v Speaker 2>a court further north. Back home in Tampa, in the

0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.280
<v Speaker 2>Middle District of Florida. It was June eighth. By the

0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.000
<v Speaker 2>time the U. S. Marshals transported him from Miami to

0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:11.520
<v Speaker 2>Tampa to have his first real hearing. He'd been in

0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:14.640
<v Speaker 2>custody for more than two weeks already, and his attorney

0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:18.440
<v Speaker 2>asked that he'd be released on bond. His grandmother owned

0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:20.400
<v Speaker 2>a home in Orlando that she was willing to offer

0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.800
<v Speaker 2>us collateral, and both his mother and grandmother said they'd

0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.760
<v Speaker 2>watch over him to ensure he complied with any release conditions.

0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:30.960
<v Speaker 2>He had no criminal history, he was a member of

0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:35.800
<v Speaker 2>the National Guard, his father is a police officer, and

0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.320
<v Speaker 2>his attorney said, there's just no evidence that he's a

0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:42.720
<v Speaker 2>flight risk or a danger to the community, and the

0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:46.800
<v Speaker 2>judge agreed. The judge agreed that there was nothing going

0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:50.280
<v Speaker 2>on here that convinced him that this defendant should be

0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:55.119
<v Speaker 2>held in detention, and he granted the motion for bond.

0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:59.040
<v Speaker 2>But before he could sign the final order releasing Russell,

0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.960
<v Speaker 2>the government filed an urgent motion for a stay. They said, look,

0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:06.720
<v Speaker 2>just give us seventy two hours to write a more

0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:10.640
<v Speaker 2>detailed explanation. Let's brief this thing a little more thoroughly

0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:15.520
<v Speaker 2>before we do anything rash because this case never went

0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:19.760
<v Speaker 2>to trial. This frantic back and forth about whether or

0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.959
<v Speaker 2>not he would be released on bond is actually the

0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:27.760
<v Speaker 2>most detailed set of documents in the entire case. It

0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:31.880
<v Speaker 2>sounds like the government was maybe phoning it in at

0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:36.280
<v Speaker 2>that first attention hearing. They sketched out the details, but

0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:39.320
<v Speaker 2>they didn't offer a lot of evidence to demonstrate what

0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:43.440
<v Speaker 2>they were talking about. So when the judge initially granted

0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:47.280
<v Speaker 2>that motion for bond, he's saying things like, oh, the

0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:50.960
<v Speaker 2>government believes that the defendant is a purported leader of

0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:55.000
<v Speaker 2>a neo Nazi group. The government asserts that the materials

0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:58.360
<v Speaker 2>could be used to make a bomb. The government suggests

0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:01.439
<v Speaker 2>that the defendant is active on social media sites, but

0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:05.480
<v Speaker 2>doesn't proffer any particulars. It doesn't sound like they did

0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:09.800
<v Speaker 2>a great job presenting any evidence at all here. It

0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:12.680
<v Speaker 2>sounds like they figured the judge would hear the keywords

0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:17.440
<v Speaker 2>Nazi and bomb and not need to hear much more

0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:22.679
<v Speaker 2>than that. The judge granted them that three day pause

0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:25.480
<v Speaker 2>on the release order, and they returned to court later

0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:28.800
<v Speaker 2>that week for another hearing on the issue of bond,

0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:32.320
<v Speaker 2>and this time the prosecution brought the evidence The court

0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:37.000
<v Speaker 2>needed to see those materials found in the garage weren't

0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:39.920
<v Speaker 2>just some odds and ends that could be reasonably explained

0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:44.240
<v Speaker 2>away as model rocket supplies. There was a cooler full

0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:50.320
<v Speaker 2>of homemade hexamethylene, triperoxide diamine, a highly volatile explosive compound

0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:54.679
<v Speaker 2>with no safe or practical use. There were jars of

0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:59.080
<v Speaker 2>nitromethane and potassium chlorate, a coffee grinder full of some

0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:05.000
<v Speaker 2>unknown white powder. There were bags of potassium chloride, potassium nitrate,

0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:10.480
<v Speaker 2>iron oxide, and hexamine. He had several pounds of ammonium nitrate,

0:25:11.400 --> 0:25:14.200
<v Speaker 2>much of which was in bags still inside a box

0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:19.000
<v Speaker 2>addressed to him by name, and there littered amongst these

0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:23.080
<v Speaker 2>bomb making materials there were shell casings that he'd fitted

0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:26.840
<v Speaker 2>with fuses, a homemade setup that can be used to

0:25:26.840 --> 0:25:31.040
<v Speaker 2>detonate a bomb. In his bedroom, he had flyers for

0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:34.560
<v Speaker 2>his neo Nazi group on his dresser. There was a

0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:39.960
<v Speaker 2>framed photograph of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy mcveay. In his closet,

0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:43.480
<v Speaker 2>there were piles of military gear and cases of ammunition.

0:25:45.359 --> 0:25:48.360
<v Speaker 2>In the bedroom where his roommates were found dead, there

0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:52.280
<v Speaker 2>was a duffel bag full of homemade fuses. And handwritten

0:25:52.280 --> 0:25:58.160
<v Speaker 2>instructions for making a bomb. The prosecution also produced pages

0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:01.320
<v Speaker 2>of screenshots of posts that Brandon Russell had made on

0:26:01.400 --> 0:26:05.080
<v Speaker 2>Iron March, showing that he was actively recruiting for a

0:26:05.119 --> 0:26:10.320
<v Speaker 2>group that, in his own words, he calls fanatical and militant.

0:26:12.040 --> 0:26:15.360
<v Speaker 2>And this motion to revoke bond is the document where

0:26:15.359 --> 0:26:18.040
<v Speaker 2>we find that anecdote about his friend telling the FBI

0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:21.639
<v Speaker 2>agent that when he left home with Brandon he didn't

0:26:21.720 --> 0:26:28.360
<v Speaker 2>know if he would ever be back. After reviewing this evidence,

0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:34.400
<v Speaker 2>the judge changed its mind. He wrote, upon further consideration,

0:26:34.760 --> 0:26:37.760
<v Speaker 2>I am obliged to conclude that defendant's actions in response

0:26:37.800 --> 0:26:41.040
<v Speaker 2>to the discovery of the explosive materials and ongoing investigation,

0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:48.720
<v Speaker 2>past doubts on suggestions of defendant's innocent intentions. In his

0:26:48.800 --> 0:26:51.960
<v Speaker 2>order revoking Russell's bond, the judge gives voice to the

0:26:52.000 --> 0:26:55.440
<v Speaker 2>problem I was talking about at the top of the episode.

0:26:55.600 --> 0:26:59.080
<v Speaker 2>It's hard to know what's true. A lot of the

0:26:59.119 --> 0:27:02.480
<v Speaker 2>connective tissue here is based on claims made by Devon

0:27:02.600 --> 0:27:08.520
<v Speaker 2>Arthur's immediately after he was arrested for murder. The judge

0:27:08.560 --> 0:27:11.280
<v Speaker 2>watched the same video I did, and he came to

0:27:11.320 --> 0:27:14.760
<v Speaker 2>some of the same conclusions. A lot of what Devon

0:27:14.920 --> 0:27:19.440
<v Speaker 2>was saying looks like quote attempts by mister Arthur's to

0:27:19.560 --> 0:27:25.680
<v Speaker 2>rationalize or justify his unconscionable killing of two people. But

0:27:25.760 --> 0:27:28.760
<v Speaker 2>the judge also said there's no denying that some of

0:27:28.800 --> 0:27:35.120
<v Speaker 2>what Devon said is definitely true, writing quote Arthur's statements

0:27:35.160 --> 0:27:38.640
<v Speaker 2>of potential harm appear consistent with what has been revealed

0:27:38.640 --> 0:27:41.400
<v Speaker 2>so far about the defendant and the lifestyle he engaged.

0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:45.600
<v Speaker 2>In consistent with other circumstances, defendant is placed at the

0:27:45.600 --> 0:27:47.800
<v Speaker 2>head of a small neo Nazi group with a militant bent,

0:27:48.480 --> 0:27:52.520
<v Speaker 2>armed for violent confrontation and capable of executing on plans

0:27:52.520 --> 0:27:56.040
<v Speaker 2>to harm others or destroy property.

0:27:56.520 --> 0:27:57.600
<v Speaker 1>The judge was.

0:27:57.560 --> 0:28:00.000
<v Speaker 2>A little concerned that the government had yet to preduce

0:28:00.119 --> 0:28:03.600
<v Speaker 2>use any proof corroborating Devon's claims that there were internal

0:28:03.640 --> 0:28:08.119
<v Speaker 2>Adam Woffin chats containing explicit discussion of some kind of plot,

0:28:09.359 --> 0:28:12.160
<v Speaker 2>but he was satisfied at least that Brandon Russell should

0:28:12.200 --> 0:28:16.240
<v Speaker 2>remain in custody for the time being, and that was it.

0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:20.600
<v Speaker 2>Two months later, Brandon Russell changed his plea to guilty,

0:28:20.960 --> 0:28:22.960
<v Speaker 2>just days before he was scheduled to go to trial.

0:28:24.320 --> 0:28:28.359
<v Speaker 2>The government never produced any additional evidence because they didn't

0:28:28.400 --> 0:28:31.600
<v Speaker 2>have to. They never had to convince a jury that

0:28:31.640 --> 0:28:34.520
<v Speaker 2>Brandon Russell was going to do anything in particular with

0:28:34.560 --> 0:28:38.440
<v Speaker 2>those explosives. They never had to explain how they knew

0:28:38.440 --> 0:28:41.600
<v Speaker 2>they'd find him near that nuclear power plant, or why

0:28:41.640 --> 0:28:43.560
<v Speaker 2>he had a car full of guns and ammunition when

0:28:43.600 --> 0:28:47.479
<v Speaker 2>they found him. A court never settled the question of

0:28:47.520 --> 0:28:51.920
<v Speaker 2>whether or not Devon Arthur's was telling the truth about

0:28:51.960 --> 0:28:58.120
<v Speaker 2>Brandon Russell's intentions. Brandon Russell pleaded guilty on the explosive

0:28:58.240 --> 0:29:02.280
<v Speaker 2>charges in September of twenty seventeen. A few months later,

0:29:02.520 --> 0:29:05.760
<v Speaker 2>in December, a seventeen year old Adam Woffin member in

0:29:05.840 --> 0:29:11.560
<v Speaker 2>Virginia shot and killed his ex girlfriend's parents. On January ninth,

0:29:11.640 --> 0:29:15.600
<v Speaker 2>twenty eighteen, Brandon Russell was sentenced to five years in prison.

0:29:17.520 --> 0:29:22.680
<v Speaker 2>One day later, on January tenth, police in California found

0:29:22.680 --> 0:29:26.560
<v Speaker 2>the body of Blaize Bernstein in a shallow grave. He'd

0:29:26.600 --> 0:29:29.680
<v Speaker 2>been murdered a week earlier by a member of Adam Woffin.

0:29:32.320 --> 0:29:35.520
<v Speaker 2>In a matter of months, three young men connected to

0:29:35.560 --> 0:29:40.120
<v Speaker 2>the group had killed and one of those killers is

0:29:40.120 --> 0:29:45.360
<v Speaker 2>in jail, insisting the group was planning terrorist attacks, but

0:29:45.440 --> 0:29:48.960
<v Speaker 2>the man he said was behind these plots was only

0:29:49.040 --> 0:29:57.640
<v Speaker 2>charged with possessing and improperly storing explosive materials. Brendon Russell's

0:29:57.640 --> 0:30:00.600
<v Speaker 2>criminal case was resolved in a matter of months, and

0:30:00.680 --> 0:30:02.920
<v Speaker 2>he was already serving his sentence before there was much

0:30:02.960 --> 0:30:07.640
<v Speaker 2>movement in the case against Devon Arthur's. That case dragged

0:30:07.640 --> 0:30:12.240
<v Speaker 2>on for years. The plea agreement was finally filed just

0:30:12.440 --> 0:30:17.640
<v Speaker 2>days before the sixth anniversary of the murders. Throughout this process,

0:30:17.680 --> 0:30:24.040
<v Speaker 2>though Devon Arthur's never denied committing the murders, but there

0:30:24.120 --> 0:30:29.080
<v Speaker 2>was a problem. He'd always been a bit of an

0:30:29.080 --> 0:30:32.440
<v Speaker 2>odd kid when he was in middle school. His parents

0:30:32.520 --> 0:30:35.160
<v Speaker 2>agreed in mediation during their divorce that he should be

0:30:35.200 --> 0:30:38.880
<v Speaker 2>evaluated by a specialist, but it doesn't look like either

0:30:38.880 --> 0:30:42.480
<v Speaker 2>of his parents ever followed through on that. On the

0:30:42.560 --> 0:30:45.720
<v Speaker 2>night of the murders, he told the detective that he

0:30:45.760 --> 0:30:48.000
<v Speaker 2>thought he probably needed to go to a hospital to

0:30:48.000 --> 0:30:50.840
<v Speaker 2>get some kind of treatment, and he wished he'd listen

0:30:50.920 --> 0:30:54.760
<v Speaker 2>sooner when people told him he needed help. He was

0:30:54.800 --> 0:30:57.800
<v Speaker 2>diagnosed with ADHD as a child, but there were no

0:30:57.840 --> 0:31:00.800
<v Speaker 2>other mental health diagnoses on his record prior to the murders.

0:31:02.400 --> 0:31:04.920
<v Speaker 2>Based on reports written by the doctors who evaluated him

0:31:04.960 --> 0:31:10.640
<v Speaker 2>in jail. He rapidly deteriorated after his arrest, but there

0:31:10.680 --> 0:31:13.240
<v Speaker 2>does appear to have been some pre existing mental illness

0:31:13.240 --> 0:31:18.720
<v Speaker 2>going on. In the interrogation video, he's a little disjointed,

0:31:19.240 --> 0:31:23.719
<v Speaker 2>his speech is a little pressured, but he's lucid for

0:31:23.760 --> 0:31:26.680
<v Speaker 2>the most part, and his body language is pretty relaxed.

0:31:28.120 --> 0:31:31.080
<v Speaker 2>A doctor who evaluated him in twenty twenty wrote that

0:31:31.120 --> 0:31:34.320
<v Speaker 2>Devon had developed a habit of pressing his fists into

0:31:34.320 --> 0:31:37.840
<v Speaker 2>his neck when he felt anxious. He would apply pressure

0:31:37.880 --> 0:31:41.640
<v Speaker 2>to his throat until he felt dizzy, sometimes even losing consciousness.

0:31:42.480 --> 0:31:45.080
<v Speaker 2>A TV news camera in the courtroom recorded him doing

0:31:45.080 --> 0:31:48.040
<v Speaker 2>it during at least one hearing, and the doctor said

0:31:48.080 --> 0:31:51.240
<v Speaker 2>the behavior was compulsive. He couldn't stop doing it, even

0:31:51.280 --> 0:31:54.880
<v Speaker 2>when asked by the doctor to try. He also claimed

0:31:54.920 --> 0:31:58.840
<v Speaker 2>to be experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations, and said that

0:31:58.880 --> 0:32:02.280
<v Speaker 2>he would lie awake at night and communicate with the dead,

0:32:03.480 --> 0:32:07.520
<v Speaker 2>even on heavy doses of antipsychotics and sedatives. He exhibited

0:32:07.520 --> 0:32:13.320
<v Speaker 2>the rapid, tangential speech of someone who's experiencing mania for

0:32:13.360 --> 0:32:16.040
<v Speaker 2>the first few years after his arrest. Most of the

0:32:16.080 --> 0:32:19.760
<v Speaker 2>doctors who met with him, agreed he was experiencing severe

0:32:19.840 --> 0:32:24.160
<v Speaker 2>mental illness, and for several years the only movement on

0:32:24.200 --> 0:32:28.440
<v Speaker 2>his case was related to these competency evaluations. He was

0:32:28.520 --> 0:32:30.960
<v Speaker 2>moved back and forth between jail and a state mental

0:32:31.000 --> 0:32:35.320
<v Speaker 2>hospital a few times, and doctor after doctor met with

0:32:35.400 --> 0:32:38.520
<v Speaker 2>him and reported back to the court that he wasn't

0:32:38.560 --> 0:32:43.640
<v Speaker 2>competent to stand trial. Now, there's a difference here between

0:32:44.040 --> 0:32:51.160
<v Speaker 2>incompetent to stand trial and insane. Insane is not a

0:32:51.240 --> 0:32:54.520
<v Speaker 2>nice word, but it is a word with a particular meaning.

0:32:54.520 --> 0:32:55.840
<v Speaker 1>In a courtroom.

0:32:56.400 --> 0:32:58.240
<v Speaker 2>You're not going to go to a doctor and get

0:32:58.280 --> 0:33:02.040
<v Speaker 2>diagnosed insane. That's not really something we say anymore. But

0:33:02.080 --> 0:33:06.840
<v Speaker 2>in a courtroom, someone who is insane is not legally

0:33:06.880 --> 0:33:10.360
<v Speaker 2>responsible for their actions. That's something that you can argue

0:33:10.400 --> 0:33:15.080
<v Speaker 2>at trial. Being legally insane is not the same thing

0:33:15.120 --> 0:33:18.760
<v Speaker 2>as being mentally ill. You can be profoundly mentally ill

0:33:18.880 --> 0:33:23.480
<v Speaker 2>and still legally responsible for a crime. Someone who successfully

0:33:23.520 --> 0:33:26.560
<v Speaker 2>presents an insanity defense has to prove that at the

0:33:26.560 --> 0:33:30.680
<v Speaker 2>time of the offense they lacked the ability to understand

0:33:31.120 --> 0:33:35.000
<v Speaker 2>that what they were doing was wrong. They couldn't form

0:33:35.040 --> 0:33:38.600
<v Speaker 2>criminal intent because they just were not in the same

0:33:38.640 --> 0:33:39.440
<v Speaker 2>reality as the.

0:33:39.400 --> 0:33:40.440
<v Speaker 1>Rest of us.

0:33:41.960 --> 0:33:44.160
<v Speaker 2>And so at this stage of the case, before it

0:33:44.200 --> 0:33:48.840
<v Speaker 2>goes to trial, we're not talking about insanity. Insanity is

0:33:48.880 --> 0:33:52.640
<v Speaker 2>a trial issue, but before there can be a trial,

0:33:53.600 --> 0:33:57.400
<v Speaker 2>he has to have the mental capacity to understand a trial,

0:33:57.960 --> 0:34:01.920
<v Speaker 2>so they have to get him back to competycy. These

0:34:01.960 --> 0:34:04.440
<v Speaker 2>doctors aren't making any kind of finding about whether or

0:34:04.520 --> 0:34:07.280
<v Speaker 2>not he was insane at the time of the murders.

0:34:07.720 --> 0:34:12.359
<v Speaker 2>They're just saying that right now today he lacks the

0:34:12.360 --> 0:34:16.040
<v Speaker 2>ability to communicate effectively with his lawyer, to participate in

0:34:16.080 --> 0:34:18.759
<v Speaker 2>his own defense. He doesn't know what's going on in

0:34:18.800 --> 0:34:23.720
<v Speaker 2>the courtroom right now. But after a few years of treatment,

0:34:24.200 --> 0:34:27.719
<v Speaker 2>the doctors finally agree that he's competent to proceed and

0:34:27.800 --> 0:34:30.160
<v Speaker 2>they set the case for trial. In May of twenty

0:34:30.200 --> 0:34:34.399
<v Speaker 2>twenty three, the morning the trial was supposed to begin,

0:34:35.600 --> 0:34:39.359
<v Speaker 2>he signed a plea agreement. The state agreed to drop

0:34:39.440 --> 0:34:42.640
<v Speaker 2>the murder charges down from first degree to second degree murder,

0:34:43.239 --> 0:34:45.840
<v Speaker 2>and he agreed to plead guilty to all the charges.

0:34:48.640 --> 0:34:52.399
<v Speaker 2>Earlier this year, a reporter from Court TV interviewed Devon

0:34:52.440 --> 0:34:56.880
<v Speaker 2>in prison, and in this interview in twenty twenty five,

0:34:57.760 --> 0:35:00.440
<v Speaker 2>his story isn't any clearer than it was on the

0:35:00.520 --> 0:35:05.440
<v Speaker 2>night of the murders. He's stable now, he says, he

0:35:05.480 --> 0:35:09.600
<v Speaker 2>doesn't have hallucinations anymore, and he has his anger under control,

0:35:09.680 --> 0:35:12.120
<v Speaker 2>and he sees a psychiatrist in prison once a month,

0:35:13.280 --> 0:35:15.719
<v Speaker 2>and he still believes that he did what he had

0:35:15.760 --> 0:35:19.560
<v Speaker 2>to do. The reporter plays a clip for him of

0:35:19.600 --> 0:35:22.160
<v Speaker 2>his own statements the night of the murder, the part

0:35:22.200 --> 0:35:24.160
<v Speaker 2>where he says he did it to prevent the deaths

0:35:24.160 --> 0:35:28.360
<v Speaker 2>of even more people, and he asks him, do you

0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:32.280
<v Speaker 2>still stand by that claim, and Devin says that he does,

0:35:33.960 --> 0:35:36.839
<v Speaker 2>and he gets visibly angry with the reporter when he's

0:35:36.920 --> 0:35:40.080
<v Speaker 2>pressed on the issue of the way he's justifying these murders.

0:35:41.920 --> 0:35:44.720
<v Speaker 1>The way you describe it, you're basically turning a brutal

0:35:44.800 --> 0:35:48.040
<v Speaker 1>murder into an act of heroism by saying that, by

0:35:48.080 --> 0:35:52.480
<v Speaker 1>saying that you were acting to save civilian lives from

0:35:52.600 --> 0:35:54.759
<v Speaker 1>future terrorist attacks. Well, I certainly was.

0:35:54.800 --> 0:35:58.400
<v Speaker 2>That's a way of adizing yourself, David.

0:35:58.400 --> 0:36:01.360
<v Speaker 1>I can see where that come from in that context.

0:36:01.640 --> 0:36:04.400
<v Speaker 3>And the thing is, I don't have any intent to

0:36:04.520 --> 0:36:05.800
<v Speaker 3>really hurt innocent people.

0:36:09.480 --> 0:36:11.839
<v Speaker 2>He goes as far as to say that he has

0:36:11.920 --> 0:36:16.760
<v Speaker 2>sacrificed forty five years of his own life to stop

0:36:16.800 --> 0:36:21.719
<v Speaker 2>Adam Woffin. I won't rehash the thoughts I had about

0:36:21.719 --> 0:36:25.120
<v Speaker 2>those claims in the last episode. I don't believe him,

0:36:25.400 --> 0:36:29.240
<v Speaker 2>I said that, but I spent most of this week

0:36:29.360 --> 0:36:32.759
<v Speaker 2>thinking about it, turning it over in my head, and

0:36:33.160 --> 0:36:36.480
<v Speaker 2>reading and rereading the documents that I have, And I

0:36:36.600 --> 0:36:40.879
<v Speaker 2>found two strange statements buried in the police reports from

0:36:40.880 --> 0:36:45.160
<v Speaker 2>that night. The officer who drove him from the Strip

0:36:45.200 --> 0:36:48.000
<v Speaker 2>Mall to the apartment complex so he could show her

0:36:48.000 --> 0:36:52.239
<v Speaker 2>where the bodies were wrote that during that very brief trip,

0:36:52.320 --> 0:36:55.799
<v Speaker 2>I mean it's right across the street, He asks her

0:36:55.880 --> 0:36:59.560
<v Speaker 2>if the media would want to interview him, and as

0:36:59.560 --> 0:37:01.720
<v Speaker 2>their pull into the parking lot in front of the condo,

0:37:02.800 --> 0:37:06.359
<v Speaker 2>he said, quote, it's just a shame I didn't get

0:37:06.360 --> 0:37:11.400
<v Speaker 2>to write my manifesto before this. Another report, written by

0:37:11.400 --> 0:37:14.200
<v Speaker 2>a different officer who later drove Devon from the crime

0:37:14.200 --> 0:37:18.120
<v Speaker 2>scene to the police station, says that Devon was talking

0:37:18.160 --> 0:37:22.280
<v Speaker 2>pretty much NonStop. From the portion of the report detailing

0:37:22.320 --> 0:37:25.240
<v Speaker 2>Devon's statements immediately after being placed in a holding cell,

0:37:26.000 --> 0:37:30.760
<v Speaker 2>the officer wrote, quote, Arthur's expressed how relieved he felt

0:37:31.160 --> 0:37:33.640
<v Speaker 2>because he fulfilled his mission and he can now have

0:37:33.760 --> 0:37:38.080
<v Speaker 2>peace Arthur's made several statements throughout that he was planning

0:37:38.160 --> 0:37:40.400
<v Speaker 2>to do something in the next week or so anyway,

0:37:41.160 --> 0:37:46.520
<v Speaker 2>and he was trying to pick a target. So which

0:37:46.560 --> 0:37:50.719
<v Speaker 2>is it? Which is it? Was he insane? Did he

0:37:50.800 --> 0:37:54.600
<v Speaker 2>snap because he was being bullied? Was he heroically preventing

0:37:54.640 --> 0:38:00.799
<v Speaker 2>a terrorist attack? Was this a premeditated ideological act for

0:38:00.960 --> 0:38:07.400
<v Speaker 2>what ideology exactly? The only person who really knows is Devin,

0:38:08.840 --> 0:38:10.960
<v Speaker 2>and he's still telling a version of this story that

0:38:11.120 --> 0:38:16.719
<v Speaker 2>doesn't add up. After last week's episode, I saw a

0:38:16.760 --> 0:38:20.959
<v Speaker 2>listener comment online that they'd encountered Devin Arthur's many years

0:38:21.040 --> 0:38:27.040
<v Speaker 2>ago while playing Minecraft. Remember Devin converted to Islam in

0:38:27.080 --> 0:38:30.960
<v Speaker 2>twenty sixteen when several members of his Minecraft server took

0:38:31.040 --> 0:38:34.560
<v Speaker 2>a joke a little too far and ended up meming

0:38:34.600 --> 0:38:41.800
<v Speaker 2>themselves into a bastardized version of Islam. I'm not a gamer.

0:38:42.920 --> 0:38:46.680
<v Speaker 2>I don't know anything about Minecraft, so I just took

0:38:46.719 --> 0:38:48.839
<v Speaker 2>this as written and didn't try to look for more

0:38:48.840 --> 0:38:52.120
<v Speaker 2>information about that. That's just a culture I don't understand.

0:38:53.520 --> 0:38:57.319
<v Speaker 2>But this listener's message got me thinking. A lot of

0:38:57.360 --> 0:39:02.799
<v Speaker 2>people Devin was gaming with back then remember him. This

0:39:02.840 --> 0:39:05.400
<v Speaker 2>listener was not the only person to have ever posted

0:39:05.440 --> 0:39:10.760
<v Speaker 2>online that they knew Devin from Minecraft. There are posts

0:39:10.760 --> 0:39:13.719
<v Speaker 2>where people are processing their shock that someone they'd known

0:39:13.760 --> 0:39:17.120
<v Speaker 2>from an online game turned out to be a murderer.

0:39:19.040 --> 0:39:22.200
<v Speaker 2>So I started looking for posts made in the immediate aftermath,

0:39:23.840 --> 0:39:41.399
<v Speaker 2>and I found some. First of all, it turns out

0:39:41.440 --> 0:39:44.960
<v Speaker 2>Minecraft is a lot more complicated than I thought. Don't

0:39:45.239 --> 0:39:49.000
<v Speaker 2>laugh at me. I don't play games, but I thought

0:39:49.040 --> 0:39:53.360
<v Speaker 2>it was just literally like Legos on the computer. I

0:39:53.360 --> 0:39:56.800
<v Speaker 2>thought it was computer legos. I don't know. I didn't

0:39:56.800 --> 0:40:00.000
<v Speaker 2>know there was a whole culture with this encyclopedias where

0:40:00.160 --> 0:40:05.680
<v Speaker 2>of lore. Devin was active on a Minecraft server called Sivcraft,

0:40:05.960 --> 0:40:08.600
<v Speaker 2>where users play a modified version of the game that

0:40:08.680 --> 0:40:13.840
<v Speaker 2>includes elements of the game civilization. So in Sivcraft, users

0:40:13.880 --> 0:40:16.960
<v Speaker 2>banded together as nations and they do diplomacy. They go

0:40:17.000 --> 0:40:20.600
<v Speaker 2>to war against other nations in the game. I don't know.

0:40:20.840 --> 0:40:24.080
<v Speaker 2>Don't email me about Minecraft. I'm doing my best. I

0:40:24.120 --> 0:40:27.240
<v Speaker 2>read a lot of stuff about games that I didn't understand.

0:40:28.680 --> 0:40:32.400
<v Speaker 2>He eventually joined a server called Intcraft, which has similar

0:40:32.440 --> 0:40:35.640
<v Speaker 2>gameplay dynamics to Sivcraft, but it was started by people

0:40:35.640 --> 0:40:40.360
<v Speaker 2>who met on four Chan, and it turns out Devin

0:40:40.520 --> 0:40:45.719
<v Speaker 2>used the same username for years, and his behavior was

0:40:45.840 --> 0:40:49.600
<v Speaker 2>weird enough that a lot of people who played sivcraft

0:40:50.040 --> 0:40:54.520
<v Speaker 2>remember him. I found four Chan posts going as far

0:40:54.600 --> 0:40:58.880
<v Speaker 2>back as twenty thirteen that appeared to be Devin talking

0:40:58.880 --> 0:41:03.680
<v Speaker 2>about Minecraft. By October of twenty fourteen, the same month

0:41:03.719 --> 0:41:05.600
<v Speaker 2>his dad kicked him out of the house for ordering

0:41:05.600 --> 0:41:09.279
<v Speaker 2>a copy of minecomf off Amazon, he's posting on four

0:41:09.360 --> 0:41:12.800
<v Speaker 2>Chan trying to recruit more users to his Minecraft server,

0:41:13.320 --> 0:41:17.640
<v Speaker 2>where he's playing as a Nazi. He posted an image

0:41:17.640 --> 0:41:21.000
<v Speaker 2>containing a swastika in what appears to be a historical

0:41:21.040 --> 0:41:24.880
<v Speaker 2>photograph of a mass grave, over which he's written an

0:41:24.920 --> 0:41:32.719
<v Speaker 2>antisemitic slogan. Now again, I'm showing my ignorance of Minecraft culture,

0:41:32.920 --> 0:41:38.279
<v Speaker 2>I guess. But both int and Sivcraft have kept extensive

0:41:38.560 --> 0:41:45.360
<v Speaker 2>histories of their games. There are blogs and wikis and subreddits.

0:41:46.560 --> 0:41:49.200
<v Speaker 2>And as I was reading through one of the Intcraft wikis,

0:41:50.000 --> 0:41:53.759
<v Speaker 2>because there is more than one, I kept seeing the

0:41:53.840 --> 0:41:58.680
<v Speaker 2>name of a particular user. Devin was second in command

0:41:58.719 --> 0:42:01.960
<v Speaker 2>of a group of players that call themselves Striker Gang,

0:42:02.680 --> 0:42:05.640
<v Speaker 2>named after their leader, a man playing under the username

0:42:05.880 --> 0:42:12.280
<v Speaker 2>Striker one two three abc. Interesting maybe, but not relevant.

0:42:12.760 --> 0:42:14.800
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure Devin played with a lot of people online,

0:42:16.360 --> 0:42:19.680
<v Speaker 2>but just days after the murders, someone posted a link

0:42:19.719 --> 0:42:22.120
<v Speaker 2>to a news story about Devin on a subreddit for

0:42:22.200 --> 0:42:28.000
<v Speaker 2>a particular Minecraft server. Several reddit users replied, recalling strange

0:42:28.080 --> 0:42:30.959
<v Speaker 2>run ins they'd had with him in the game. He'd

0:42:31.000 --> 0:42:33.320
<v Speaker 2>been pretty well known for a couple of years already

0:42:33.320 --> 0:42:38.680
<v Speaker 2>for being a Nazi. People posted things like I remember

0:42:38.760 --> 0:42:41.440
<v Speaker 2>him being a little shit and sieve, but I didn't

0:42:41.480 --> 0:42:46.520
<v Speaker 2>realize he'd do anything irl, and I assumed those short

0:42:46.560 --> 0:42:49.920
<v Speaker 2>political rants were to come off as edgy. Yes, I

0:42:50.000 --> 0:42:55.040
<v Speaker 2>couldn't believe someone could on ironically be like that. But

0:42:55.120 --> 0:43:01.800
<v Speaker 2>one user posted something very odd. The account's been deleted,

0:43:02.320 --> 0:43:07.000
<v Speaker 2>but the posts remain. He killed two of my friends

0:43:08.000 --> 0:43:11.640
<v Speaker 2>and he planned on killing me. This is a very

0:43:11.680 --> 0:43:17.560
<v Speaker 2>surreal experience. In a follow up post, the same deleted

0:43:17.560 --> 0:43:22.120
<v Speaker 2>account confirms that he was friends with the victims in

0:43:22.239 --> 0:43:30.120
<v Speaker 2>real life, not on Minecraft off line. Another user replying

0:43:30.160 --> 0:43:33.920
<v Speaker 2>to that post wrote, hope you're doing all right despite

0:43:33.960 --> 0:43:41.600
<v Speaker 2>all this. Striker Striker Striker from Minecraft was in Adam

0:43:41.640 --> 0:43:46.480
<v Speaker 2>Woffen two. So I looked for Striker in the Iron

0:43:46.520 --> 0:43:50.680
<v Speaker 2>March leagues and wouldn't you know it, he's there too.

0:43:52.440 --> 0:43:55.759
<v Speaker 2>In twenty sixteen, Striker posted on Iron March that he

0:43:55.800 --> 0:43:59.440
<v Speaker 2>was one of three Adam Woffen members in South Florida.

0:44:00.160 --> 0:44:03.360
<v Speaker 2>He signed up with his real email address from a

0:44:03.400 --> 0:44:09.040
<v Speaker 2>computer with an IP address in South Florida. Now I

0:44:09.080 --> 0:44:11.719
<v Speaker 2>have to hand it to him, this man has done

0:44:11.920 --> 0:44:16.040
<v Speaker 2>an incredible job wiping himself off the face of the Internet.

0:44:17.440 --> 0:44:21.920
<v Speaker 2>But he did leave just enough bread crumbs that appeared

0:44:21.920 --> 0:44:26.360
<v Speaker 2>to connect that Minecraft user to the Iron March poster

0:44:27.520 --> 0:44:30.160
<v Speaker 2>to a thirty seven year old middle school teacher in

0:44:30.239 --> 0:44:34.960
<v Speaker 2>South Florida. That would have made him twenty eight back

0:44:35.000 --> 0:44:37.960
<v Speaker 2>in twenty sixteen, which is actually quite old for an

0:44:37.960 --> 0:44:41.760
<v Speaker 2>Adam Waffen member. Members tended to be in their teens

0:44:41.840 --> 0:44:45.319
<v Speaker 2>or early twenties, maybe because that's the demographic that was

0:44:45.360 --> 0:44:48.520
<v Speaker 2>most online in the dark corners where the group recruited, right,

0:44:49.560 --> 0:44:53.160
<v Speaker 2>they're more impressionable, less likely to make good decisions, less

0:44:53.239 --> 0:44:57.879
<v Speaker 2>likely to have their lives figured out. All that's true,

0:44:58.000 --> 0:45:02.440
<v Speaker 2>but it was also very intentional. Brandon Russell was explicit

0:45:02.480 --> 0:45:08.600
<v Speaker 2>about this. He preferred to recruit very young members, literal children,

0:45:09.600 --> 0:45:13.880
<v Speaker 2>because a child can't be an FBI agent. If you

0:45:13.960 --> 0:45:17.600
<v Speaker 2>only recruit teenagers, you don't have to worry that any

0:45:17.640 --> 0:45:22.680
<v Speaker 2>of them are an undercover cop. But maybe Striker made

0:45:22.680 --> 0:45:25.120
<v Speaker 2>the cut because there was just no way an undercover

0:45:25.239 --> 0:45:29.040
<v Speaker 2>cop could spend that much time pretending to lead isis

0:45:29.120 --> 0:45:36.080
<v Speaker 2>on Minecraft. But back to that Reddit post, why did

0:45:36.120 --> 0:45:41.840
<v Speaker 2>Striker think Devvin planned to kill him too? Another mysterious

0:45:41.880 --> 0:45:45.200
<v Speaker 2>Reddit post from a deleted account claims that the leader

0:45:45.280 --> 0:45:48.800
<v Speaker 2>of the group talked to some people who knew Devon

0:45:48.880 --> 0:45:52.760
<v Speaker 2>on Minecraft and they allegedly told him that the murders

0:45:52.760 --> 0:45:57.600
<v Speaker 2>were premeditated. The account is deleted and the post is

0:45:58.280 --> 0:46:02.520
<v Speaker 2>not very clear where this information came from, but someone

0:46:02.600 --> 0:46:05.160
<v Speaker 2>is claiming that Devin had been talking online about a

0:46:05.160 --> 0:46:08.960
<v Speaker 2>plan to kill not only Andrew Jeremy, but several other

0:46:09.040 --> 0:46:14.000
<v Speaker 2>members of the group too. I guess we'll never really know.

0:46:15.360 --> 0:46:18.960
<v Speaker 2>As far as the hard facts go. Devin pleaded guilty

0:46:19.080 --> 0:46:24.080
<v Speaker 2>to murder. His story still shifts with every retelling. He

0:46:24.120 --> 0:46:26.279
<v Speaker 2>shot them because he was mentally ill, he shot them

0:46:26.320 --> 0:46:28.520
<v Speaker 2>because they were bullies, he shot them because he had

0:46:28.560 --> 0:46:33.080
<v Speaker 2>to prevent a terrorist attack. But in one tiny moment,

0:46:34.000 --> 0:46:37.920
<v Speaker 2>before those bodies were even cold, he told a police

0:46:37.920 --> 0:46:40.480
<v Speaker 2>officer that he'd been planning to carry out an attack

0:46:40.560 --> 0:46:43.880
<v Speaker 2>that week, and he told another officer that he wished

0:46:43.880 --> 0:46:49.279
<v Speaker 2>he'd found time to write his manifesto first. Maybe there

0:46:49.320 --> 0:46:52.839
<v Speaker 2>is no truth here. There is no actual version of

0:46:52.880 --> 0:46:55.319
<v Speaker 2>the truth, because what happened isn't something that can be

0:46:55.360 --> 0:46:59.880
<v Speaker 2>made sense of. His story changes because even he doesn't

0:46:59.880 --> 0:47:04.759
<v Speaker 2>know why he did what he did. In Minecraft, he

0:47:04.880 --> 0:47:10.040
<v Speaker 2>role played sometimes as Isis, sometimes as a national socialist

0:47:10.120 --> 0:47:13.480
<v Speaker 2>on a mission to kill communists. Sometimes he was a

0:47:13.520 --> 0:47:18.040
<v Speaker 2>pony from the My Little Pony animated series. His online

0:47:18.080 --> 0:47:22.680
<v Speaker 2>fantasy bled into real life. It wasn't enough to pretend

0:47:22.719 --> 0:47:25.160
<v Speaker 2>to be an Isis or pretend to be a Nazi

0:47:25.160 --> 0:47:29.920
<v Speaker 2>in Minecraft. He founded a real life Nazi group, and

0:47:29.920 --> 0:47:32.160
<v Speaker 2>then he got pushed out of leadership of his Nazi

0:47:32.160 --> 0:47:37.000
<v Speaker 2>group for swearing allegiance to Isis. When it came to

0:47:37.040 --> 0:47:42.080
<v Speaker 2>his real world ideology, he believed all sorts of contradictory things.

0:47:42.600 --> 0:47:46.239
<v Speaker 2>Maybe he really does believe entirely contradictory versions of his

0:47:46.280 --> 0:47:51.640
<v Speaker 2>own reality too. In the moment that he became a murderer,

0:47:52.719 --> 0:47:55.600
<v Speaker 2>maybe he believed all of it or none of it,

0:47:56.920 --> 0:47:59.759
<v Speaker 2>but he'd been thoroughly steeped in the violent rhetoric of

0:47:59.800 --> 0:48:04.640
<v Speaker 2>the Nazi group he helped create. Even if he does

0:48:04.760 --> 0:48:08.120
<v Speaker 2>believe that he was only trying to stop the group's violence.

0:48:09.600 --> 0:48:12.840
<v Speaker 2>That culture of violence is the reason that gun was

0:48:12.880 --> 0:48:17.520
<v Speaker 2>in his hands in the first place. In the end, though,

0:48:18.480 --> 0:48:24.600
<v Speaker 2>I guess he did kind of prevent something. Brandon Russell's

0:48:24.600 --> 0:48:28.120
<v Speaker 2>bomb making workshop was discovered. He was arrested before he

0:48:28.160 --> 0:48:31.239
<v Speaker 2>got a chance to do whatever he may or may

0:48:31.320 --> 0:48:33.880
<v Speaker 2>not have been planning to do in South Florida at

0:48:33.880 --> 0:48:38.239
<v Speaker 2>that nuclear power plant. But Brandon Russell's commitment to kicking

0:48:38.280 --> 0:48:41.600
<v Speaker 2>off the race war only intensified during his years in prison,

0:48:42.640 --> 0:48:45.800
<v Speaker 2>and within months of his release, he was back online

0:48:46.600 --> 0:48:50.120
<v Speaker 2>chatting with impressionable young people about how to blow up

0:48:50.160 --> 0:48:55.879
<v Speaker 2>electrical transformers. Brandon Russell was recently sentenced to twenty years

0:48:55.920 --> 0:48:59.560
<v Speaker 2>in prison. Devon Arthur's is serving his forty five year

0:48:59.640 --> 0:49:03.120
<v Speaker 2>sentence in Florida. He spends a lot of his time

0:49:03.160 --> 0:49:06.640
<v Speaker 2>these days in the prison law library. As recently as

0:49:06.719 --> 0:49:10.840
<v Speaker 2>last month, he was filing handwritten motions for post conviction relief,

0:49:11.400 --> 0:49:14.200
<v Speaker 2>claiming his attorneys failed him by not presenting more mitigating

0:49:14.200 --> 0:49:19.000
<v Speaker 2>evidence at sentencing. For what it's worth, I don't think

0:49:19.040 --> 0:49:20.879
<v Speaker 2>any version of the truth would have helped him there.

0:49:22.080 --> 0:49:24.799
<v Speaker 2>Florida law didn't really give the judge any discretion to

0:49:24.840 --> 0:49:28.000
<v Speaker 2>have handed down a lighter sentence even if mitigation evidence

0:49:28.040 --> 0:49:31.880
<v Speaker 2>had been presented. But I'll keep an eye on the

0:49:31.880 --> 0:49:35.040
<v Speaker 2>docket just to see if he gets that evidentiary hearing

0:49:35.080 --> 0:49:39.640
<v Speaker 2>he's been asking for. Maybe this time he'll have a

0:49:39.640 --> 0:49:56.920
<v Speaker 2>new version of the truth. Weirdling the Guys see production

0:49:56.960 --> 0:50:00.560
<v Speaker 2>of Coolsnow Media and iHeartRadio has researched, written, recorded by

0:50:00.600 --> 0:50:03.960
<v Speaker 2>me Molly Coner. Our executive producers are Sophie Lecturement Van

0:50:04.080 --> 0:50:07.040
<v Speaker 2>Robert Evans. The show is edited by the wildly talented

0:50:07.120 --> 0:50:09.880
<v Speaker 2>Rory Gagan. The theme music was composed by Brad Dickard.

0:50:10.560 --> 0:50:13.439
<v Speaker 2>You can email me at Riddleyguys Podcast at gmail dot com.

0:50:13.480 --> 0:50:15.719
<v Speaker 2>I will definitely read it, but I probably won't answer it.

0:50:15.719 --> 0:50:19.000
<v Speaker 2>It's nothing personal. You can exchange conspiracy theories about the

0:50:19.040 --> 0:50:21.320
<v Speaker 2>show with other listeners on the Riddle the Guys subreddit.

0:50:22.280 --> 0:50:24.960
<v Speaker 2>Just please don't post anything that's going to make you

0:50:25.000 --> 0:50:26.120
<v Speaker 2>one of my weird little guys.