WEBVTT - Part One: Why Kidnapping Conspiracy Theories Are Everywhere 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:05.040 Hey, everyone, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, and I 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:06.920 have some bad news for you all. Kind of at 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:10.680 the start of this episode, starting in like twenty twenty one, 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:14.480 kind of late, you know, early pandemic period, I started 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:19.599 chatting with a good friend of mine, Cormack McCarthy, about 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:21.720 bringing one of his books to life and the way 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.280 he'd always intended, which was by having me read Blood 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:29.640 Meridian in my award winning Boston accent in its entirety. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.520 We finished, you know, kind of our discussions right before 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.080 he tragically passed earlier this year. Sophie and I recorded 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:39.800 the whole thing. We were about to release it as 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.879 a surprise, but we've, as a result of the writers 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:47.559 and now the actors strike in solidarity, decided to delete 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:52.720 the entirety of Boston Blood Meridian. So you know, I'm 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:54.880 very sorry. I know a lot of you were looking 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.120 forward to this, and all I can say is that 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.040 if you want to do something about this and force 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:09.000 us to release it. David Zoslov's home address is Beverly Hills, California, 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.319 So you know, I don't I'm not telling you to 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:14.600 do anything. Just just think about it. That's where his 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.880 sixty five million dollar Beverly Hills mansion is also loupe me. 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.360 Into this weird crime you're doing right now, Sophie. 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.120 It's not a crime because the mansion that he bought 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.840 used to belong to the other Robert Evans, so I'm 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:28.160 allowed to read it on air. 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:30.560 There is no other Robert Evans. 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.720 You are. Thank you. It is thank you, Sophie, speaking 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.959 of other people who are the only example of their kind. 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:42.200 Sarah Marshall, Hello, Actually this. 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:44.280 God, It's true. We're both doppelgangers. 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.600 We are both doppelgangers. It is interesting that we both 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:52.080 have a famous person who utilized our name that is 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:53.240 involved in Hollywood. 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.560 It is, and it's also weird to be the real person, 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:00.000 the non Hollywood person. 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:01.200 You are the real version. 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:08.320 Yeah, and yet I'm the other one. 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.000 Every time I come across a copy of that movie 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.000 at a red box, I kick it. So I'm doing 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:15.359 my part. 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.200 You are doing your part. That's all I ask for. 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.559 Yeah, you are. You are one of the most accomplished 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:28.000 podcasters in the biz. A real uh. I was going 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.080 to like give you a nickname based on a famous podcaster, 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.800 but most of them are terrible people. Actually, I'm a 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:42.200 real Margan. Yeah, no, you you do some of the 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.480 best podcasts in the business, and you also live in Portland, Oregon. 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:48.840 How are you doing today? Yeah, I'm so good. 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.640 Yes, this is an all Portland show, which I love. 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.680 I especially love it when I meet people who say, 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:56.520 do you live in New York or LA? And I 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:04.519 say Portland. It's like the third secret answer always, Oh. 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:03.720 Yeah it is. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.040 They say oh. And then they say and where are 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.360 you from? And you say Portland and they say, oh. 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.519 See that's different because there are that this is Portland's 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:14.680 a little weird to me in that and that like, 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.440 unlike all of the other West Coast cities, you ask 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.239 anyone where they're from, and it's anywhere about the West Coast, 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.399 but in Portland some people actually come from here, which 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:25.280 is surprising to me. 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.080 It's a I mean, it's a great city to stick 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.440 around in. I feel like Pittsburgh is the same way. 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.240 It's like, I don't know, and it's you have a 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.520 really nice quality of life here. I think. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:36.200 I like it. 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:40.480 The Yeah, I'm so happy you like it. It's killing And 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:45.920 I was just juicing a watermelon before we started, because 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.680 it is watermelon tyme. There are little signs for Hermerston 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.360 melons up in our streets where you can go buy 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:54.920 them from a truck, and uh, it's watermelon time. 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.240 I'm pretty happy I had watermelon for lunch, Thank you 0:03:58.280 --> 0:03:58.720 so much. 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.400 Honestly, I'm extremely hungover right now, So a watermelon sounds great. 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.120 I do. And I'm sorry for telling you this, Sarah, 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:11.600 but uh, the AI will will be able to take 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:14.040 your line where you said that you were just juicing 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.560 a watermelon and turn that into a conversation with Joe 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:17.800 Rogan about steroids. 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.920 So I do we have to deal with that? 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:24.080 We all have to deal with that apparently, whereas I 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.640 call I was just gonna say, apparently you only get 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:28.599 paid for one day of your work and then they'll 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.479 use it forever. 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.320 Yeah, it's yeah, they juice, yeah, and then they throw 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:33.839 you away. 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:34.560 Yeah. 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:36.960 Joe Rogan, or as I call him, the guy from 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:38.080 news radio. 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:43.240 The guy from news radio. Yeah, it's good because we 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.159 all needed as shorthand that we could use to simultaneously 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:50.920 refer to Joe Rogan and Andy Dick. These are great 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.280 jokes for three percent of our audience. 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.560 What is it also that like? And here's a joke 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:59.480 for that three percent as well. I can't believe that 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:05.200 podcast that has truly changed American society. Oh yeah, has 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.679 come from a news radio alum, and that it wasn't 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.839 Dave Foley, who I think solid if he had that 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.080 size of a following, I would be okay with that, 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:14.120 I think. 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.160 Yeah, I would have been okay with Phil Hartman having 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:17.000 that big of a following. 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.760 Oh my god, Phil Hartman is alive and Joe Rogan 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.000 is you know the other one. 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:26.480 I was just gonnay, wouldn't it be nice if Phil 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.960 Hartman was alive? But yeah, that does really complete it 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:41.479 the wish. Speaking of tragedy, how do you feel about kidnapping, Sarah. 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.760 I'm always ready to talk about a kidnapping, as is 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:44.480 my anxiety brain at one in the morning when I'm 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.599 on Wikipedia. So this is much better than that. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.120 That's good because we're kind of our subject for this 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:53.000 week is pretty focused on the anxiety brain and how 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:58.120 it relates to paranoid conspiracy theories about kidnapping, because it 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.080 turns out that's a real problem, and we're going to 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.599 start by talking about kind of the deadliest manifestation of 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:09.920 that problem. On June's sixteenth, twenty and twenty three. Phoebe 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:14.040 Howard coppis a forty eight year old woman from Tompkinsville, Kentucky, 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.040 flew to El Paso, Texas to hang out with her boyfriend. 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.000 Upon arrival, she got into an Uber driven by a 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:24.039 fifty two year old man named Daniel Piedre Garcia. His 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.880 niece later described him as a hard working and funny 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.640 guy who had an instinctive ability to lift other people 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.159 up when he was in a bad mood. Piedros was 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:35.279 the sole breadwinner for his family and had started driving 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.320 for Uber after recovering from an injury at a previous job. 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.039 He started driving copas to her boyfriend's place. She was 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.720 not familiar with El Paso. She had been won there 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.039 two times before, and she got spooked because she saw 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.960 a sign for Juarez, Mexico, which convinced her, for some reason, 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.359 that she was about to be kidnapped and trafficked across 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.560 the border. Now, El Paso, if you've never been, is 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.680 the sister city or sibling city or whatever to Juarez. 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.960 They're effectively suburbs of each other, right Like Juarez and 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.920 El Paso are basically the same city with a border 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.040 in between them. So seeing signs for Juarez while you're 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.520 in El Paso. Not a weird experience, but Copas are 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.960 all over the place. It's content, yeah, because it's right there. 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:19.000 Very pretty city. 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.320 It's a great city. We'll talk about that. But Copas 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.880 gets freaked out, so she pulls a handgun from her 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.400 purse and she shoots Piedra in the head from behind 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.000 the vehicle, which was not particularly close to any of 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.400 the entrances to Mexico. Not that that really matters, but 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.640 she's going to make claims about this slid to a 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:41.440 stop and impacted a freeway barrier. Copas texted a picture 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.760 to her boyfriend and then she called nine to one one. Now, 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.000 this story, when it happened, because she kills him, goes 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.960 viral for several reasons. Obviously, it's at the intersection of 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:56.040 a bunch of salient issues in US politics. You've got immigration, 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.360 you've got the border, you've got gun control, you've got racism. 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.240 But it's also a story that could kind of be 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.880 briskly described as part of the now expansive Karen goes 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.560 crazy genre, right where you've got like a woman who 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.400 reacts in some sort of aggressive or violent way because 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.880 you know of shit that people would kind of could 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.200 kind of like sum up in that way. When the 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.680 story broke on Twitter before much was known about it, 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.240 many of the posts that I saw just kind of 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.440 casually assumed that Copus was a white, suburban woman because 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.400 that was the picture of the person who would do 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.080 something like this that most jibed with their pre existing assumptions, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.200 and kind of the again assumption was that she was 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.199 probably a strong right winger who would imbibe a lot 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:46.120 of racist propaganda about the border. Now, as I'm going 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.560 to talk about, we don't have super clear information about 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:53.960 like what sort of info ecosystem she existed in, but 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.520 Copus is a black woman, and from what I can 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.240 get about her socioeconomic status, she seems to have been 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:04.559 kind of broadly middle class. You know, she's a grandmother. 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.000 There was not anything I found her social media, and 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.480 there was nothing in it that would make you think 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.600 she was not posting about guns, She was not posting 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.560 paranoid conspiracies about the border or about any of this stuff. 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:22.480 Like it was like a weirdly normal thing, like like 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:27.520 social media profile from everything forty eight. Okay, so you 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:29.840 know someone who had a kid and young and became 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.000 a grandma pretty young. But you know, there was nothing 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:35.520 in it that like set off. I do this all 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:37.640 the time, right, like I used to for a living, 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.120 when you know, mass shootings and stuff would be done, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.200 scrape shit on the people who had committed the shooting 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:46.880 to talk like try to figure out like what had 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.400 been going on with them prior to making that decision, 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.760 and copus. I don't. There's nothing that's I would consider 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.400 a warning sign in her publicly available information. The most 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.839 recently updated post on her Facebook before killing Piedras was 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.640 a profile pick from February seventeenth, and in general, most 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.520 of the activity on her Facebook was just like occasionally 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:11.400 updating her portrait. What update she did post We're all 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.319 super normal. There's an update from March of twenty twenty 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.560 two that's just a video of her dancing with her 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:20.280 grandkid with the text Tatum's birthday dance. He loves dancing 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:24.240 with his Gigi. Love him and it's one of those 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:27.360 because I got to this, I don't know, maybe a 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.840 day or two after the shooting. The comments on there 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.280 are it's this weird thing that you get with the 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.680 internet where like somebody does something terrible and then people 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.679 find their anadyne social media posts and start like commenting 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.559 on it. So the first couple of comments on this 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.520 year old post are like family member being like, oh, 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:49.240 it's so cute, you know, you and the kid are 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.400 so cute. And then it becomes like a bunch of 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.760 weirdos posting like your family member is a murderer, like 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:59.120 fuck this lady she killed somebody, which is like, yeah, 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.240 I mean she did kill some buddy, and I broadly agree, yeah, 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.520 fuck her, because that's bad. You shouldn't shoot people in 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:06.319 the back of the head. 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:08.640 It's so true. You're always saying that. 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.560 I'm always saying that, But it's a I do. I 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.360 can't not find it kind of unsettling to like hop 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.000 on these pictures of a lady and her grandkid and 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.880 just be like, fuck you for killing a guy. And 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.600 it's like not just fuck you for killing a guy, 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.240 but like, hey, person who is a family member of 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:29.600 this person, like your your relative is is a bad person. 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:34.160 That's a strange impulse. I guess I feel like it's weird. 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.960 It's strange to have that technology available to us and 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.520 all of all of the things that lets us do Yeah. 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.320 Yeah, it's it's weird kind of like right below that 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.319 first post your your kin is a murderer post is 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.199 another comment from somebody who told one of Kopus's relatives 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:55.440 visit her in prison while she is alive lol, l 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.480 passo another type of jail, she will get it lol, 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:01.839 which I think it meant like El Paso has Another time, 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.040 it's a reference to like the death penalty, right that, 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.840 like hm, which is true, but like also I don't know, man, 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.679 Like again, what she did is bad. I like you 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:13.880 shouldn't be able to do that and just like walk 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:16.400 away from it obviously, but like it's weird to just 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.680 be like, hey, family members of this person who murdered 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.240 a guy, like your your relative might get the chair, 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:25.280 Like that's such a strange thing. 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.640 And the ease of being able to do that without 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.200 leaving your house is yeah, very dangerous. 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.960 Yeah, and it's there was another someone else posted, like 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:40.280 you know, commenting like had scraped her her details enough 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:42.560 to figure out that she was like a home designer 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.640 for a living and like noted gleefully she'll have to 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.760 decorate her new cell home cell with scrap, maybe using 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:50.960 toilet paper and then. 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.960 All prison fantasies are just never sit right right, no 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.600 matter what somebody did. It's just like, Okay, calm down, 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.520 because like using prison as a way of fantasizing about 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.040 revenge reveals the whole thing being what it is. 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.400 Yeah, and it's it's fascinating because this person starts by 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.960 being like, ha ha, she was a home designer and 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.280 now she'll be designing a cell and then in the 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:13.080 middle of the post is like, oh, I take it back. 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.200 She was a case worker, which is I feel like 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.440 someone other than me, you could like there's so much 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.400 to say about America and just sort of analyzing the 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:26.679 decision this person made to like real time fact check 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.800 while she was making her post without like editing or 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.480 changing it, Like there's so much there. I don't know 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.680 what to say about it. But it's like I feel 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.719 it's like Finnigan's Wake. We're like somewhere trapped in that 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.200 post is like the secret to the madness of the 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.959 United States. Yeah, but I. 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:46.960 Just need someone to write a dissertation on it. 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:51.040 Yeah. Kids in college who are listening to this podcast, 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.320 there you go like that's that's a free one for you. 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:56.719 And it is like we're talking about how like kind 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.079 of weird this is, but at the same time, it's 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.040 not weird, right, This is just like you, like anyone 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:06.040 who's not unfamiliar with the Internet knows like, well, yeah, 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.760 there's like public facing social media for somebody who does 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:10.760 something terrible, this is going to happen to it, right, 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.280 That's just the way the world works. So you know, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.240 it's it's it's weird, but it's not weird. As far 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.680 as Copus goes, the closest we get to anything that 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.720 reveals like what kind of ideology might have made her 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.360 shoot a stranger in the back of the head while 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.920 he was driving her down the highway is a lecture, 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.280 a quote or a clip from a lecture that she 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.360 posted on her Facebook. And the lecture is by a 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.960 guy named T. D. Jakes who's an American non denominational 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:43.760 megachurch preacher. And it's like a kind of very patriarchal, 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.600 traditional little like thing. He's talking about how like a 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.240 woman is like salt, you know, she makes everything better, 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.960 including like she makes men who are like shitty better, 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.120 and that's like the job of a woman, right. It's like, yeah, 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.400 it's obviously like it's toxic, but it's not. Also, this 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.400 isn't like a like Tdjake Saint Jordan Peterson, Right, this 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:04.760 is a guy you walk into any maybe even never 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.080 heard of him, but you walk in any fucking bookstore 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.600 in the United States and there's Tdjke's books and shit 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:14.040 like he is an incredibly popular megachurch preacher. So I 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:16.160 wouldn't there's nothing in here that I would call like 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:21.120 a warning sign. The most actual, like like kind of 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.000 thing that we get that might suggest some toxicity in 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.360 her in her personal life comes from the fundraiser that 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.600 her family posted on Gibson to Go after she got arrested. 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.720 It reads, or it starts, our daughter, who is an 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.560 attractive forty eight year old African American woman, is being 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.080 detained in El Paso, Texas at the El Paso County 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.520 Detention Center because of the charge of her shooting a 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:50.000 Hispanic male. Now that's a little weird, right who I 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.040 heard her? Her family? Right? 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, our daughter who is in a track. 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.960 Who is an attractive Okay, that's that's weird. That's a 0:15:57.960 --> 0:15:58.880 little lot and. 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:06.040 Rule write that sentence for them the grave to do it. Yeah, expensive, God. 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:10.800 That's straight. That's a bit peculiar right now. Yes, the 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.480 post goes on to claim, and there's no evidence for this, 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.120 that she asked the driver to stop numerous times and 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.040 he refused to stop, and then he engaged the child locks, 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:24.240 which is why she decided to shoot him. Yeah, it's 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:29.160 again peculiar that, like they describe her as attractive, What 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.480 we can say safely, giving given the known facts of 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.680 the case, is that Phoebe Copis was a pretty normal 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.760 seeming person from the outside who probably, i mean, it's 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.960 probably accurate to say had a distinctly irrational fear of 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.840 being kidnapped, and that fear was exacerbated by her proximity 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.520 to Mexico. Coppus has spoken out since her arrest through 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.680 her lawyer, to claim that she demanded Piedras pull over 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:55.400 and let her out, and that he told her he 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.880 was taking her to affair in Juarez. Again, there's zero 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.160 evidence of this, and the police report states the defendant 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.000 never called for police or emergency services to report her 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.120 being in any immediate danger prior to shooting the complaining witness. 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.880 The defendant took a photo of the complaining witness after 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:12.880 he was shot and sent it to her boyfriend via 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:17.679 text message prior to calling nine to one one. Copus's lawyer, 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.680 Matthew Koasick, has claimed that the media that Copus had 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.879 been ingesting had contributed to the mindset that she was 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.439 in when she carried out the shooting. From Yahoo News quote, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.159 he said that his client was in fear of her 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.520 life because of her knowledge of violence and kidnappings and 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.680 Warez and seeing highway signs on US fifty four showing 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:39.280 exits Touarez. During the hearing, Kozik showed news articles reporting 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.720 on violence and Warez, including stories about drug cartels and kidnappings. 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.320 He also showed photos where the shooting happened in traffic 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:49.440 signs showing the highway led to Warez. So, like, that's 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.240 what her defense is going to rest on. And I 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.640 think there's a degree to which, like, I don't think 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.040 that's a good defense, but it's it is accurate that 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:04.520 if you are like somebody who engaged, like who consumes 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.000 mainstream news media, most of what you hear about Wjuarez 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.879 is kidnappings and murders, right, most of what you hear 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.440 about the US border is kidnappings and murders. Now I 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.040 can remember like fucking fifteen years ago. I was on 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.760 a road trip and we like were in El Paso 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.239 and crossed over to Warez to get lunch, and when 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.120 we came back, the border patrol guy was so suspicious 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:28.840 of us that he like stripped our car down like 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.639 took every like like almost to like the fucking metal 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.160 because he was like, nobody stops in Warez for lunch. 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.000 It's the most dangerous city on Earth. And it's like, 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:40.479 man like, yeah, if you're fucking doing weirdo, like if 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.600 you're doing certain things, it's dangerous, but like it's also 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:45.360 a place just a lot of people live. You can 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:47.879 go get lunch in Warez. The cartels aren't coming for 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.840 you there, you know, Like but it is like that's 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.879 just how people think about the city, which is peculiar 0:18:54.880 --> 0:19:00.240 to me. But I yeah, I started kind of looking 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:05.080 into the media surrounded kidnap surrounding kidnappings in the United 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:09.000 States because it was one of those things I felt 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.919 like there had to be something peculiar there that like 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.080 would set someone like Phoebe Copus off, Like there had 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.159 to be even if we don't have, you know, kind 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:23.280 of evidence from her info diet. When I started like 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:25.399 looking into just kind of going on the big the 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:27.960 major social media apps, looking up like what kind of 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.399 the trending stories involving kidnapping or human trafficking was, you 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.439 start to like see some patterns, and one of the 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.560 patterns is that kidnapping related content is among the most 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.320 reliable ways to go viral on the Internet right now. 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:45.520 If you start looking for kid tiktoks using kidnapping, using 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.840 human trafficking, you'll see a bunch that have multiple million views. 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.159 And if particularly, one of the things that keyed me 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.560 in is like I would see some weirdo who would 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.760 do something like take a clip from a made for 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.520 TV movie about a kid getting kidnapped and then like 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.240 put an a AI voiceover over it to be talking 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.800 about like here's you know, how kidnappings happen, and that 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.160 video would have like four million views and everything else 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:11.400 in their channel would be like ten twenty thousand, right, 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.120 So it's like, oh, this is like a reliable way 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.800 to get follows and to get views is like putting 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:17.879 kidnapping shit out there. 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.000 AI have voice that they use in like movie summary 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:22.000 accounts and also stuff like that where it's like the 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.920 girl is walking down the streets, the girls her by 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:25.359 the wrist. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've seen exactly the ones I'm talking about. 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.359 So I started looking into this and it kept getting 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.320 weirder and weirder. So one TikTok that I found in 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.120 my research was from the account TV moments, which has 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.440 two hundred and forty four thousand followers and fourteen point 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.520 three million likes, and it mostly posts clips from news 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.600 stories with on screen text summaries, stuff like triple homicide 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.879 suspect and appears in court with the text heartbreaking story 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.880 and read above it, or titles like child abducted from 0:20:55.880 --> 0:21:00.960 Berkeley home, American kidnapped walking dog in Mexico, and this 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.200 video that I'm about to show our Sophie's about to 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:05.560 show you, which is posted April second, used as a 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:09.399 clip from news Nation, which is a news network that 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.840 is kind of like a mild conservative bent and here's 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:13.959 here's how it sounds. 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.560 Forty thousand dollars reward is being offered to help find 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:20.880