Crime Weekly - Jade Benning | Another Woman, Another Pregnancy & A Disturbing Pattern (Part 3)

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

On the night of February 25th, 2023, 24-year-old Jade Benning called one of her oldest and closest friends. She wasn't calling to catch up. In fact, for much of the call, it seemed as if Jade wasn't even speaking to her friend, and instead, this friend listened as Jade confronted the man standing inside her apartment with her: Blaise Taylor, a man who jade had recently reconnected with. A man who's child she was carrying. A man who would later call himself her boyfriend. Jade sounded confused, her speech was becoming rapidly impaired; she said she couldn't feel her legs. And then she asked Blaze a question that would eventually become the center of a murder investigation: What did you put in my drink?Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPodADS:https://www.Quince.com/CrimeWeekly - Refresh your wardrobe with timeless, high-quality pieces from Quince—go to https://Quince.com/crimeweekly for free shipping and 365-day returns!https://www.OneSkin.co/CrimeWeekly - Get 15% off OneSkin with the code CRIMEWEEKLY at https://www.oneskin.co/CRIMEWEEKLY #oneskinpodIQBAR - Text WEEKLY to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping!https://www.SKIMS.com/CrimeWeekly - Shop my favorite pieces at https://skims.com/crimeweekly!https://www.Chime.com/CrimeWeekly - Visit https://www.chime.com/crimeweekly & Join fee-free banking with Chime! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasser. So we are here for part three of Jade Benning, and in part two, we followed the final hours before Jade Benning's life changed forever. What began as a quiet date night with Blaze Taylor turned into something terrifying when Jade suddenly became weak, disoriented, and unable to speak clearly. Within minutes, Jade was unresponsive, in cardiac arrest and being rushed to the hospital, while the people closest to her were already convinced that something about that night was deep. wrong. Then came the details that only made things more unsettling. The pink drink, the moved blink camera, the cup that appeared to have been washed in a crime scene that was never properly preserved from the beginning. And when Jade's toxicology results finally came back, they revealed an amount of cocaine in her system so extreme that even the medical examiner said she had

never personally seen anything like it before. So by the time part two ended, the question was no longer simply what happened to Jade that night. It was whether someone had deliberately poisoned her and whether investigators would be able to prove that or prove who did it. So a lot going on here in this case. You guys are loving it. You're very much into it. I'm so glad because this was an important story to tell. But we're going to dive into today's episode. However, I know Derek has something quickly to say. Yeah, well, first, this story, this story is insane. And if it wasn't for essentially Jade picking up on what was going down and immediately calling Nijia. I mean, that that right there is so critical in this case to have that impartial witness who

wasn't there, who wouldn't have a reason to really lie, being able to relay what was said on that phone call because without it, we would just have a record of her trying to call Nyjaya. So thank you to her for coming forward and being strong and being an advocate for Jade and speaking on her behalf because obviously she's no longer here and unable to do so. So watching that court testimony has been incredible and we don't normally get that in these types of cases. You usually have to kind of try to piece it together. But here you essentially have the last words directly from the victim, which is, which is incredible. She essentially

solved her own case. So we'll get into the specifics tonight. But yes, I mentioned it on crime weekly news. I'll mention it here because obviously we have more people who listen here. anybody in the United Kingdom, anyone out near the London area. I will be out at the CrimeCon event, October 3rd and 4th in London. I'd love to see you guys there. If you want to check it out, you can head on over to crimecon.com.com.com. If you want to purchase a ticket, you can use our code Crime Weekly and you'll get 10% off. CrimeCon, UK is a really great time.

We haven't been in a few years. Stephanie's sending me over there because she's. She has Halloween and it's a lot of travel. It is difficult to get over there. I'm leaving essentially on the 30th to get there on the first. There's a dinner on the second at the hotel. And then my plan is to hang out for the third and fourth. I'll be at the booth for most of it, just meeting with you guys chatting.

But I've also had a lot of you hit me up saying, you know, asking if we're going to do like a crime weekly meetup. Absolutely. I'm going to be at the hotel or around the hotel. I'll make sure that we put it out on social media. but I would love to catch up, hang out with you guys, talk about some of the cases that are prevalent in the UK, and we'll have a good time.

We always do, and I'm looking forward to seeing all of you there. So if you want to check it out, again, it's crimecon.co. com.com. UK, and the directions are right there where it's going to be. It's in London. I know London's a huge place. I think it's about an hour from the Heathrow airport last time I checked. So go check it out.

Hope to see you there. Okay, so last week when we left off, Jade Benning was on life support. at Vanderbilt Hospital, but the damage caused by her falling ill and the cardiac arrest had been catastrophic. Jade had gone for a period of time without a pulse, depriving her brain of oxygen, and doctors determined that she had suffered a severe, anoxic brain injury. Her brain began to swell, and ultimately there was no realistic possibility that she would recover. And tragically, Jade was not the only patient that doctors were trying to save. She was roughly five, months pregnant with the little girl she had already named Ivy, and on February 27th, two days

after Jade collapsed, Ivy died. Jade remained on life support for another week, but on her 25th birthday, March 6th, 2023, her family made the difficult and soul-crushing decision to remove her from life support. There is something particularly cruel about that date, because not only was it Jade's birthday and Jade always went all out for her birthday and it was very important to her. But according to Jade's mother, March 6th, was also the day Jade had been planning to finally share her happy news and announce her pregnancy publicly. You had said that last episode. Yeah.

Yeah. So for months, we know she'd been privately documenting everything. The ultrasounds, her growing stomach, the nursery, the baby showers she was planning. This was supposed to be a date that signified a new chapter in Jade's life. And instead, her family was now preparing to bury both Jade and Ivy. And my first thought, just as a listener, as you're going through this story, and this isn't to give Blaze any type of way out. But at minimum, it sounds like after all the text messages and communications that we have documented, at minimum, he was trying to kill the baby. I don't know if he was trying to kill Jade yet.

We're going to get there. We're going to talk about it. I don't think it matters. It does not matter. But I'm just trying to understand the motive here. Like what was the rationale? Was it, hey, I'm going to throw this cocaine in her drink and hopefully it just kills the baby? Or was the plan all along to kill both of them?

That's where I'm at right now. That's what I'm leaning toward. Like I said, cocaine is known and it takes a quick Google search to figure that out that cocaine is one of the drugs, one of the few drugs that causes the placental abruption. So yeah, that could have been his plan to cause J. to lose the baby. but either way, I don't think he cared one way or the other because you don't use that much cocaine and then think that everything's going to be fine and dandy. So this is something worth discussing because I was trying to wrap my head around it after we recorded last week because my thought was, okay, once Nigea and her friend, what was her friend's name again? I apologize. Kianti.

Once they come over and break this down in the comments, guys, as you're hearing me because maybe you feel differently. But my thought process was, okay, if the plan was all along to kill her and the baby, I would think most intelligent people at that point would say, can't do it now because these two witnesses are the last people to see me here. And they're going to be able to put me at this location shortly before she has this quote unquote accidental overdose. But if the plan all along was just to have her have a reaction to the cocaine, maybe she feels sick, maybe she doesn't know exactly what's going on. but it ends up killing the baby, then it's a win-win in his mind. So that was my thought last week. Like it wouldn't make sense to go through with this

when you just had this whole encounter with these impartial witnesses that are going to place you at the scene of the crime. So I'm leaning toward the intent was just to kill the baby, but now there's a lot more to uncover. And as you mentioned, and I'll say it multiple times, it really doesn't matter. But I'm just trying again to get the specifics,

the details, and to try and get in the mind of this monster prior to whatever he did. So that's kind of where I'm at on this one. It just seems like the reason he was willing to still go through with it, even after Nijie and Kianti arrived at the apartment, was because the intent all along was to have her get sick, but not really know why she got sick. And unfortunately, the baby would just be collateral damage and all of the sickness.

So he would get what he wanted without her knowing that it was actually him that caused it. Yeah, but I mean, that amount of cocaine, she'd probably have to go to the hospital anyways, and then... Well, he's a dumbass, right? He's not a, he's not a pharmacist, so he doesn't know what it's going to take and what the response is going to be to that substance, right? He's not, he's not smart enough to know the exact amount you need to give in order to hurt the baby, but not the host. He's a dumbass. Yeah, but still, she gets sick, she loses the baby. You're going to be sick enough, especially if you're not used to cocaine, that this is going to call for a hospitalization. So somehow that would have been discovered. Jade, if she's

alive, would know I didn't consume any cocaine. So that leads me to believe that ultimately, maybe it wasn't even that he didn't care. That was maybe the goal for Jade to pass away, right? That was ultimately the goal. Yeah. Yeah. Because how does that go undiscovered that amount of cocaine? I think he might have been operating from the mindset of it's enough to kill the baby, but it's not going to send her to the hospital. Clearly, he was wrong. Yeah, I mean, clearly. I mean, maybe he didn't even know how much he had.

Maybe he's just not, I guess, well-versed in that. But you think that if this is, if you're trying to strategically do something and not do something else, you would do a little more research on that. And there was fentanyl in it. Wasn't there? Well, no, that's the problem. No fentanyl.

We don't think there was fentanyl because it was on the blanket, but not in her urine or blood when she arrived at the hospital. Yeah, that's right. It was in the vomit. Yeah, very odd. So by February 27th, police finally obtained a search warrant and homicide investigators began trading Jade's apartment like the potential crime scene. It probably was all along.

Yeah, not probably. Yeah. It was. So Sergeant Colin Feeney was part of the team assigned to clear and secure the apartment before investigators went inside to process it. And during his testimony, Feeney acknowledged something significant that this scene should have been protected much earlier. So once again, telling us what we already know. No, a huge chain of custody issues. Now you have people who have been in the apartment that weren't

there that night. And that creates a whole bunch of defense angles for the defense team in this case. Well, he said it should have been protected earlier because the domestic violence unit was involved that same night. So on the night, Jade collapsed. Officers responded at Vanderbilt. They began interviewing the people involved. And Sergeant James Smith, who worked in the domestic violence division, he was called in, specifically because what Nijia was saying, so then the police were like, okay, we got to get somebody from DV here. And he spoke with Blaze. And he was told that Jade was pregnant with Blaze's child. So police also knew very quickly that Nijia had heard, allegedly, according to her, Jade accusing Blaze of putting something in her drink. So by February 26th,

there was already circumstances suggesting that this might involve violence between intimate partners, rather than simply an unexplained medical emergency. Fini testified that once the DV investigators took over that aspect of the case, they should have recognized Jade's apartment as a potential crime scene and protected it. He testified that the apartment should have been secured before he arrived with the homicide team on February 27th and that the domestic violence investigators had failed to follow the normal protocol for protecting the scene. Yep, completely agree. Now, Feeney and his team, they were the end.

entry team. So at that point, when they go in there to secure the scene, he said they didn't know anything about the case. All they knew was that it was a potential homicide and it was their job to go inside, make sure no one was in there, and then secure the scene before handing it over to CSI and homicide so that they could then conduct their investigation. Yeah, and to make it very clear, and this is one of the best quotes that I've ever heard about a crime scene. It was directly from Dr. Henry Lee. I was out in California. We were breaking down the crime scene for OJ and Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. And I was talking about the contamination at that scene. And he looked at me and said, Derek, every crime scene is contaminated. The question is how much? And you want to minimize that

contamination as much as you can. So in this particular case, yes, you're going to have contamination. And when I talk about contamination, I'm talking about Nigeria and Keanti. And I'm talking about the first responders, right? They're going to be in there. They're going to be moving around. they're going to leave their DNA behind potentially. And so you're going to have some level of contamination that you have to account for. But with allowing the crime scene to be accessed by family members, now that's contamination that could have been avoided.

So it's important to acknowledge it like the sergeant did so that when this contamination comes into play, you can say, yep, we're aware of it. It shouldn't have happened. And now we're going to account for that in our investigation. So this is the right move. Take accountability. You can't change it. You don't want to hide it because it's going to come up and now you just make it even worse.

Because if you're lying about it, that becomes a whole different set of credibility and integrity issues where now your statements themselves are inadmissible. So this is the right move here. But when they go in here as the entry team, right, they're just sealing it off. Yes. And they're like, okay. Stopping the contamination. We don't know anything, but the contamination is being stopped after there's already been contamination. Right.

We know there's contamination. We know there's going to be questions. We're going to have to answer those questions now, but we're preventing it from getting any worse. Yes, exactly. So at this point, Detective Jason Terry, he was one of the crime scene texts at Jade's apartment in the early morning hours of February 27th. And when I say early morning, they did this like, I think, at 2 a.m. And he-that's an oh shit moment, by the way. Yeah, I agree.

We have to get over there now. I think that signifies like, oh, why wasn't this done already? This was a fuck up. We have to make it right. Yes. So he actually was, before he even goes into the scene, he's in the parking lot of Jade's apartment complex. And that's where he met with the lead homicide detective on the case, Adam Reese. And Adam Reese turned over the comforter from Jade's bed along with a washcloth. So at some point, after Jade's friends went in and took the comforter out, they got it to Detective Adam Reese. And then he brings it to the CSI guy. Which is problematic. Like, I understand the intention was there. They were trying to do the right thing.

But I don't need to tell you guys, now you have multiple people who have handled this comforter. And the argument could easily be made that they put stuff on the blanket before handing it over to law enforcement. That's not like a stretch to say they have an axe to grind with blaze. They could have put something on there to enhance what they believe occurred. I mean, it is kind of, yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, would I say that like this middle-aged woman from Little Rock, Arkansas is like going out and buying fentanyl so she can sprinkle it on the blanket? Would it be the craziest thing you've ever heard, though?

It wouldn't be, but well, yeah, it's kind of crazy. But also, it doesn't matter when you're talking about proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt because this is reasonable doubt. This would create reasonable doubt. Yeah, it could create. And also, it kind of goes to the question that we posed earlier unintentionally where I had said to you, Oh, she had fentanyl in her system, right? And you're like, no, she didn't. But there was fentanyl on that comforter.

And that is a question that doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah. So it was in the area where she had vomited. Right, which would be from her body. Yeah. Then they also found it on an other area of the comforter that was supposed to be like a clean area away from the vomit. Yeah. So I almost wonder, was there something wrong with the test, you know?

What do we know? But I'm sure we're going to get to a point where the defense is going to harp on this. Oh, of course they are. because they're going to grab onto whatever they can. And this is something legitimate to grab onto. No doubt, no doubt. So I'm glad it was turned over, but I will tell you, the comforter causes more issues than anything. It creates more headaches for law enforcement than it helps.

Yeah. So Detective Terry, he's with the CSI team. So he took those items from Adam Reese. He placed them in his CSI van before entering the crime scene, which was Jade's apartment. He explained that he was not there to independently decide what was relevant to the case. And this is where I have a big problem. He said, I'm here to collect certain items of potential evidentiary value that the homicide detectives already told me they wanted collected. Okay? And he said these items were two drinking glasses on the kitchen island, bottles of liquid

from the refrigerator that homicide detectives had already removed from the refrigerator and placed on the counter of the kitchen island. And this was a bottle of V8 splash and a bottle of Minut made pink lemonade and then the comforter and the washcloth. So Terry's like, I'm going through this crime scene and I'm only taking what I've already been told I should take. And this is a problem because he's got body cam on and we see all this other stuff that he should have taken. Okay. So Detective Terry said in the kitchen there was a pan of cookies on the stove and it looked like two of the cookies were missing and he did not collect these cookies because he had not been told to. There was also containers of food to the right of those cookies. He said he didn't collect

those because he had been told not to. He also took a picture of the area of the stove where it shows the blink camera that had been replaced to the left of the stove in the position where Jade normally kept it. So this was after Nigeria put it back. And then in Jade's bedroom on her nightstand, there were several items. There was a handgun in a holster, another drinking glass, an apple watch, and an opened bag of M&Ms. Detective Terry did not collect any of these items because he had not been told to. So Terry also testified that while he was going through Jade's apartment, he didn't see any alcoholic beverages or alcohol containers, and he didn't see any drugs or drug paraphernalia.

He said he didn't see an EpiPen. So basically this is going to the fact that, obviously, later Blaise's defense team is going to try to say, well, Jade probably took these drugs on her own. And they're going to try to bring evidence in to show that Jade was still, like, actively using drugs and alcohol while she was pregnant. And Detective Jason Terry is like, I saw no drugs, no drug-related items, no alcohol, no alcoholic containers, nothing in this apartment. It was clean as far as that goes. And next to the sink, do you see a sort of a pink cup with a top on it?

Yeah. Yes, sir, red thing. Thank you. Do you recall, I were looking inside that pink cup? I don't recall. That would be something I would have done, but I don't recall that. And my understanding is you did not collect that pink cup? I did not, no. Do you recall having a conversation with Detective Greece about collecting that pink cup? No.

Do you recall attempting to take any kind of swab or anything out of that pink cup? No. And just because we're talking about swabs a little bit, it's potentially possible in crime scenes to get very, very traced amounts of evidence from surfaces, from cup from other places. Is that right? Yes. Sometimes especially in drug cases,

I mean, drugs can leave, like, very, very small amounts can be found places, right? Correct. And so that was not something that was ever collected or tested. No. No. All right. So I have some thoughts about that video. We're going to take a break.

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So like the attorney pointed out, I'm going to assume that's the defense attorney. There were ways that you could have negated that potential theory by doing more than the bare minimum and analyzing those areas because what you're supposed to do as a CSI and as a detective is not only process the information you have, but also rule out any other theories by going the extra step, finding exculpatory evidence, the potential narratives that you could have in a trial questions that you should have yourself. Like, hey, was this a potential overdose? Well, instead of just building a homicide case, you should go down that lane as well and have CSIs and anybody else do what they have to do so that you have conclusive evidence to rule out that potential theory, which clearly they did not do. Yeah. So here's the thing. It's not even like exactly what you said. Like you're not there to prove Jade was murdered by Blaze. You're there to investigate what happened to

Jade, which could have been a ton of things. A ton of things. And he's like, well, they didn't tell me to get those cups. It doesn't matter because they haven't even been, the homicide detectives haven't even been in the apartment yet. So they don't know that there's other cups around, right? They only know about these two cups on the kitchen island because that's what Nigeria and Kianti testified to that they saw these two cups on the island.

But that doesn't mean there's no cups in the whole apartment. There was one right by her bed. That could have been the cup. There was one by the sink. That could have been the cup that she was drinking. out of, we don't know. So it could have been the cookies. We don't know. Right. So the fact that you didn't even take any of that stuff thinking like I'm a detective as well as a CSI person. So I should cover all my bases. It's exactly doing the bare minimum because we all know. Like, yeah,

they told you to get those those things. But they didn't say, only get these things and nothing else. Those are the things they needed, but it's not everything they wanted. And to your point, right? Like, This sounds like a lot of work. That's because it is. And in every good investigation, there's going to be a ton that was done that's never used. It's just to rule out those things. And you will still document it so that when a defense attorney brings up that theory, the prosecutor has weapons to say, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

Because we explored that theory and it was a dead end. But when you don't, you leave an unanswered question for the jury. Take Lindsay Clancy, for example. From what we understand, they found the substances on the nightstand, right? The potential pills. And yet it was assumed that what they were instead of being tested. They never tested them. Now, if they had tested them, it would maybe more than likely been exactly what they assumed.

But because it wasn't, well, never know. And that's the problem. That's what we're trying to prevent in these investigations. I don't think there's anything about a police investigation that suggests anything should be assumed. If you assume it's like you're looking at it from the perspective of prosecution, not from a defense. Whenever I looked at a case, whenever I was interviewing someone or processing a scene, I was always anxious in thinking about how's a defense attorney going to try to rip this apart? Always. And when you approach it from that angle, you're not only building the case based on where the evidence is taking you, but you're also ruling out other potential theories so that you make sure you're on the right path.

Yeah, and I mean, you're going to hear from Detective Adam Reese. This is the first poisoning case he's ever been on, right? But is it the first- This isn't a common case. I've never worked a case like this. And I'm not that I'm the most experienced detective in the world, but this is something that I've never dealt with personally. So is it reasonable to believe possibly that Detective Jason Terry had never been on a

poisoning case before? Sure. But still, right? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You're trained. Doesn't matter. And especially-

At minimum, we should have been taking some swabs. Yeah. especially if it's a poisoning case, you're like, I will take everything that could have been used to hold poison in it as far as like a dinner situation. Or if it was an overdose. Food. Yeah. Right. Swab the table. Swab the nightstand.

Swab anything that could have been used as, you know, an area where you would consume cocaine or any other substance. Just swab a couple areas. Document them. They take photos. Say, hey, swab one was taken from this counter. Swab two was taken from this counter. Swab three was taken from the nightstand. All came back negative.

or came back with something, right? That's why you do it. And at this point, I feel like they're like, oh, shit. Like, we kind of are behind the ball because we were supposed, we should have been in this crime scene already. So maybe it was just like, let's get it done. So it doesn't seem as bad as it is, but it doesn't matter. Stephanie, I can tell you exactly what the conversation looked like when they were informed

that the family brought the comforter to them. They were, they're sitting there going, what? Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. kidding me. Yeah. Oh, they brought it over to you with their, with no gloves on. Well, they had gloves on, but that doesn't matter. They tried to act low-key about it. Like, yeah, they put it in their car. They took the comforter. Like, yeah, but it was, you know, they tried to act like, it wasn't that big of a deal. But, you know, internally, they were like, oh, this is a good. Somebody was getting

screamed at. Yeah. It was a huge deal. So, Detective Adam Reese acknowledged that the bottles from the refrigerator had been taken out prematurely by homicide detectives and that this should not have been on until CSI had documented the crime scene as it was. Put placards out. Through photographs, yeah. And then when asked why the straw cut by the sink had not been considered an item of evidentiary value, Detective Adam Reese said this. When you were there executing the search warrant, can you describe what, if any relevance, did that plastic cup have to this investigation? At the time of executing the search warrant, there was.

It wasn't believed to have been relevant. The glasses that you see a picture here on the island, these were thought to have been relevant based on the interviews I'd done earlier that night. Prior to this investigation, had you ever worked a poisoning investigation before? No. And can you describe the specifics of this case? Did you ever had anything that dealt with oral ingestion of cocaine? No.

For a while you believe, I believed that there was a missing cut, didn't you? I did, yes, for a little while. And in fact, you believed that it was Mr. Taylor who had removed that cup out of the scene, didn't you? That was my suspicion. I knew there was a cup missing, or I thought there was a cup missing. And you arbitrarily assigned that misdeed to Mr. Taylor did.

I never said he removed a cup from the scene that I can think of. I just said that there was, I was, I believe there had been some cleanup because there was a cup that was unaccounted for. And who did you believe did the cleanup throughout your report? Specifically of that cup, I don't know. You didn't think that it was Mr. Taylor who did the cleanup? Like I said, I don't know. I can say that the cup is in a picture that was on Jade's phone prior to her falling ill.

And then later, when we get there, it is over by the... the sink sitting next to the wall, the backslash. Certainly sitting by the sink, and accessible for you to remove tape tests, correct? Yes, at that time, if we had known. There was nothing stopping you from knowing because when you went in to execute the search warrant, the cover was right there the entire time, wasn't it?

There was something to stop me from knowing it was relevant because we didn't get in her phone that night. So I was looking at the glasses that were on the island because glasses were mentioned in the interviews and looked at those as those were relevant. I wasn't inclined to seize all her drinkwear. Well, wasn't there allegations that Ms. Benning was poisoned as a result of something she was drinking?

Yes. Would it not have been important to grab every cup, every glass that you saw that was out if we were in search for exactly what happened there that time? Oh, in retrospect, I absolutely wish I would have done that. But just that night, I did not. So we thought those were the glasses that were in use. Did it say to say none of those glasses or those cuss that you left there were tested, were there?

The ones that were left there, no. Okay, I'm actually going to defend Reese here because I can see what the attorneys trying to convey or trying to demonstrate. And I disagree with her. I know what she's trying to do, but at that point, based on what Reese is telling us, He did some preliminary interviews, and it was discussed those two glasses that were on the table. Now, in hindsight, like he said, and I thought it was perfectly said. Retrospect, I wish I would have just taken all the glasses that were in plain view, right? But it wasn't until they got a search warrant to get into Jade's phone where they noticed in one of her photos that the pink cup that was now next to the sink was also on the counter.

Yeah. If he had access to that photo originally, he would have had that cup taken as well. So I can see the hole that the defense attorney is trying to poke, but I actually, and we've been hammering him here, right? We've been hammering law enforcement. But I agree with his explanation as to why it wasn't taken initially until they got access to Jade's phone, which they did not have originally. I do. I understand that. But I hate to say it.

I do agree with Blaz's defense attorney. She's saying it to cast reasonable doubt and show that the investigation wasn't thorough. I get that. But I just feel like if you're dealing with something that you have deemed to be potential homicide by poisoning, wouldn't you consider all drinking glasses that were out and visible items of potential evidentiary value? So instead of saying get the glasses on the island, just write in the search warrant instead, all drink wear out and visible. Yeah. And they could have taken that one without even without even describing it to that detail. Yeah. Terry could have taken it. He could have just taken it. And so he's saying here in retrospect, I wish I would have taken it. So he's acknowledging.

He's never done a poisoning case before. Right. I acknowledge I should have taken it. However, it wasn't until through my investigation that I learned that pink cup wasn't where it was when CSI went in there. So I did the right thing. We went back and we got it. It was never tested. No, they didn't.

I know it wasn't tested, but they went back and got it, though. Maybe. I don't know. Because why would they go get it if they didn't test it? Oh, so we don't know if they actually went and got it last time. I don't think they have. So they went in for the search warrant and got the stuff. I don't think they ever went back and got more.

Okay, so that would be a problem if they didn't go back and get it. And now I just want to say one more thing and not everyone's going to like this answer. But she had said, well, why wouldn't you just get all drinkware? Or did she just say, all drinkware that was out invisible? Okay, I agree with her there. I thought she meant all drinkware from the cabinets and stuff like that. That's not reasonable. No, that's crazy.

That's crazy. But yes, I agree and Reese agrees as well. He's not even disputing it. They should have grabbed it initially. I think it was his inexperience in this type of case. And he's saying now in retrospect, having worked this type of case, that is what I would have done. You should have gotten all of them. And it shouldn't have been after the fact. Now, if you're telling me, they never went back and got that drink cup even after realizing it was not where it was supposed to be. I mean, I got no excuse for that. Well, it wasn't tested. So it wasn't tested, which I don't know why it wouldn't be tested either. But at minimum, I would hope that it was ceased. But I guess we'll see. I don't think so. So this ends up being a real issue in this case, because as it turns out, the items that Detective Terry remember.

removed from the apartment were sent to the lab and tested, and no controlled substances were found in any of them as far as the drinking glasses on the counter and bottles from the refrigerator. So the potentially most important physical piece of evidence may have been sitting right there in crime scene photos, and no one knew it because they hadn't extracted Jade's phone and found the photos that she'd taken that night, which showed it on the kitchen island, not by the sink. So I have the question now, which I think is what Detective Adam Reese was trying to say because she was like, oh, did you think Blaze had taken a cup? Because in Adam Reese's reporting, he was probably like, well, if these drinking glasses aren't coming up as positive, then there must be a missing cup. So maybe Blaze took a cup with him when he left. You know, my question would be who moved the cup from the island to the sink? And if it was by the sink, is there a reasonable assumption that it was there? because it had been washed, right? And if it was washed,

when none of the other cups they were drinking out of that night were washed, was it washed for a reason, a.k.a. to hide the evidence of the presence of cocaine. It's a great question. I mean, I would assume that the perpetrator would have taken the cup with them,

but I also think it goes back to our whole contamination conversation where there have been other people inside the apartment that you now have to interview. You have to interview anyone of Jade's family members or friends who went to that location. You have to interview. you, Nijia and Kianti, I think it's a safe assumption that Jade didn't wash it. However,

I could make an argument that before she started to feel the effects of the cocaine, if she had been drinking from that cup, she may have washed it herself. She may have washed it herself, not knowing there was something in it. But then you posed a question, well, why wouldn't she wash the other glasses? So at the end of the day, there's a lot of questions that you can't answer. That's why I want to look at this timeline again, because this is the one we went over last week, because I definitely don't think she put that over there and washed it. I don't think so either. First of all, there's a dishwasher.

So if you're going to do that, you have multiple cups and things from dinner. You're going to put all that stuff in the dishwasher washer for sure. Unless it's plastic. Can you put a plastic cup unless some of them are dishwasher safe, right? Yeah, absolutely. I'm showing that I don't use a dishwasher a lot. The only ones I buy are dishwasher safe because why am I going to buy something that's like buying something that's dry clean only? Absolutely not.

So at 8.29 p.m. in that photo from Jade's phone, the paint. straw cup is on the island. Dinner had already been cleared away, but the painting activity was clearly still underway. Both canvases were only partially finished. Another progress photo was taken at 9-10. This was also a live photo. So there's some video in this photo, but it's zoomed in more on the paintings, so you can't see the corner of the counter where the pink cup was at 829, but you can see Blaze coming towards the counter from the area where the sink would have been. and I know it's Blaze because Jade's taking the photo. Jade is clearly still in the same position she was at the counter when she was painting.

And we also know that from 9.m. until 91958, she was searching up motivational words on Pinterest, words that ended up making it onto her canvas in the 9.10 p.m. update photo. Jade's phone locked at 9.2059, and then there was only about three and a half minutes before Blaze and Jade took those 12 photographs together. And then there was only 42 seconds between when the last photo was taken and Jade's call to Nijia. So at what point during the time period between when the straw cup was seen on the counter and when Jade called her best friend, would she have gotten up from the counter, taken only the straw cup off the counter, brought it over to the sink, and washed it while leaving

all the other cups on the counter? Or while Jade was looking up stuff on Pinterest and finishing her painting, did Blaze take that cup over to the sink and wash it? When Nijia and Kianti were at Jade's apartment, they didn't mean. mentioned Jade drinking out of a straw cup. They said she was drinking something pink, which makes me feel like they would not have been able to see it through a clear glass, which that straw cup was not clear. But my theory is Jade may have been drinking pink lemonade already in her clear glass cup, and then she switched to water after dinner,

and then maybe Blaze offered to pour her some more pink lemonade, but since her glass cup already had water in it, he grabbed a different cup. And this is when he put the cocaine in the liquid stirred it so it would dissolve and gave it to Jade. Well, also, also, why would you use a cup like that pink cup opposed to a glass? Because I think she was maybe drinking pink lemonade and then. I heard that, but what's the other thing? What's the other thing you would want? Well, I mean, I don't know.

He could have washed the glass cup too. So the reason why you would want to use a pink cup that has some color to it where you can't, it's not as translucent is because if there's any cloudiness. Oh, any cloudiness or dissolving. You're not going to see it. Cocaine still. Exactly. And this had a straw cup, right?

Yeah, you're not going to see what's in there. And I also think when Jade says to Blaze, what did you put my drink? It's probably not just the taste that brought her to this conclusion. There might have been a behavior like, oh, I don't know. This guy who doesn't do anything got up and decided to wash one cup in my sink when he's never done that before. She might at the time have been like, well, that's a little weird. But it wasn't until she started to feel ill in conjunction with the. the taste that she had already kind of had from that cup where she's put two and two together,

like, oh, dude, what did you put in my drink? Now I know why you wash the cup. Or even just the fact that he is offering to pour her a drink when. Yeah, even that, she must have been like, okay, that's odd. This is something you've never done before. But yeah, it might have been a combination of things. You know, like this is a whole new blaze tonight. Yeah. But here's what I'm also thinking. What also was not done? Where did the pink lemonade come from? And you can can see it on the counter, it's still half full. So it looks like about two cups maybe poured out of it, right? It's still half full. Where did the pink lemonade come from? Do you have evidence, police,

that Jade purchased that pink lemonade? Or did Blaze bring the pink lemonade as like, oh, I brought you this pink lemonade drink, you know, because I know you like pink lemonade or, you know, you've mentioned it once, whatever. And now she's not going to say no when he's going to pour her a cup of pink lemonade, even if she doesn't want it, because he did such a nice thing, so uncharacteristic, and he's trying to turn over a new leaf and be a doating boyfriend all of a sudden. And so he brought her pink lemonade and he's offering to pour her some, and she's not going to say no because she wants to encourage this kind of behavior, even if she doesn't want pink lemonade. That would be something you'd want to know. Where did it come from? Yeah. I'd be a risk to put it in the pink lemonade, though,

because it goes back to our marijuana cookie conversation last week where it's how much of the cocaine is she going to get by consuming two cups? Because I would assume a lot of it would go to the bottom. I don't know. I mean, if he stirred it very well, maybe that's why he put it up. Yeah, maybe that's why he put more in than maybe he was thinking, like, well, if it settles or it doesn't completely dissolve, I want to make sure she's getting it. I mean, it also could be as simple as she went to the bathroom at some point and she comes back and the cup's already done for her. Yeah, he's like, I got you a drink.

Yeah. I got you a drink. And the cover's already on, the straw's already in. And it's that simple. And she's like, I didn't want to drink, but I also want to encourage you doing nice things for me. So I'm going to drink it. Okay? So yes, he's giving her the pink lemonade after Nijia and Kianti left while they're finishing their paintings.

And that makes sense with the timeline. Now, according to my research, a thorough wash with hot water and dish soap could remove most or even all readily detectable cocaine residue from a smooth plastic cup, especially if the cocaine had been dissolved in liquid rather than caked onto a surface. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Makes total sense. Now, cocaine hydrochloride, which is the most commonly form of cocaine encountered as powder, it is water soluble. So rinsing alone, even doing that can physically carry it away. But detergent like a dish soap and scrubbing would make that more effective.

This is information that a quick Google search would tell you. There is a chance that even if they had taken that straw cup and it did have cocaine in at one point and they tested it, if Blaze had washed it thoroughly, they still wouldn't have been able to tell that there was cocaine in it. some point. At least we could have had the answer to that question, though. Yeah, but what we could have had an answer is to was Blaze Googling things like that about cocaine and like what it does and how it's easily washed away? That was a question that we would like to know. So did Blaze ever do any internet searches for anything related to cocaine? What cocaine would do to a pregnant woman? How easy it was to wash cocaine away with soap and water? We will never know because the police never were able to have access to the device that Blaze was using at the time of Jade's death.

And after Jade Benning collapsed in her apartment on the evening of February 25th, Blaze Taylor, he went about life as he normally would. And the police didn't get his phone. So they never went back and grabbed his phone? No, we're going to talk about that more, but no, they didn't. They didn't. They tried later, but it was too late. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by OneSkin, and I'll be honest, these days, skincare has to work a little harder to impress me. Yeah, because a lot of skincare out there right now, I feel like it's like, hey, here's a nice cream. Good luck. I'm not looking for skincare that just sits there looking elegant on my counter. I want something that actually makes sense.

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And that's the thing with One Skin's products, you can see a difference when you use them. So born from over 10 years of longevity research, One Skin is helping you unlock your. your healthiest skin now and as you age. For a limited time, try one skin with 15% off using code crime weekly at oneskin.co slash crime weekly. That's 15% off at oneskin.com with code crime weekly. And after you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. So like I said, Jade collapses. She goes to the hospital, blazes there that night, not talking to anybody and being weird and shifting on his phone, but he's there. And then he kind of just goes back to life as normal. On February 27th, he showed up to work on time. A co-worker of Blazes, Michael Johnson, testified that she and Blaze worked out of the same room in separate cubicles for the Tennessee Titans. She said she'd worked with him for three years, and during that time, he didn't discuss his personal life. And although he mentioned seeing multiple women, he never said their names to her, aside from one particular woman. And that woman's name was not Jade Benning. The one name Michael had heard,

from Blaze was a woman named Xavier or Xavier. So Michael said that she was not aware that Blaze had a serious girlfriend. She was not aware that he was expecting a child. In fact, if he ever did talk about being a father, his attitude was very much that he wasn't ready and he wouldn't be ready anytime soon. Now, she said the week of the 27th was a big week for them because it was the NFL Combine, which you probably know this, but for those who don't, the Combine is a major scouting event where the majority of the staff would be out.

of the building traveling to Indianapolis. Blaise was not included in that event. He would remain in Nashville that week. And Michael remembered that the week before this, Blaze had told her and their other co-workers in the same room, he was like, don't worry about coming in next week because no one else is going to be here. Like, I'll take care of everything. And she said that had annoyed her because he didn't have the authority to tell her or anyone else when to come to work or not come to work. And before that week, he'd never done that. So she was like, what are you talking about. Like, I'm not going to get in trouble for not coming in just because the coaches are away, so the people left behind are going to take off. Now, Michael said that Monday, February 27th,

was a regular work day. Blaze showed up on time. He worked all day. Remember, this was the day his daughter, Ivy, would be declared dead. The next day, the 28th, Blaze was late to work. He didn't show up until around 1 p.m. And he told the people left in the building that he had some errands to run. And he was pretty much normal the rest of the day, worked full shift, went home. The rest of the week, Blaze Taylor was perfectly normal, easy going, easy to be around, and this continued until March 3rd, which was a Friday. And then on March 6th, on Monday, the day Jade was taken off of life support, Blaze did not come to work. And apparently, he never went back again. Michael remembered a call between another scouting assistant with Blaze.

The call was on speaker, and the person asked Blaze where he was and if he was all right. And Blaze said, he was fine, just family stuff. Now on July 28, 2024, so several months later, Utah State publicly announced as their new senior defensive analyst. This was less than five months after Jade died. So what it kind of seems like is Blaze goes into work for a little bit on March. And then he kind of decides, not only do I need a new job, but I should probably get out of town. I need a new location. I need a new location.

I'm going to go to Utah. It's pretty far from Tennessee. I'm going to go to a different coast. and it appears as if Blaze had left Nashville and moved to Utah by June of 2023. Blaze would be arrested in Logan, Utah on Thursday, March 14, 2024 by Deputy U.S. Marshals acting on a Nashville grand jury indictment that had been returned the day before. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Jade Benning and her unborn daughter, Ivy. Now, the lead detective, Adam Reese, he testified that he never located the cell phone.

Blaze was actually using during the relevant period around Jade's pregnancy and death. After Blaze's March 2024 arrest in Utah, investigators recovered items including an iPhone 15 Pro, multiple iPads, several laptops, a GPS tracker, two surface computers, and thumb drives. Reese specifically testified that he still had not recovered the phone Blaze had been using during the period investigators actually cared about. And because he couldn't locate that phone, Reese obtained a search warrant for Blaze's iCloud account, and Apple ultimately provided a massive amount of data which covered roughly January through July of 2023.

So this would be the relevant time period. But the problem was this iCloud account showed several associated iPhones, including an iPhone 7, an iPhone 12, and an iPhone 10. They never received any of the devices listed under that iCloud. So when they arrest Blaze, right, he's got an iPhone 15 pro. They look at his ICloud account and all these other iPhones are associated with that account. But where are those iPhones? We don't know.

Right. And, you know, this could be something that was done to avoid some type of detection by law enforcement. But we could also, we could also make an argument that people upgrade their phones all the time. And because law enforcement didn't do their job initially and get the phone right away, you know, we're talking what, almost a year. later, right? So people are going to upgrade their phones. So it might have just been by luck that Blaze no longer had the phone that he was using at that time. Now, it could be also that he changed it out right away. I don't know. But we'll never know because law enforcement didn't get the phone when they had the opportunity. So unfortunate, really unfortunate. Well, so now investigators

have cloud data, but they still don't have the physical device Blaze was carrying and using on February 25th, 2023. And you would want that. Yep, that distinction matters because an eye cloud. return, it's not necessarily a complete forensic copy of everything that ever happened on a phone. I'm not even close. Yep. So you've got searches, browser artifacts, deleted data, app activity, information that may be never synced to the cloud and may only exist on the device itself. Yeah. But the search warrant also showed two emails associated with the cloud and it showed the last backup had been on July 4th, 2023. So technically, Blaze could have erased a bunch of his phone. and then did a cloud backup while that stuff was erased

and then got a new phone and returned the stuff to his new phone, but that wouldn't include the stuff he had deleted before he backed it up. No doubt. I've absolutely had that happen where I've deleted things off of my phone prior to backing it up. And then when I restore my phone from a previous backup, the things that I had taken after that aren't there. And I'm like, wait, what happened here? And then I realized I didn't back up the phone before I restored it.

So, yeah, happens. all the time. But tell me how this happens. I don't understand how this happened because according to Detective Reese, the lead detective, this investigation was being classified as a homicide by the late evening of February 26, 2023. The police had a search warrant for Jade's apartment in the early morning hours of the 27th, and they were collecting evidence based on the belief that she had been poisoned intentionally. Right? They knew Jade's best friend said she heard Jade asked Blaze what he put in her drink. They knew Blaze was the person alone with her. with Jade when she became critically ill. It was clear from all available data that within a very

short time, the police suspected that Blaze was responsible for what had happened to Jade. Yet there was never a warrant for Blaze's phone at any time. Not when Jade died in March, not when her autopsy results came back the following August, not until they arrested him, like you said, a year later. I don't know why that wasn't done, but I'm going to take it a step further because I think the mistake was even bigger than that. To not create the illusion of tunnel vision, what should have been done is search warrants because we believe that she was poisoned, should have been written up and at least attempted to be signed by a judge for not only Blaze's phone, but also Nijia's and Kianti's because we know that she was sick after they left,

but just to make sure that it doesn't look like we were focusing on one person and building our case around that, I would make the argument that all three of their phones should have been seized and they should have been taken in and analyzed to ensure that a proper investigation was done and that all possible individuals who were there shortly before she became ill were improperly investigated. So you're saying like to make it look like you're not intentionally targeting him, just say like, hey, Nigea, Kianti, Blaze, everyone who was with her that night, would it be okay with you if we just extracted your phones and made sure everybody's timeline matches up? We want to preserve that evidence properly and not even to create the illusion,

but that should have been done because you don't know. Like in hindsight, you and I are talking about this case because a lot has happened, but at the time when you're doing it, you don't know what occurred. So what you would do is forensically analyze their phones, preserve them, and then during your investigation, what if you learned, now obviously this wasn't the case, but what if you learned that Keanti actually had a crush on Jade and was jealous that she was seeing Blaze. And then as you start to reverse engineer it, you realize that he had a motive and he was there shortly before. That would be something you'd want to look into.

Same thing with Nigeria. I was going to say the same thing. Yeah, it's her best friend. But maybe there's some weird thing you don't know about. Maybe she had a crush on Blaze. We don't know. Anybody who was in that apartment shortly before she became ill should have been considered a suspect in this poisoning and should have been treated as such.

I agree. And I wonder because they're asking Detective Reese, like, well, did you ask Blaze for his phone? He's like, well, I never, I never saw him in person. Like, I went to his house and tried to talk to him once, but he wasn't there. And then I talked to him on the phone. Yeah. But it kind of seems like after that first night at the hospital, Blaze wasn't really questioned by police. They didn't bring him down to the station, at which point they could have been like, hey, do you mind if we, if we look at your phone, you know, everyone else is doing it. It sounds like the strategy, and it was the wrong strategy, by the way, but the strategy was they clearly thought that he was involved and that's why they got a grand jury convened. But they were, I'm sure in their mind, they're like, okay, we don't want to tip him off. If you're guilty, you're tipped off already. You got it. Yeah, you got to go and get the proper evidence. You want to make sure that you rule out all possibilities and that you have the ammunition you need during a trial.

And so to not get that because you're trying to avoid him fleeing the state, which spoiler alert, he did. you would want to go do that. And listen, if it tips him off, it tips him off. I mean, once again, though, I don't understand, like, maybe you don't want to tip him off, but it's logical. No. You were there with her when this happened. You're not, we're not saying.

He's going to be a flight risk regardless, but you need to pop up evidence. We're not saying you're suspicious. We just need to check all our boxes. That's how you frame it. Hey, Blaze, listen, we're grabbing the phones of Nigeria and Kianti and you, and we're analyzing it. And, you know, listen, we believe this is probably just an overdose. but just to make sure we're dotting our eyes and crossing our T's,

we're going to take all of this and just make sure we have it just in case. You cool with that. And they cooperated. They gave us our phones. Yeah. You will too, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know this.

I know this. So it just seems like once again kind of bad police work. I couldn't agree more. And I don't understand why. Because it seems basic. Even if you've never dealt with a poisoning, you've dealt with something where it's like a suspicious death. I'd want to look into Reese's background.

For all we know, he's not. I mean, he doesn't have that much experience. I don't know, but there's no excuse for it. Yeah. And I'm someone who hasn't done a thousand homicide. So, I mean, this is basic stuff. So I don't know why it wasn't done. Yeah, you haven't done a thousand homicides, but this would be pretty much top of your list, right?

I mean, this is common sense. Like you said, even I know this. Like, you know, anybody who was there, anyone who could have potentially poisoned her would be considered a suspect. Yeah. Because at that time, you don't know what happened. You don't know if it's blaze. You don't know about the baby and the conversations they've been happened. having about Ivy. So this is all stuff that's going to be uncovered as you do a thorough

investigation. But initially, you want to make sure you get all the evidence you can and preserve it so that it can be analyzed later properly. And I understand that they might say like, well, she wasn't taken off life support till March 6th. So at that point, it wasn't even a homicide until she was taken off life support and legally dead. And then you could also say, well, her autopsy results didn't come back to August, which by the way, that's a long-ass time. They take a long. Sometimes they do. You can request like an expedited report, but it does happen a lot. But before we keep going, because I'll forget about it, even if you don't think it's a homicide initially, if you're treating it as a potential overdose, it kind of goes back to what we've been covering on Hayden Penitieri. This is something where if it was an overdose, you'd want to know where she got those drugs from. And anybody there who could have had communications with a potential drug dealer, I would want to know about it. So I would still be requesting your phone data. Because for all they know, Blaze brought the drugs with him. Or Keonti or Nigeria.

Yeah. But if you're talking about trying to get Blaze's phone, these are the things you could tell him. No doubt. So no matter what, there's no excuse the phone should have been, the phone should have been seized and analyzed. She overdosed, but we got to rule out that you were the one who brought the drugs to her. Like, we got to rule that out. Yep. And if they don't want to turn it over, you at least drop the affidavit and see if a judge will give you access.

Sometimes they won't. If it's weak, they won't. But at least you can say, I try. ride. Yeah. Well, from Blaze's iCloud, they weren't able to look through his internet searches, obviously, from that time period. So we don't know anything that was going on there. And I bet there's plenty, by the way. I bet there's plenty. A lot of phones, a lot of laptops too as well. Yeah, a lot of laptops. He also had computers at work. Now, the surface was from his job at the Tennessee Titans. They said they didn't find anything on that, but work stuff. But who knows? He could

have gone in that office anywhere and used some random person's computer. Get it into a public library. Yeah. So they did get access to the ICloud. And from that ICloud, police were able to discover something that was of value about Blaise's relationship with a woman named Xavier Winford. Xavier Winford. And during your review of the messages that are happening during January and February of

23, can you describe contact Mr. Taylor how to have Ms. Xavier-Windberg? An extraordinary amount. And did you review those messages kind of in tandem with his messages with Ms. Vendon? Yes, I did. So it begins with Mr. Taylor saying, So you should never doubt anything when it comes to us. She responds, I'm doing my best. And he replies, I know I'm trying to reassure you.

She says, thank you for doing that. He replies, of course. And he continues, I'll do anything to help you. That's what I'm here for. She says, I trust that's true. Then he responds, good, do you trust us? Trust in us. She says, she replies, yes.

Then he replies, good. Then you have nothing to worry about. Everything is going to work out. She replies, I'm glad. He replies, good, me too. He continues, I love you, and I need you to love me back and be in love with me. She replies, I love you too, and I will. And then he replies, good, I just want us.

to be us and be happy together. She replies, Me Too. He loved the comment, me too. And he continued, we are going to be just fine. We just need to stick together. Then she replies, we will stick together. Don't be walking off and stuff during conversation. Then he loved her reply of we will stick together.

Oh, it looks like Blaze does know how to have some sort of relationship with a woman and give her validation. And let her know she's important to him. It looks like he is capable of doing that. So who's Xavier Winford? Well, Blaze and Xavier had a long-running romantic relationship that predated Jade Benning by years, and it was still active while Jade was pregnant. Those messages, you just heard, were exchanged between 1031 and 10.50 p.m. on February 24, 2023. The night before Blaze joined Jade, a woman he would describe to police as his pregnant girlfriend, for a date to date. night of dinner and painting at her apartment. Now, that was around the same time that Jade was

texting Blaze. Remember, we talked about how she was texting him the night before because she wanted to see him and she was like, can I come over? And he ignored her messages and later said, oh, sorry, I fell asleep. No, he didn't fall asleep. He was talking to Xavier professing undying eternal love for her and saying they're going to get through anything together. And while Jade believed that she and Blaze were rebuilding some kind of relationship with the intention to co-parent their daughter, Blaze was planning a future with Xavier Winford. After the investigation started, did you ever see Ms. Winford with Mr. Taylor? In person?

Yes. Not in person. I guess did you ever know her to continue to have contact with him after? Yes, I did. And can you describe how you knew that? In addition to, well, the main reason was at the time of his arrest, in Utah, I obtained that body camera footage. And they were actually together in Utah at the time I was arrest about over a year after the

incident in a vehicle that was registered to her. Oh, damn. So Blaze leaves Tennessee, goes to Utah, brings Xavier with him, and now he's got a life with Xavier this whole time. Does she know what happened with Jade? I don't know. I don't know. Does she even know Jade ever existed?

If she does, I can promise you it's not the accurate version of their relationship. I agree. Like she most definitely probably didn't know Jade was ever pregnant because Jade didn't know about Xavier at all. As far as she's concerned. And obviously there's talk about, well, this wasn't a committed relationship. They were just trying to work things out. Jade was seeing other people. There is evidence that she was talking to other people.

Blaze is talking to other people. But this is a woman that Blaze has a history with. And he's clearly very into her saying that, like, I need you to love me back. I love you and I need you to love me back. There's something very intense here. But there's more about Xavier. And we're going to, yeah, there's a lot more. And it's crazy.

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the toxic relationship I have with some other hoodies. And that's what I really appreciate about skims. The pieces are comfortable enough to wear all day. They don't look sloppy. They feel like basics, but elevated basics. I've got a ton of compliments on this new current color. Yeah, and that's the kind of stuff you'll keep reaching for. Exactly. If a friend asked me where to find cotton basics that actually feel as good as they look, Skims would absolutely be my top recommendation. So shop Skims, cotton, and all of my favorite pieces at skims.com. And after you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you, select podcast in the survey and be sure to select Crime Weekly in the drop down menu that follows. Or if you're watching on YouTube, go into the description box and click the link because you can go right to skims.com slash crime weekly. All right, we're back. So Xavier Winford wasn't the only woman from Blaze's past who would come back to haunt him. There was another woman, Apple Denny, who had dated Blaze when she was 18 years old, 10 years prior to his trial.

Apple would testify that although she and Jade Benning were from the same general area of Little Rock, and they'd both been cheerleaders for different high schools, Apple didn't know Jade personally. They just had friends in common. Two of my friends had said that they needed to talk to me and called me and told me about what happened. They told me that she, they thought that or were told that he might have poisoned her or something of the sort. And but they like didn't have details in that she was in the hospital and they were like keeping her own life support, I think, until her birthday. So now Apple's like, I knew about it. Jade and of Jade. We just had friends in common. I didn't know what happened to her, but then

people started reaching out to me and they were like, hey, did you know what happened to Jade? And they had already known what had happened with Xavier. And I'll explain that because Apple already had her experiences with Blaze that felt all too familiar to what was going on with Jade. She said that she and Blaze had dated on and off for a few years. But in January of 2017, Apple had become pregnant. And when that happened, did you talk to Mr. Taylor about it? Yes. And can you describe kind of what were your feelings when you learned that you were pregnant? I was really scared and confused. I knew I wasn't ready to have a kid. What did you ultimately end up doing? I had an abortion.

And was there any point in which you changed your mind about that? No. And Mr. Taylor, did he accompany you to the appointments for that? Yes. And was there one appointment or was there more than one? There was two. Did he go to both of those appointments with you? Yes.

Yeah, so pretty clear here, right? Completely different person. If we didn't know that we were still talking about Blaze, you would assume this is two different men. One's very attentive, cooperative, being there for her. She would supportive to ensure that she went through with the abortion. Still wants the abortion, by the way. I'm sure this wasn't just solely her decision.

And yet because she's doing what he wants, he's involved. Well, I mean, it's also a different situation. She's 18 years old when this happens, right? So she's saying, I knew I was not ready to have a baby. And, you know, she probably said, I'm not ready. And he's like, okay, that's all I wanted to hear. How can I be? of help. Yeah. How can I be of service to you, Apple, right? Now, remember, I said that after this happened, Blaze and Apple, they continued to date. It was kind of like on and off. And they would periodically break up and get back together. And during the times they were broken up, Blaze would see other women, including one we've already talked about.

Her name was Xavier. And what was her last name? Winford. Someone that he dated before he met me. or didn't date. He said they were never together, that he would never bring her home to his parents and that she was crazy, and that he needed to block her, and it was kind of that situation. And at some point,

did he come to you and talk to you about something that happened with her? Yes. And what was it that he came to tell you about? That he got her pregnant. And what was the time frame that this occurred? This was the summer of 2017. And what was his demeanor like when he came to you to tell you about this?

Very erratic. He, like, was upset. Didn't want to have a baby with her. That's what he was telling me, that this was something that he couldn't do. Was that a different reaction? and then he had when you told him you were pregnant, but you did not want to keep the baby. Yes, it was like blitz. Like how I was, like, panicked the first time around, and he was freaking out when it was her.

And when you say he was freaking out, how did he act when he was panicked? Really erratic, and he, but then he would say, like, he could control the situation. It went on for, like, a few days of us, like, talking about it. But, like, that night, he was, like, trying to figure out if there was something that he could do. He was Googling things. So he was looking stuff up to figure out how she, like, if there was something he could do to make her have an abortion. And asked me if I could get the abortion pills and he could make her take them or put it in her drink. Was she wanting to have an abortion based on what he said?

No. He said she would go back and forth. And he would tell her, well, I'm not going to, like, I'm not going to be a part of a child's life thinking that that would convince her to not have it because that's ultimately what he said that she wanted. And then they would just go back and forth about her. And someday he would say, I think it's, I think she's going to do it. And I think she's not going to do it. but she didn't want to. And you said that he was telling her he wouldn't be a part of the child's life.

Was he also saying like not part of her life? Yeah, like he wouldn't have anything to do with her if she went forward with it. Kind of like an old thing. Yeah. Did you do that? Did I get the bill? No. Was that even not saying that you would agree to do that, but is that even possible?

No. And did you explain that to him? Yes. And you said that it went over a couple of days. Did he talk about anything else that he might be able to get to put in your drink? Yes. Yes. And the things that he was mentioning, how did he get the information?

He said he was looking, stuff on his phone. I couldn't like see what he was looking up. he had a scar on his hand. And I guess what, if anything else did you discuss with him about Ms. Winford and Ms. Winford hitting an abortion? He had asked me to make the appointment and said that he thinks that he could convince her by the time the appointment came to get the abortion. What would be the reason that he would need you to call to make the appointment?

Because she wouldn't call herself, but he wanted to go ahead and get an appointment. So he didn't want, like they were booked, so he didn't want her to finally decide to and then not be able to get it. And did you agree and call and schedule that appointment? Yes. And did you pretend to be her? Yes. And do you know if she went to the appointment that you scheduled? Yes, I assume it was that appointment.

And you said you assume, I guess do you know what ultimately happened without pregnancy? Yes, that she had abortion. That's where I was told. I mean, obviously, we see what's going on here. So we have a lot happening. We have Apple gets pregnant. She doesn't want to keep it. Blaze, no issues. Yep, manipulates her or whatever. Maybe he doesn't even manipulate her. Maybe they just, you know, she does the work for him and she agrees and he's happy about it. He goes with her to the appointments. He's all about it. Now, Xavier, which is somebody Blaze knew even before he started seeing Apple. So this is. You said, did she say 2017? 10 years ago. Yeah, yeah.

He was dated 10 years before his trial, he was with Apple. And so even before that, so this has been an over decade long relationship. But according to Apple, Blaze is like, yeah, you know, Xavier's crazy. I won't even, she's not even the type of girl I'd introduced to my parents, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to block her. Whatever. He's a liar. He's just a piece of shit.

Honestly, this is how he treats women. But apparently Xavier is also the love of his life, probably because she's the only one who saw. that he was a piece of shit and then like actually still wanted to continue things with him because they've known each other for so long. There's no way that she can't know that he's he's not like a good guy. So now we have Xavier getting pregnant and Blaze the audacity. This guy does not believe in condoms for sure. Nope, nope. And Blaze the audacity goes to Apple, a woman he's dated, been intimate with and also gotten pregnant. And he's like, oh, this girl I'm sleeping with is pregnant. but she doesn't want to get the abortion.

So what does Blaze do? He tries to talk Xavier into getting it. And then he tells her, well, I'm not going to have anything to do with you if you go through with this. And he told Apple, I was hoping this would convince her to do it because what she wanted ultimately was me. Because that's probably what men like Blaze think. Like they're trying to have a baby to trap them. So now that's not working because she's still going back and forth, you know. And so now he's like, well, can you get the abortion pill?

And then I'll find a way to give it. to her or put it in her drink. That was the most compelling part of her entire testimony. Even though we're not talking about Jade in this moment, it does so an ML, a modus operandi as far as what he's thinking about, even when it's not pertaining to Jade. It shows that you would even have a thought that would occur to you to put something in someone's drink that they don't know is there. Right.

And this is from, I would argue, a character witness in favor of Blaze, right? This is someone who is, you know, she's scorned now, but she was with her. him and she did these things and she seems to be pretty transparent about it. And yet she's telling you something that that one statement alone is extremely critical when you consider what the trial is for. And so Apple tells him, I can't just get an abortion pill. Yeah. It's not like they hand him out like TikTok. No, I can't just go in and be like I'm pregnant. They're going to test me. And I'm not. So I can't just get an abortion pill. So she said he was looking up other things, other things he could give, Xavier that might cause her to lose the baby, other things. And she didn't know what those things

were because he was looking them up on her phone and so she couldn't see it. But that shows you that already he may have seen at that point. He's put some research in. What can pregnant women consumer ingest that might cause them to have a miscarriage? Cocaine's going to be one of those things that pops up. 1,000 percent because that's going to be one of the warnings, right? Like, hey, if you're pregnant, don't use any type of drugs, don't drink alcohol. So he's looking for those things that are readily available. So now she says, Blaze is freaking out. And he and his Xavier are going back and forth.

And he's talking to Apple about this every day. It's like, well, she might do it and she might not. And so he has Apple call and make an appointment for Xavier, pretending to be Xavier. And he's like, I'll figure out a way to get her there. Just make the appointment. And somehow Blaze managed to not only convince Xavier to go to this appointment and go through with the procedure, but somehow still talk to him, trust him, and want to be in his life afterwards, which I don't know. Yeah, he's an absolute scumbag. Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt about

it. I mean, we're we can, we're starting to see a pattern here. We know how Blaze moves. He's done it with multiple women over and over again. And the only one that he's shown any support or care for was the one that was willing. The one that was on his page. Have the abortion. So, you know, The whole Xavier story is so interesting because we're trying to corroborate what we've learned about his relationship with Jade. Because you're going to have Jade's family and friends describe how Blaze treated Jade during this time. And we do have the text messages to support it. But having a completely different woman who's still currently with us describe a situation that's eerily similar to the actions and behaviors that were being described by not only Jade, but in her text messages and by her loved ones,

it just reiterates the fact that there's a lot of truth and credibility to what was being conveyed by multiple people about Blaze and how we handle this entire situation. Yes. And I think that it also shows you like for somebody who really so badly doesn't want to have a kid, doesn't want anyone to get pregnant, can't even fathom being a father. you sure don't seem to take the precautions to avoid this happening. So I don't know if I said this to you or if I was talking to somebody else about the case because I talk about these cases when I don't know. Really? Yeah. Really? Yeah, I know.

I'm sorry. Oh. Kind of similar to the story. So I'm the Xavier or the Apple in this situation, is what you're saying. Yes. I don't know if I said this to you or someone else. Somebody else. I mean, probably what you shouldn't be saying.

I think I said it. I think I said it to you. Oh, okay. Sure you did. As well. text messages. But there are men who like intentionally don't use protection because they have some ego boost thinking like, oh, I can get all these women pregnant, but they don't actually want the women

to go through with the pregnancies. And I would say that Blaze is showing to be that kind of person. Because if you really are this paranoid about it and it freaks you out this much and you absolutely will not let any of these women have any autonomy in this situation, why not wrap but why not wear a sleeping bag? No, I mean, he's just way too confident in the pullout method, clearly, and he's not good at it. And it's one of those things where... I don't know if he's pulling out, yeah.

Well, yeah, maybe not. But what we can take away from this, I think the headline is, no matter what it takes, regardless of the reasoning behind it, Blaise is unwilling to have a baby and we'll do whatever it takes to ensure that doesn't happen. Yeah, and I think that he had been successful in the past, getting women pregnant, and then manipulating them and convincing them and battering on them to go and take care of the pregnancy and have an abortion. And then it didn't work with Jade. And he's like, well, what the hell do I know? It's always worked before. These stupid women have always fallen to my whim before. Why is this one not doing it?

But he was already considering plan B, which was if I can't get her to go to the appointment, just get me the pill and I'll put it in her drink myself. You mean with Xavier. With Xavier. That's my point. So he was already had the plan B going where it's like, hey, make this appointment, do all this. But this is another option. Like one way or another, this is happening. So several years before he even knew who Jade Benning was, this had already been a thought in his head. And so it probably didn't take much to get there with Jade. And by the time, I believe he reentered her life. He was like, all right, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to throw everything I have to talk her out of it, make her feel like crap, make her feel like she's going to be

completely alone to this. And if this doesn't work, Then I always have my plan B, which is already in my repertoire. It's already in my hand. And I got to tell you, for Blaze's defense team sitting at their tables listening to Apple speak, doesn't take an attorney to realize this is damaging to their case. Oh, they were so mad. They were so mad about Apple. This is bad for them.

To have her say those exact words or put it in her drink when we're talking about a potential poisoning, an intentional poisoning, not good for your client. And they kept objecting. I cut it out, obviously, because they were objecting. They would mean to. Yeah. You heard them object when she started talking about like the whole, you know, birth, the abortion pill wasn't going to work. So, well, what else did he do? And she's like, well, he was looking up. And they were like, objection. And so they were like, here say, here's say. And the prosecution's like, no, this is just her testifying to what she saw him doing. She's not going to testify to what he was looking up, aka cocaine, but she's going to testify to what she saw him doing. So at this point, jade's on life support. Apple's friends who are mutual friends with Jade from back from Little Rock, they're aware of the situation that happened with Xavier because after Apple and Blaze parted ways, you know, she would tell her friends about it and be like, yeah, that's crazy, isn't it crazy? And so they basically contacted Apple and then connected Apple with Jade's mother, Bridget,

and then Bridget connected Apple with Detective Adam Reese, which is how Apple ended up being on the stand during Jade's murder trial, and trust me, the defense was pissed. They, because it was kind of like a last minute surprise thing, you know, and I think they just didn't want to, uh, they didn't want to have to defend against that. And they, I'm sure they tried very hard to keep her off that stand. Yeah, 100%. You can make an argument that Nyjaya could potentially embellish stories or what she heard because she loves Jade and didn't like Blaze. But when it comes to Apple, she has no previous relationship with Jade. her statement here, her testimony is very damaging to any defense claim.

Well, they tried to say like, oh, you didn't know Jade, but you had friends in common with her. So maybe Nijia convinced those friends or Nijia convinced you to lie. But once again, like you said, she has no prior relationship with Jade. So why is she going to perjure herself for a woman she's never met? To do what? Because you were mad at some guy from 10 years ago? That's playing the long game. That's a very big stretch on behalf of the defense.

But they had to do. And a lot of this would be able to be confirmed. You could go back and look at the, you could talk to Xavier and say, hey, did you book the appointment that you eventually went to? This is all part of the investigation. And I know you're showing us clips from the trial, but this is stuff that can be vetted and corroborated to ensure that what Apple is saying is actually what occurred. Yeah, but also I don't think Xavier talked to the prosecution or the police.

Obviously, if they had or if she had, I think that she would have been on that stand. Maybe. So I don't think she was very cooperative or maybe she just didn't give them anything. Yeah. She might have gave them something and said, I don't want to be on trial for. Who knows? Who knows? Yeah.

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Okay, so before we wrap up today, I want to return to something that I keep saying we're going to have to return to because it's very important. and that's the blink camera in Jade's apartment. This camera feels very relevant, okay? And I've been thinking about it. I can't stop thinking about it. Obviously, during the investigation, Jade's cell phone was extracted, and that included information about her applications,

including the blank camera that was normally positioned on her kitchen to the left of her stove. Now, we have pictures that Jade took on February 6th, showing the camera exactly in that position and in that area. On February 22nd, the blink camera began to show offline at 8.37 a.m. It continued to show offline as the app reached out to the camera, trying to access it during the attempted communication via the internet with a device

continually showing is offline. And I'm going to bring up another issue with the investigation. This is where they failed again, because the issue is, we don't know why it was offline. And, surprise, surprise, we don't actually know how long it was offline or when, it was offline and went to went back online. And this is part that they kind of sweep over. They say it went offline on February 22nd. And then suddenly magically it's back online at some point on the 25th.

No, that's not what happened. So according to Blink, the camera could have been offline due to many things, a power outage, an internet disruption, or the power cable being disconnected. Blink also told us that most of the time, if it's an internet or power outage issue, the camera's going to automatically reconnect once the power or internet is restored. So that's how we know this wasn't like the power going out. This wasn't like an internet disruption. It was that that it was intentionally. It was no longer connected to Wi-Fi, aka not powered. Or I think it was unplugged from the wall. Yeah, well, by not being unplugged,

because I don't know if it's going to be able to tell that it was powered down, but what it will tell is that the app is trying to connect to the camera and is unable to do so. The cameras normally will automatically reconnect to any network that's been previously set up. And so the only way that it wouldn't automatically connect is if there was no power to the camera itself. That's what I'm saying. So it's not like, oh, the power went out momentarily or for a few hours and came back on, no.

The internet went out, no. And by the way, they can also go look up power outages at that time as well. Yeah. They would be able to go with the local whatever electric company provides power to that unit and determine whether there was an outage around that time. Right. And then it would have been just right back online. Then they would see when the power outage was over.

And yeah. So on February 22nd, that same day, a still image from the blink camera in the blink app was created at 248 p.m. And this still image was a picture of what the blink camera would see, a view of Jade's kitchen looking out from the stove area. This still image was stored within the blink database, meaning that it's where it originated in the database. And Detective Miller testified that it. at this time, with the camera showing offline, that still image was most likely a cached image representing the view of the camera, not necessarily a current view, but just basically a thumbnail view. Now, he's also saying, I don't know if this was a current view, but it could have been a

cached image. Okay? So according to Blink, if an image is created in the blink app while the camera is offline, then the app is simply displaying the last successful snapshot that the camera took before it went offline. So then I wanted to know, how often does the blink camera take a thumbnail snapshot? Because if we're saying that this was not an active live, you know, kind of picture being taken around 2 p.m. on the 22nd, when would that picture have been from? And I found out that it only does that when you manually tell it to by tapping the small camera icon on the app's home screen, but it can also do it when you go and watch a live view. So if you're not at home and then you pull up your blink app, right? And then it'll take a snapshot or it'll show like that there,

maybe there was nothing to pull from because the camera was offline. So it'll just show the last created image before it went offline. Now that's interesting to me because every time you enter a live stream and exit, the blink app will automatically save the very last frame of that video as the new home screen thumbnail. Also, according to blink, the reason the cached file timestamp would show as 248 p.m. even though Jade's camera had been offline since 8.37 a.m. is because someone opened the app at 248 p.m. The blink app reached out to the cloud and asked for the last known image from that camera, and that server sent an older photo because there was no current live view available. Makes total sense. Yes. So that 248 p.m. timestamp is not the blink camera capturing something new,

but it does represent Jade opening the blink application on her phone. So my question then would be, why deliberately disable your own camera by unplugging it and then go check the camera app? If you didn't know that it was offline or if you knew it was offline because you unplugged it, why would you open your blink app to check on the live view? Yeah, is that like a, do you have some speculation on that? Because I am a little clueless on that one. I have some ideas. I'll throw them at you.

But I mean, I think the answer for me would be, I don't know, one explanation. And I've done this numerous times. it's anecdotal, but you open an application accidentally, like you click on the wrong one and you're like, I opened that one. I didn't mean to. Could be. Yeah. So it could be as simple as that.

It could also be her on plugging the camera if she did and ensuring that the last image was not something she didn't want people to see. The last thumbnail was not something she would want people to go in there and check. Because as you mentioned earlier, and I think it's worth reiterating it here, Jade wasn't the only one who had access to that blank camera. It was also her mother, Bridgett. Yeah, but they're saying that this is because it was in the cached images on on Jade's phone. It was her phone opening the app.

Correct. But what I'm saying is she could have opened it on her phone wanting to see what the last image would be in case her mother Bridget went on the app and looked at it. Because the cashed image would come from her. And yet maybe she was ensuring that if Bridget went and looked at it, the thumbnail that she saw wasn't something she didn't want her mom to see. The question would be then what would it be? Like, here's my rationale, and I could be off. You obviously know this case better than me. There may have been a conversation at some point where, for reasons now, that would make more sense.

That Blaze had expressed he didn't like the camera being in the kitchen because people would have access to it like her mother and she, he didn't want her, you know, knowing what was going on between them. He wanted to keep their private life private, whatever the reason being. And there could have been a scenario where for, for whatever reason, Jade understood and agreed that, hey, listen, we're adults and I get it and I'll move the camera. And so maybe Jade didn't want her mother knowing that she had moved the camera. So she was trying to see what the last cash image was. Because a lot of this whole camera situation doesn't make sense to me. Because can you remind us how many days this would have been, you said this is the 22nd, correct?

So it's the same day that it went offline and it got unplugged at 837am or that's when it went offline at 837am. Right. And the dinner was at what time around? So the dinner was on the 25th. It was three days later. So there's something that happened prior to this. My thing is it could be Blaze, but that wouldn't make a lot of sense. Because one, Jade would have noticed it and said, hey, why are you unplugging my camera? My mom uses that to keep an eye on me and I like having it on the door.

So there had to be something there with Jade where she, whether it was something she was reluctant about or not, but she agreed to do this. and then she checked the camera after the fact. So I don't think it's Blaze who physically removed the camera, but I do wonder if he had any influence over the camera being moved. So here's the weird thing. Blaze allegedly was on a business trip on the 22nd, okay? Allegedly he was and he got back to 23rd. But once again, there's no evidence presented that he actually went anywhere on a business trip.

And if he was out of town on the 22nd, then he couldn't have unplugged the camera. But here's the part that gets me. And this is why an investigation being done properly is important because that camera... Yeah, hit me with it. Because I'm trying to understand how he would unplug and move the camera without Jade consenting to it. That camera is very important. So I don't think that when it was unplugged on the 22nd, I don't think it was moved yet. So on February 25th, when Jade collapsed in her apartment, they said there's no usable footage from the blink app. And they said they assumed this was because it remained disabled, most likely unplugged. Then, Early in the morning of February 26, Jade's mother Bridget accessed the blink app from Jade's phone and panicked when she didn't see the normal kitchen view, but she saw the camera was in Jade's bedroom facing her balcony with the blinds open.

So from the photos that Lindsay's mother, Stephanie took in the apartment on the 26th, we know the blink camera was set up in Jade's bedroom and facing the balcony when they got there and it was plugged in. Do we know exactly when it was plugged in? Well, look, stay with me. Okay. Okay. So if Bridget was able to see a live view, that means plugging the camera back in, put the camera back online. Connected back to the network. As it should, right? Yep.

Yeah, automatically doesn't need anybody to do it. You plug it in. It's going to connect to the network. Exactly. There's no testimony to this activity in the blink app during the trial. But we can see the camera was plugged in while in Jade's bedroom. It looks like when reviewing the blink app data, police only performed a forensic extraction on Jade's phone and did not get a warrant from Amazon. on. And because of that, they would not have any technical paper trail of when the camera went

offline and online. They would only know this by examining system artifacts, like what we talked about, the image cache metadata, and what's called a KTX system snapshot. And I learned all about this. These KTX snapshots are saved by iOS and Android. KTX stands for Kronos texture. And on iPhones, iOS uses KTX files to store visual snapshots of apps, basically a frozen image of what was on the screen when the app was sent into the background, interrupted or switched away from. So basically, if you're like on Facebook

and then you want to go over and text somebody and you kind of like pull the app and put in the background and bring the messaging app up, your phone is taking a KTX shot of what was on the screen when Facebook was up. That way it knows how to recall it back quickly when you want to go back to Facebook. It's very interesting.

So that's the only thing they looked at when it came to this Blank camera. Now, Blink does log motion events, though, okay? Allegedly. And according to that log of motion events, the police were able to determine that Jade's Blink camera was back online by 708 p.m. on February 26th. That does not mean that the camera was offline the entire time from the 22nd to the 26th. Okay?

It doesn't mean that. And if the police had gotten a warrant from Amazon, they would have been able to get the exact time that the blink camera was plugged back in and went online. But because the camera did not detect any motion until February 26th at 708 p.m., it didn't log anything in the app. So we don't know when the camera was plugged back in. Yeah, but it would make sense that it was plugged in in that area because there would be no motion looking out the window more than likely.

Exactly. If somebody moved the camera, let's say it was plugged back in in the kitchen after the 22nd. You'd get motion. You would get motion. However, because Jade didn't have a subscription, Blink doesn't log the motion in the app. Do you know how they would, how anybody would know with Jade's phone that there was motion from that camera? You'd have to go through Blink? No, because it doesn't log it because she doesn't have a subscription.

So they don't even log it on their end? They don't. They would if she had a subscription or if the police got a warrant through Amazon. They would still have that stuff on their end. Okay, but you were going somewhere. So how would you know? So I have Simply Safe. And before I had a subscription, if there was motion detected on my front door on my

doorbell cam, I would get a text notification. Simply Safe, doorbell camera noticed activity. But it's not in my app because I didn't have a subscription then. But I still got a text because I had it set up to alert me when there was motion. But if I went into the app without a subscription, it wouldn't show a log of motion events, right? So because it's a live alert. And maybe that's why they knew from Jade's phone, which would have messages and stuff from the 25th and the 26th still, that there was motion. Automated messages. But they wouldn't know from the 22nd on because maybe she erased those when they came through. But she hadn't erased it then because she wasn't in possession of her phone because she was already, you know, collapsed and in the hospital. the time the blink camera picked up on motion on February 26 and 708. I think that's how they knew through the text message notifications. Yeah, that's a reasonable explanation for it. Yeah.

So when Jade's mother looked at the app on Jade's phone the morning of February 26th, it had already been plugged back in and it was working again. But there would be no motion because whoever moved it from the kitchen and then put it in her bedroom, put it there, positioned it, then plugged it back in. So obviously there's no motion by the time. they put it back in, which I think happened on the 25th. So we don't know when any of this happened. On the evening of February 26th, Stephanie and Lindsay and Nijia went to Jade's apartment, and Nijia said she moved the camera back to the kitchen. And there was motion detected by the camera, according to the police, at 7.08 p.m. and 7.11 p.m.

So that aligns. AKA her grabbing the camera in the bedroom, picking it up, picking it up, then replacing it in the kitchen. And then on February 26 at 937 p.m., a KTX file was created in Jay 's phone of the blink camera view of the kitchen. And it looks very much like that cashed image from February 22nd, but this one is different because you can see the top of a pot or something to the left is sitting on the stove, which means on that date at that time, the blink app was opened, and that was the image of Jade's kitchen. So I think this is when the police finally have Jade's phone. And they're going through it. So they pull it up and they're getting that cashed image after the

camera was plugged back in. So if the camera went offline on February 22nd in the morning, We don't actually know when it went back online or if there were any motion events because Jade didn't have a subscription plan. And a log of motion events would not be saved. And I think that the only reason police knew there were two motion events on the 26th was because of the iPhone notifications. If they'd actually gotten a warrant from Amazon, the police could have gotten a very clear picture of when the camera went back online, which would have told them who moved it from the kitchen to the bedroom. Agreed. Mm-hmm. Agreed.

I think the camera probably went back online after February 22nd. Like maybe Jade unplugged it because she knew that the next day, Blaze was coming back into town and they were going to get together. And so she wanted privacy. But I believe at some point after that, she probably plugged it back in. She could have even unplugged it when he came over on the 25th for their date, right? That's what I lean toward. Like, I'm not a fan of Blaze. And I think he did a lot here.

And I definitely think he poisoned Jade. I think we're at that point where we can say that. But there may have also been something there where Bridget, Nigeria, other friends, family members were saying that Blaze was not a good guy. And they didn't really appreciate how he was treating her and how he was treating this whole pregnancy. And because of that, and we know this happens all the time, both with men and women, because their friends or family members may not approve of the relationship. It would make sense that, like you said, if he was coming back into town, Jade would want to keep, the fact that they were still getting together private. And also, from a common sensical perspective, if they were intimate at all, even if the camera's

facing the wall, you wouldn't want your family members to hear that. So I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that she might have intentionally unplugged the phone under the pretense that Blaze was coming by. Yeah, but she wanted to put it in the bedroom. Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me. I really wish she was still with us. And I wish we also had gotten that search warrant to understand, exactly when it was plugged in.

But maybe she had plugged it back in that night and plugged it and just plugged it in and put it towards the wall because she intended on moving it later. And she could make the argument if mom called her and said, hey, why's your camera over there? She could be like, oh, I'm just, I'm just cleaning. Or I don't know. I don't know. I don't think she put it in there. I think that the camera probably went back online like normal after February 22nd.

In the kitchen. In the kitchen. Okay. And then maybe because he's. putting stuff in her drink in the kitchen. Yeah, the camera can't be on in the kitchen when he's doing that. He probably didn't, even if it's unplugged, he probably didn't want that camera anywhere near the kitchen when he's doing this

just in case, right? We all have our conspiracy theories. Maybe it's got a backup battery. I don't know enough about these cameras. I'm just going to move it, right? So maybe he said, you know, Jade, I don't like the thought that your mom can see us. And she's like, oh, it's unplugged. Don't worry.

He's like, I'm just going to move it just in case. It makes me uncomfortable. I feel more comfortable if it's not around. That makes sense. But he doesn't plug it back in. yet. And I think by the 25th, it was still unplugged because the paramedics came into Jade's bedroom, right? And they're going to take her into the ambulance and they're going to do all of this stuff. And you would have some motion, even if it was just a reflection of people walking around,

reflecting in the window, right? Or a motion of something happening outside. Maybe a leaf moves, maybe a bird flies by. Yeah, I agree. Right? I don't think it was plugged in until after the paramedics left with Jade on the 25th. And that's when it was plugged back in. And then he's like, all right, we're good to go. I'm out. Yeah, I think you might be right. And to add on to that with your theory,

if you're right about how law enforcement learned about the motion detection, that would also make sense. Because you would imagine that if there was motion detection on that camera at any time shortly before Jade was unconscious, she wouldn't have had time to delete those motion detections alerts prior to her being, you know, unable to do so. So you would expect to see. some some more text messages with these motion detections and that you have none until later that night on you said the 26th where as you described it was plugged back in and moved to the kitchen and that all makes sense.

So if your theory is right about the text messaging being the notifications that allowed law enforcement to deduce that the camera was operable at that point, then what you just said makes sense. The only the only other variable I'll throw in there, which again, we would have this answer if they had gotten the, warrant from Amazon. If the camera had been plugged back in in the kitchen just not accessed, there is a world where right before the dinner, right before they get together, if it were plugged in and yet you would still expect those motion detections, Blaze says, yeah, you got to move that camera. I'm not dealing with it. And she goes, okay, no problem. She unplugs it, places it on the, you know, in the bedroom and then it's not plugged until the next day. That's the only other angle. But his reasoning for unplugging it wouldn't be, I want privacy. It would be because of what

you've already said, he knew what he was about to do and he didn't want it on security footage. Yes, because where that camera was placed would have shown the refrigerator and the counter next to it, etc. He doesn't know a subscription plan that she has. He doesn't know if it's going to capture her, him actually putting something in her drink while she's in the bathroom. Because you have to, a pregnant woman, you have to imagine she probably had maybe had to go to the bathroom to pee once or twice and it would have given him ample amount of time to dump something in her drink while she was gone. So here's my thing.

Like, I don't know, even if she didn't have a subscription, people are, I have an idea that even if I don't have a subscription, that there's probably some stuff on the servers, right? Of course. Big Brother's always watching. Alex is always recording. So he's thinking, even if she knows, and she could have told him, oh, I don't have a subscription. Like, it's not recording anything. I don't care. I don't like it.

Now, he's thinking, okay, it's unplugged. Like, I had her unplug it, but I still don't like that it's in here. What if it has a backup battery and it's still filming? Some cameras do have that. I looked up and shout out to the blink representative who talked to me on chat for almost 48 minutes. That's amazing. Because I asked them all of these questions. They must have been like, we need to flag this woman.

She's about to do something bad. No, I explained. I explained why. But I expected them to kind of be like, that's not what we're here for. But they must have been bored that day because they were like, yeah, let's run through. Maybe they're a crime weekly fan. They were like, let's run through all these potential. I thought it was AI at first, but then I realized it was like a real person. Her name is Sarah with no age.

Shout out to Sarah from Blink. Shout out to Sarah. So she talked to me for 48 minutes. And I was like, well, what about this? Well, what about this? What would be the reasoning for this? What if this? And she's like, yeah, this is probably why. And it was probably the text messages that they knew because if they'd gotten a warrant from Amazon, we would log all that, even if there's no subscription just in case for a certain amount of days. I believe she said 30 days. So. Yeah, sometimes. they can backlog too where they can, you know, if you add it, you can get access to previous footage. Exactly. And that's why she said they do it. Exactly. Makes sense. Hey, here's your incentive to sign up. Yep. You want to see something to happen that, you know, vandalism in your driveway, sign up now. Yep. So they should have gotten a warrant because they would have been able to tell instead of just like, yeah, it seemed to go offline on February 22nd, but they don't know when it went back online. They don't know when it was unplugged, when it was plugged back in. They don't know anything. So that blink camera, I think, is very relevant.

and they did not do a thorough investigation there either. So anyways, that's where we'll end up because now I know everything about KTX files, which I didn't know before, which is kind of creepy, that your iPhone's storing an image. No, that was some deep. That was some deep stuff.

And I didn't even know the terminology with that. Your iPhone's storing an image every time you swipe out, it's capturing whatever's on your screen at that time, which... Yeah. When you go into the app right now, I'll see my last images from whatever the phone, you know, the camera's captured.

So it gives you like, If they say, oh, a car pulled in the driveway, I can see the car in the thumbnail. Yeah, but understand if you have some, you know, spicy photos up. Which I, you know, I have plenty of those. So if you're swiping out, your phone's storing a KTX image of that. My KTX images are going to get me. Your KTX images are spicy. You're going to be a new Patreon subscription, a new tier that you guys can sign up for.

Patreon fans. Patreon fans? Only Patreon. Only Patreon. My belief to kind of wrap up the whole camera, and it's all hypothetical, right? We don't know. It's speculative. Hypothetical based on actual research and investigatory work.

I think at minimum we can deduce that the camera was moved, whether it was by Jade or by Blaze. It was moved because Blaze had displayed or expressed a level of uncomfortability with it being in the kitchen. I don't see why Jade, a woman living by herself, wouldn't want that there. It would only be there to protect her and to allow her mother to check in on her and make sure she's okay. So to place it in the bedroom, it might have been all because of just Jade, knowing that Blaze was coming over, she didn't want her mom seeing or hearing the conversation she was having as an adult. And that's, that's her right. But yeah, it would be, it's unfortunate that we don't have that camera footage because it would make this case even stronger than it already is. I agree.

I think it's very relevant. I think it's very important. I don't think Jade would have moved that camera. might have unplugged it for his comfortability, but she would not have moved it. Makes no sense. Into the bedroom. It makes no sense. It's almost worse.

It's invading your privacy even more. Yeah. You might not be able to see it, but you're sure as hell going to hear it. Yeah. So that's where we're at. Blaze is looking pretty bad right now, obviously. And next week, we will wrap this case up. And like Derek said, last week, there have been some updates.

It's been some developments, for sure. Some developments in this case. And so we'll bring you everything we know. And we're going to get there. So bear with us. Stay strong. Don't go look it up yet. You will get the conclusion next week. But yeah, at this point, we're in the middle of the trial and it's not looking good for Blaze. He has shown a pattern of behavior over a decade. I would say so. Where he has, when it came to women and the potential of having children, he didn't take the precautions to ensure that didn't happen. But if it did, he would do whatever it took to make sure that they didn't go through with the pregnancy and that they didn't. have the baby, even if they still wanted to, and it was against their consent. He was already exploring options where if they said, no, I'm still having this baby. What can I put in their drink? Yeah, there was another angle at play here. And the fact that Apple said specifically,

put something in your drink, that statement alone is going to be something I can imagine that the prosecutors are going to bring up time and time again. Yeah, I agree. But the defense is also going to have there. There was some poor, uh, work. with the investigation. So there's definitely angles to exploit here. The question is, will the jury look at that, acknowledge it, and yet still come to the conclusion that it's more reasonable than not. There's, there's not enough reasonable doubt here to say that he didn't do it. Yeah. And I mean, we're going to talk about that next week. We're going to talk about what the defense says, what evidence they brought up and how they could even defend, how they could even defend someone like

Blaze, Taylor. I don't know, but they did. So we'll talk about that next. We will. Absolutely, guys. We appreciate you being here again. If you want to come, if you're in the UK and you want to meet me at CrimeCon, go over to crimecon.co.com.com.com.com.com.com. Dot, UK, code crime weekly. Get 10% off. We appreciate you guys being here. We appreciate the love and support. The YouTube and the audio channels are doing extremely well. And that's because of you guys. We wouldn't be here without you. We appreciate you. We will be back next week. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon. Bye.