Crime Weekly - S1 Ep19: The Murder Cynthia Hoffman (Part 1)

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

On June 4th 2019, the body of 19 year old Cynthia Hoffman was found in a creek in Thunderbird Falls park located in Anchorage Alaska. Her feet had been duct taped together, and she had been shot in the back of the head. Cynthia had been reported missing by her father, Timothy Hoffman the day before, and he had told the Anchorage Police Department that his daughter had gone out with her best friend on June 2nd and not returned. He also told him that Cynthia had a learning disability and her brain only functioned at the level of a 12 year old. When you think of the kind of person who would do this to a young and trusting girl like Cynthia, you think of someone evil, a stranger most likely, since no one who knew Cynthia could have ever done this to her, but this wasn’t a stranger who had done this, it was a person that Cynthia considered to be her best friend. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_NhRiyowalHnbKjveNQxxA Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

Shop the Sherwin-Williams 4-Day Super Sale and get 40% off paints and stains June 6th through the 9th. With prices starting at $29.39, it's the perfect time to transform your space with color. Whether you're looking to revamp your interior or exterior, we have you covered with bold hues, soothing neutrals, and everything in between. Shop the sale online or visit your neighborhood Sherwin-Williams store. Click the banner to learn more. Retail sales only. Some exclusions apply. See store for details. On June 4th, 2019, the body of 19-year-old Cynthia Hoffman was found in a creek in Thunderbird Falls Park, located in Anchorage, Alaska. Her feet had been duct-taped together, and she had been shot in the back of the head. Cynthia had been reported missing by her father, Timothy Hoffman, the day before,

and he had told the Anchorage Police Department that his daughter had gone out with her best friend on June 2nd and not returned. He also told them that Cynthia had a learning disability, and her brain only functioned at the level of a 12-year-old. Now when you think of the kind of person who would do this to a young and trusting girl like Cynthia, you probably think of someone evil. A stranger, most likely, since no one who knew Cynthia could have ever done this to her. But this wasn't a stranger who had done this. It was a person that Cynthia considered to be her best friend. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. Today, we are talking about a case that I actually covered about a year ago on YouTube,

and I covered this case right when it was coming out. And I knew that I wanted to remain updated on the case because I knew. I knew from the type of case that this was. And it was a case that really pissed me off. I knew there was going to be more that was going to come out. And it was probably going to be even worse. And I was right. So I'm so glad we're doing it on the podcast today because it's going to give me a chance to, you know, sort of go over the new developments and the things I didn't know at the time. Yeah, I actually went back as part of my research and watched your video, which I usually do when you say you've done some coverage on it before. And you're right, a lot has happened since you recorded that video. In fact, and I don't want to get too

far ahead of ourselves, but we have another discovery hearing coming up in like 15, 20 days, April 28th. So we thought this would be a good time to cover it because we're going to get you guys caught up to date and then you can follow along as the trial goes forward and continues to unfold. Yeah. And we wanted to remind you, though, before we dive in, make sure to visit our website, CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com. On the website, you can actually kind of go over everything, find our social media links, Twitter and Instagram. But you can also

leave us a speak pipe message. And sometimes we do like to include the speak pipe messages into the show. So you never know, you might hear yourself on Crime Weekly. But it also gives us a great deal of joy to hear from all of you. Derek was telling me the other day that he loves it, especially hearing everybody's different accents and things like that. And he's always surprised that we have so many overseas listeners. But I say that I think that you overseas listeners are the real MVPs. Yeah, no, it's really cool. And I will say about the website, we have been getting a lot of emails or even comments where they're like, hey, it'd be great if you had some resource materials up on the website for each case as you cover them so we can go through it.

To be fully transparent with you, Stephanie and I are running the show here. We're doing this on our own. So it's like there's only so much time in a day to make sure we get all the content out to you. And, and, and at the level we want it to be out. So one thing I haven't even discussed this with you, Stephanie, that I'm thinking about, and I don't even know how possible it would be on Squarespace, but maybe some people watching might have some suggestions would be to have kind of like, um, like, like a Reddit type thing on our page where people can upload stuff to like a comment section almost where they can upload documents or articles. It's not going to be verified information, but it would allow you guys to interact with each other and discuss the case, especially when we're doing multiple parts. I

thought it'd be a kind of a cool idea. I don't know if it's possible though. Yeah. And if you give me a five minute tutorial on how to update the website, I can easily, because all like affidavits and court documents and stuff, I already have those on my computer so I can easily put them on the website. That won't be an issue. We got a lot of plans. We got a lot of plans.

And so I appreciate you guys bearing with us. The number one priority was the podcast. It still is. Now we're doing YouTube. And then, you know, again, there's other facets of this, you know, the financial aspects, the legality of it, making sure everything's

on the up and up. And as we continue to move forward, it's going to only get better, hopefully. Yeah. And you guys are here on the ground floor. You have been with us from the beginning. So you get to watch us grow. You get to grow with us. You get to be right here when we bring out new things.

So it's very exciting. And we appreciate you guys. Yep, definitely do. And what should we be telling them, Stephanie? If they're watching this on YouTube, there's obviously, you know, this way better than me. This is your home. There's an algorithm.

The best way to help us and to allow us to do more is to like this video, subscribe to the channel. I'm starting to look at the analytics. We have a lot of people who are watching. Thank you for watching, but aren't subscribed yet. So if you like the content, please hit that like button, hit the bell button to get notified for our next video and subscribe. We'd really appreciate it. Like, comment, subscribe, because it gives us, it puts us right into the algorithm and allows us to continue creating the

content. And we really appreciate it. But let's start. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no. I was just going to say, and if you're on the podcast and you're not the YouTube type of person, leave a rating, leave a review, and we'd really appreciate that as well. Stephanie's, by the way, Stephanie's a trooper tonight. Before we get into this, Stephanie is under the weather, but she's grinding through it. We've already done our commercial. We're going forward and she's a trooper. So thank you, Stephanie, for stepping up to the plate. I have a sinus infection and ear infection and I just started antibiotics today. And sometimes antibiotics can make you feel worse than what you're dealing with.

So she progressively gets worse with the point where I'm like, Stephanie, wake up. Wake up, Stephanie. My vision just starts going darker. So you'll know. We might have to record this another day. If halfway through I'm reading the story, the narrative portion, then you know Stephanie just passed out in the middle of it. I'm gone. It's just one video screen to like, where'd she go?

I just have like a doll sitting in your chair with like glasses on. Right, Stephanie? Right? Is? Right? Is that good? You got to put the headphones on the doll too though. What do you think about that, Stephanie? Well, Derek. Wow.

We're tired. We're so dumb. Well, let's talk about Cynthia Hoffman or Cece as she's known. So I'm going to refer to her as Cece throughout this because that's how her family referred to her and her friends, people who knew and loved her. They called her Cece. And she was born on October 8th, 1999 to her parents, Timothy and Barbara Hoffman. Now, she did have a slight learning disability, but she also had an amazing work ethic. So her father said, you know, she never gave up, even though things were a little bit harder for her, she just really kind of pushed through it. And she actually graduated from Robert Service High School in 2018. She did some work at restaurants, but what she

enjoyed the most was working side by side with her father at his handyman business. It's really cute because her father, Tim, he refers to her as his right-hand man. She had learned to measure windows, to chum concretes, and just work in the construction and handyman business in general. for her death. And Cece was supposed to have met up with her sister to collect the money that she'd earned from it. They were going to go shopping at the mall. And she even texted her father and said that she was on her way to meet her sister and pick up this money. But then she never showed up and she stopped answering her cell phone. And Timothy, her dad, he knew that this was very out of character for Cece because she always kept in touch. All of his kids, he said they were very aware that when dad called, they needed to answer. He said, I don't care if you're in the middle of church. I don't

care if you're in the middle of school. When dad calls, it's important. It's for a reason. You need to answer. And Cynthia knew this. So he obviously called the police to report her missing. And he made sure to let them know about her learning disability, which, by the way, they later reported that he didn't mention this. They said that if he had mentioned this, that she would have been put on an emergency list or like a vulnerable person's list. I can't imagine why her father wouldn't have brought that up. It seems to be an important point of contention in this. He did say that he mentioned it, but they say that he didn't. Yeah, there could be a log of it, but they say that he didn't.

Yeah, there could be a log of it, maybe a recording or whatever. And again, in defense to him, and I'm not saying I don't believe him, but his child's missing. So in that moment where you're upset, you may think you said something that you didn't completely possible. But on the other hand, it could have been that the dispatcher, whoever took the call, completely missed it when he said it. So at the end, it doesn't matter now. But yes, that would have been critically important because when you have an elderly person or

someone who has, as in this case, some type of disability where they could be in immediate danger because of their inability to protect themselves, that 24 hours goes out the window and it's boots on the ground immediately. Well, first of all, I think that he did tell them because she was 19, right? So he knows that they're not going to consider a 19-year-old being missing as important if he doesn't stress the fact that she does have a disability. So I definitely think that he did. And they did tell him that he had to wait 24 hours to report someone missing. And I've said this before on YouTube. I say it as much as possible, but that's not true.

That's not the case. You don't have to wait 24 hours to report anyone missing. You can report them missing after they've been gone for five minutes if you want to. You can report them missing after they've been gone an hour. You do not have to wait 24 hours at all to report someone missing. I don't think police stations or police departments say this anymore, but I guess some of them do in Alaska. So he was told that he had to wait 24 hours. And I can't imagine that there's anything more frustrating as a parent to hear that. it makes me mad. Yeah. And to your point, if at that point they did say to him, hey, you have to wait 24 hours because of X, Y, and Z, you would think reasonably that would probably be the point where he would have said, well, yeah, that may be the case normally.

But in this particular circumstance, my daughter has a disability and I don't think that we should, you know, we should wait. So I do agree the reasonable person would assume that that's probably where, even if he didn't say it initially, when they mentioned that he would have been as far as the 24 hours, you're right. You can, you can report someone missing at any point there. I remember when I first got on, there was a practice where, you know, if the person was someone who was an adult, um, who had not been missing for more than 24 hours. And we wouldn't necessarily take an official report at that point. We would usually put into the dispatch log, make units aware of it. And

then after 24 hours, if the person still hadn't been heard from, we would then put it on paper. But it's something that wasn't like we were like, oh, nope, sorry, blinders on until the 24th hour hits. We were already, hey, listen, let's say you came in. Okay, this is the person we're looking for. Let's try calling them. Let's put a bolo out to local police departments to be on the lookout for their vehicle or something or maybe where they might frequent. But yes, as far as the official report going into effect where you enter them into, we've

talked about this before, NCIC as a missing person, usually you wait 24 hours until doing so. If the person is an adult and under normal circumstances. But I hear this in a lot of cases where the family's like, well, we were told we had to wait 24 hours, you know, and I just think that's incredibly frustrating. And I want everybody out there listening to know that that's not the case. I know the police seem, you know, they are authority figures in a way, but it doesn't mean that you have to just, you know, listen to everything they say when it's do or die time and your loved one is missing. But obviously, this is frustrating for Timothy. So he does what anybody would do, right? He goes out and he starts looking for her himself. And he

took matters into his own hands. He formed search parties. Timothy or Tim Hoffman, he's really big into like motorcycles. And so he took his motorcycle and he rode through nearby woods and bike paths. He's looking for her all over the place. And he also talked to the last person who'd seen Cece before she went missing, her best friend, an 18-year-old who he knew as Angela. Now, Angela said that they'd been hanging out that day, as he had already suspected, but she also claimed she dropped Cece off at Polar Bear Park around 4 p.m. And I guess there's like a playground at this park, and she said that Cece had asked her, demanded her to do this, to drop her off at Polar Bear Park. So that's what Angela did.

Now, during this text conversation between Angela and Tim Hoffman, Angela said things like, I hope she comes back safely. She's my best friend. And I'm starting to get worried. And I don't trust what she said about that guy. I love her, too. I want the best for her. And I want her to come back. And she also said, she won't answer me. I think she's ignoring everyone. And finally, Angela said, I know she will come home safe. So Cece had actually met Angela when they were both attending the same school. Now, those who knew her claimed that Cece thought Angela was cool and she wanted to be cool too. Cece was very trusting, very kind. And I mean, obviously she wanted more than anything to be accepted by her peers. So her father was really happy when Cece and Angela started hanging out and seeing a lot of each other. He said Cece was always talking about Angela and wanting to know if she could spend the night there or if Angela could, you know, come and hang out at her house. There was even

a picture of Cece and Angela, and they were at a school dance, and the two girls are doing these goofy poses together. And Cece had captioned this picture, my BFF. What Cece didn't know, though, was that Angela was not her friend. In fact, her name wasn't even Angela. It was Denali Bremer. And while 18-year-old Denali was sending texts of hope to Timothy Hoffman, sharing in his worry and stress about where Cece was. She knew exactly where Cece was. Yeah. This case reminds me a lot of a case I did a few years ago, Judy Rawlings. Judy was around Cece's age and she was found murdered in the woods nearby her home. But

she also was the type of girl who was known by her community to be someone who wanted to be liked and would do things. She wasn't of the highest intelligence. She did have some learning issues. And again, she was easily manipulated because of that. And there were some individuals who I called out on the show. One individual in particular, his name's Tony Sierra, who was last seen with Judy, brought her to the woods. People seen them go on a four-wheeler. He claims allegedly that she told him to bring her there and drop her off in the darkness to meet some unknown man. And then all he did was let her off the four-wheeler and he left her there and never saw her again. And he went back and said, oh,

you know, that's where I dropped her. I hope she's okay. Long story short, they found her later on and she had been murdered. It's my opinion that Tony knows what happened or was, in fact, the person who killed her. I'm still pursuing that. And in fact, he was just recently arrested for the molestation of his daughter, his stepdaughter. So not a good guy. In this case, when I started reading about it, it fits so many similarities to Judy's case. And it's unfortunate because you do have people like this, like a Denali who take advantage of individuals when they see that at the end of the day, people like Cece, they just want to be loved. They want to be cared for.

They want to have friends. They want to feel included. And opportunists like this take advantage of that. Well, I would argue that Denali did way more than take advantage of Cece. I mean, in the case we just covered, Missy Gruba, the dude that she had let come and stay with her and he robbed her, you know, that's taking advantage. But what we got here is a whole different can of worms. So on the evening of June 3rd, 2019, the APD officers, and APD stands for Anchorage Police Department, and this is in Alaska, they were actually contacted by Denali's mother. And this is a woman named Nicole House.

And that was when the first pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. Nicole said that on the evening of June 2nd, her daughter and a man who she thought was named Anthony, they were both at her house. And they both told her that Anthony had shot Cece in the head and pushed her into the water. And then Nicole hadn't seen Denali since she'd heard this confession. I just don't understand what prompted these two to make this confession, but allegedly this is what happened. So the next day, detectives, they spoke with Denali in person

and she told them her version of what had happened on June 2nd. She said that, first of all, this friend, his name wasn't Anthony, he was 16-year-old Caden McIntosh. And they, Caden and Denali, along with Cece, had been smoking weed in the valley. And the valley in this area of Alaska, it's apparently an area that's in south central Alaska. It's about 30 miles north of Anchorage. It's actually really pretty. But after they finished smoking weed in the valley, they started driving back towards Anchorage. It's actually really pretty. But after they finished smoking weed in the valley, they started driving back towards Anchorage, but they decided to stop at a parking lot near Thunderbird Falls because they'd all agreed that they were going to tie each other up with duct tape and take pictures of each other like this. So then they went into the woods and

apparently they bound Cece's ankles and her wrists with gray duct tape. They also placed duct tape over her mouth. Now, at this point, according to Denali, Cece began to panic. So they started to remove the duct tape from her hands and mouth. But then, allegedly, Cece told them that she was going to tell the police that they'd abducted her and sexually assaulted her. At this point, Denali claims that Caden McIntosh took this gun from her hand. It was a Caltech 9mm. It's a handgun. And he grabbed it out of her hand. And, you know, she just happened to have a gun, even though they were just going to go in the woods and, you know, tie each other with duct tape and take pictures. She just happens to have a gun on her. And Caden shot Cece in the back

of her head because she said she was going to go to the police. Now, this is one of the worst parts for me. Denali said that Cece was still twitching when Caden put her into the water. And then at this point, Denali and Caden left the area. They went to the car in the parking lot, which was actually a truck. And Caden then instructed Denali to text Cece's sister and make up a story about how they had dropped her off somewhere. And according to Denali, she only went along with Caden because she was afraid of him. So she's doing what he wants because she's afraid of him, which doesn't really make sense even with her version of the story, because if they went to her mother's house that same night and told her mother what they'd done, it doesn't really feel like Denali's that afraid of Caden,

right? No, I agree. And correct me if I'm wrong, but Caden, if I have this correct, I want to make sure I get this right. I believe Caden's only 16 years old. 16, yeah. He's 16 and Denali is- 18. 18 at the time. So again, still he's a younger person. To answer your question directly, no. I don't think he was afraid of,

I don't think she was afraid of him. No, I don't think so either. But right after this, Denali and Caden, they actually went to this polar bear park where they had allegedly dropped off Cece and they burned her purse. They burned some of her clothing, her ID and the gun that she'd been shot with. How possible is it to burn a gun? Not very likely. I mean, it can happen.

But at high heat, the heat they're going to generate from a trash can or a fire, it's not going to work. There's a lot to unpack in this section because again, this is based on what Denali is telling the police, which obviously she has an incentive to say certain things the way she said it. So I want to, let's take a quick break and then we'll dive into it. All right. So right before the break, you were talking about Denali's initial statements to law enforcement, right? And again, she had some time to prepare what she was going to say. She must have known at some point she was going to be questioned. And according to her, I don't have to rehash everything you just said. She's trying to paint the picture that the reason they bound Cece was because, and I was seeing some other interviews with Cece's parents as well, where they were all going

to be bound at some point. And this was just like a joke to, you know, tie each other up with this duct tape and then take photos to make it look like they had been kidnapped or abducted and they were going to, you know, maybe play a trick or something at some point. But it was clear to Cece as they started to, you know, tie her up with the duct tape that this wasn't a joke, that this was more than that. And as you mentioned, they untied her because she felt threatened. The question I have is- Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly.

Yeah. Yeah, allegedly. But the question I have for you, and we're going to probably dive into this, is my understanding is that she still had duct tape on her when she was found. Correct. On her ankles, not on her wrist, not on her mouth.

Right. So it makes me wonder, as Denali's explaining this, that did they even really take the duct tape off? That's my real question. Oh, she was afraid, so we took it off because we didn't want her to be upset. And Denali's trying to separate herself from it like, I had no intention on hurting this girl, so I removed the duct tape and yet Caden shot her with a gun that I brought. That Denali had. That I brought. So you brought it all the way out to this area with no intention on using it. Loaded.

But it just so happened, yeah, loaded and happened to be in your hand readily available for Caden when that time came. So yeah, not buying it. Not buying it one bit. Well, here's the thing. So I wasn't buying it either and still don't, obviously. But when the Anchorage police went to speak to Caden McIntosh, 16 year old Caden

McIntosh, his story was startlingly similar to Denali's, except he claimed that he'd blacked out at some point. But then he said he did remember shooting Cece and pushing her into the river. He also claimed that she'd still been twitching when he put her in the water. And he said he didn't know if Cece had died from the gunshot wound or if she had drowned. And then he followed this up with a statement that I think is very telling. He said he didn't want Angel to go to prison. And Angel is the name that Denali goes by with her friends. So here's what I'm thinking. He covered for her. He covered for her because as we come to find out, this is not the way things went down.

And I was very confused when I read in the affidavit that Caden's statement was so similar to Denali's because she basically blamed him for everything. And then he was like, yes, I am to blame for everything. And I don't want Angel to go to prison. And even though he was the one who did shoot Cece in the head, Denali wasn't innocent. And he didn't tell the police her part in it that time, which is very strange to me so i i once again don't think that that uh denali was afraid of caden i think that he was either afraid of her or he had some sort of like infatuation or sort of like a perceived one to impress her yeah like where he thought that maybe they they had this bond and it was sort of like this romeo juliet bonnie and clyde thing like we're gonna go go down together, you know, like, or I'm going to do what I can to protect

her. You know, if I have to take the hit for this, I will, as long as she doesn't go to prison. Let me throw this at you. Cause I, by the way, when you guys see me looking down, I apologize. Cause it's just me. I'm going over my notes. I don't want to, I'm trying not to miss any of them, but, um, I had written this down because I wanted to pose this question to you. And maybe I'm giving, I do do this from time to time. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit, but I wrote down just in big letters, you know, juvenile. Is there any world where you think these two individuals could have spoken prior?

Obviously they got their story together and maybe it was, maybe Denali spun it to Caden that, Hey, listen, we're really going to put this heavy on you because I'm an adult and you're a juvenile. You're going to be taken care of a lot better in the court system than I would. If I get convicted of something, I'm done. You're never going to see me again. Where if you get it, you might be out within a few years. Is that possible?

Yeah. So what does that tell you? She's driving. She's in charge. Oh, yeah. But you wouldn't put it past them because I don't. I mean, we got to give them, I don't want to give them too much credit. They're not geniuses, but you know, it's common sense that juveniles, and we've talked about this before, and we're going to talk about it in this case for sure. Juveniles are handled very differently in the court system. And I know you feel the same way as I do.

It's not the way they should be handled. But these juveniles know that as well. They've seen the precedent that's been set. And here's the thing. There's not a lot known about Caden McIntosh. I could not find anything about him basically online. But I did find a couple things. He was reportedly a homeless teen and he did not have a criminal record. So once

again, this is a person who doesn't even have a home. Okay. And maybe he's thinking, well, if I, if I go down for this as a juvenile, I'll have a roof over my head. I'll have meals in my, in my stomach. And you know what? I don't have a criminal record. So this isn't going to look as if it's a habitual thing, but as a homeless 16 year old with no criminal record, I'm not saying that that Caden is, you know, innocent. Obviously, he's not in any way, shape or form. But I definitely do think he was manipulated to a great deal by Denali. are looking for companionship who may be a little bit misguided or lack some level of understanding of what's going on. And she tries to capitalize on that. And we have two examples of it already with Cece and Caden. They look up to her, I think. She sees that there's this sort of idol worship and she says, how can I use this to my advantage? So yeah, you might look at this case and think maybe Denali just got kind of

lucky in all of this, but maybe she's more put together than we think. And like you said, she's driving. She's driving the car here for sure. Yeah. She's 18. And you might think, oh, she's an 18-year-old girl. How manipulative, how calculating could she be? I have a teenage daughter. I know exactly how manipulative and calculating they can be. Now, my daughter's a bad person, but I mean, they learn how to do that. They learn how to do what they want without their parents finding out. And in order to do that, they have to sort of learn how to be good liars and they have to learn how to be kind of slick. And they have to learn how to be manipulative. My eight-year-old manipulates me now. Exactly. I can only imagine. I'm like,

I'm not going out with you. I'm not riding the bike. And then two minutes later, I'm riding my bike in the middle of the winter. Well, I mean, regardless of what we think at this point, the police have gotten a confession from Caden. His story matches up with Denali's story and it makes him pretty much the only one who did anything wrong. And at this point, it probably seemed like the case was closed, but then it gets so much worse. So once Denali had been identified as a person of interest, the police had obviously taken her iPhone, and I think it was an iPhone 8 Plus. They took it to look through it for evidence that was related to Cynthia's death,

and they found this evidence, but they also found so much more. So while they're going through Denali's phone, the police found evidence of child pornography, and this evidence was found in text messages between Denali and a man who Denali had listed in her phone as Babe. And I wish you guys could see me if you're listening on the podcast, but there's tons of air quotes in this specific episode. And I air quoted Babe. Denali said that this man who she called Babe,

his name was Tyler, and he was a millionaire who lived in Kansas. And I have a tower to sell you in Paris. But anyways, they had met online. And three weeks before Cece's death, allegedly, this man, Tyler from Kansas, he'd made a deal with Denali that if she basically orchestrated the rape and murder of someone in Alaska, he would pay her $9 million. And Denali said, okay. She didn't say no. She didn't say, that's crazy. She didn't block him. She didn't call the police. She said, sure, I can do that for you. And then Denali then

went on to recruit four other teenagers to help her carry this plot out. And she promised to cut them in on the money. Now, we've already talked about one of these teenagers, Caden McIntosh, who was 16. There was also a 19-year-old named Caleb Leland. And Caleb had apparently let Denali and Caden borrow his truck, knowing what they were going to use it for. There's also two other teens that are involved, a juvenile male and a juvenile female. But because that, you know, their minors, their names, their agesors, their names, their ages, and their level of participation in this crime has not been made public. And they are being handled by a completely different system in Anchorage. So they aren't, I don't believe they're going to do or see any prison time.

Right. I will say this. So yeah. So for those of you who don't know, there's obviously the criminal court and then there's family court. So when you have a juvenile commits a crime, even something of this nature, they're handled through the family court, which is completely different process. There's a completely different set of standards.

And I will say that the judge in the criminal proceeding begins with a W. I apologize. I can't remember the name. He was mentioning very recently how he wants to try to keep all these cases concurrent with each other, even though they're different, being handled different. He doesn't want one falling through the cracks or being left behind or one getting too far forward. He's trying to keep all of these offenders on the same track as far as coming to a conclusion in all of their trials around the same time. So that is some good news because

that doesn't always happen. It's difficult to figure out what to think about these other two juveniles that are involved because we don't know what they did. We don't know what part they had in it. Their level of participation, right? But we do know they had some level of participation. They definitely had knowledge that it was going to happen. Enough to be charged. He was also charged for his part in the murder as well as for his alleged sexual abuse of the juvenile female that was involved in this. So it just seems and it gets worse. It just seems like all of these people. I don't I'm not exactly sure what happened, how they were brought together.

But it's just a bunch of bad people who have very low moral standards who found themselves involved with each other. Yeah. And again, it's pure speculation. Like you said, we don't know, but it's probably a situation where, again, this is speculation on my part, where Caleb was possibly, quote unquote, dating this female juvenile. At least she felt that's what it was, a relationship. And as far as their involvement with this, again, Caleb clearly had knowledge. So if this was his, again, quote unquote, girlfriend, she would have maybe known as well. No, they knew.

They knew. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. They knew. I'm just, as far as how much they knew, we, like you just said, we don't know. Do they, do they know the specifics of what happened while they were out there? Doesn't matter. I would assume.

Doesn't matter. Yeah. It doesn't matter. They knew it was going to happen because throughout- They knew beforehand they could have prevented it. Throughout the entire month of May, these five teenagers got together and they fleshed out their murder plot and they all chose Cece together as their victim. So these two juveniles, whoever they are, whatever they did, they knew they could have

told somebody. And this is something that I really want to stress. It's not necessarily that I blame these kids. I blame the way they were raised because you would know better if you'd been raised correctly. And I think I said this in my video that my daughter at whatever age, 14, 13, 16, 12, if somebody had approached her and said, hey, you know, we're going to murder this girl because some millionaire is going to give us $9 million and we're all going to be rich. She would have said absolutely not because she knows that is wrong.

It's wrong to kill somebody. So because my daughter knows the difference between right and wrong, she was able to, she would have been able to sort of, you know, stray away from that. And then she would have told somebody. I don't care what age she was because she has, you know, a heart. And, you know, I don't want to go too hard on these these underage juveniles because I don't know exactly their part. But I do know that if they were aware of what was happening, if they were part of making the plan and choosing Cece as that victim, there's really not much excuse I can make for them. And by the way, we don't know exactly what their charges are, but I can tell you this.

If during the investigation, law enforcement learned that these individuals knew of what was going to happen, but never participated in any way, shape, or form, there still might be something there. They're still culpable. They're still culpable, but it wouldn't be to this level. And I'll tell you why I do think they're being probably charged heavily because I was watching an interview with Timothy Hoffman. He was being interviewed by one of the news anchors out there, KTVA News. And he had just quickly mentioned the juveniles. And he said, oh, one of them is trying to play victim, but I'm not buying it. So,

you know, he's more familiar with the specifics of their involvement. And he was showing no sympathy for them at all. Understandably, I'm completely with you, Timothy. But again, he knows a lot more than we do. And so it does seem like these individuals, these two teenagers, as you mentioned, were involved in the planning and selecting of Cece, which again, is just a whole different level of messed up. And again, at this age, if they are around the age we're thinking they might be, you definitely know right from wrong at that point. Yeah. And I know that there's obviously going to be people out there and they're like, oh, Stephanie and Derek are being so judgy. Oh, well, just because your kid wouldn't kill somebody doesn't mean that everybody's.

No, no, because you're looking at it from the exact wrong perspective. So put yourself in the shoes of a parent whose child was murdered and now put yourself in the shoes of a parent whose child was murdered. And you find out that there was two individuals who could have told somebody and stopped it. So I don't care if they held the gun. I don't care if they were present at the time. They knew, they had knowledge that it was going to happen. Prior knowledge, they could have stopped it. So there's two people out there that could have saved your child's life. Your child would still be with you in your arms and they did nothing. And then imagine how innocent you think they are and imagine how forgiving you would be. So just think about it that way. I was just watching on the news a case in Florida, street racing. I think the kid's 21 years old now,

22. He was just sentenced like a week ago for drag racing in Tampa, Florida. He got 24 years. He was drag racing with his friend and he struck a woman while crossing the road with her infant baby. He killed both of them. He could be a good kid. He might've been a good kid, but he made a bad decision and that decision took two lives. So even though what he did is not nearly what these individuals did, he's being held accountable. And some would argue for not even enough. I know that the woman's husband don't think he got enough time. The max he could have got in Florida would have been 30 years. So he got most of it. But you make a great point. We're not judging these kids on their age. We're judging them on what they did and how it's affected

others. And again, I go back to it. I said it on previous episodes. If you conduct yourself in a manner where a life is lost, I don't see a world where I would look at the information and go, even though you affected someone who can, will never, you know, is no longer with us and their family, I'm going to give you a second chance. I just, I just don't believe in it personally. To me, it depends on the situation, like, but it's very situational, right? So I really have to,

it's very situational. It's complicated. It's definitely not as black and white as I make it seem that I feel it is. But in this situation, to me, it is very black and white. And I'm not saying throw these kids in jail and toss away the key. But I'm saying they need to be held accountable and we shouldn't be acting like they didn't do anything wrong. And I've seen that kind of pop up a couple of times. No, I think they're going to be – I think they got some – well, we will never find out. But based on what I'm reading between the lines, they're being held to a standard that they, you know, listen, we know you guys weren't just simple bystanders.

It seems like they got some issues for sure. They got some problems. Yeah. And we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, I'm going to tell you the real story of what happened that day. The real story of what happened that day, June 2nd, is as follows. So Denali and Caden, they were, as we talked about, already planning to murder Cece. So they tricked Cece and they told her that they were going on a hike.

And then when they got closer to the river, they bound her with duct tape. Now, Cece's father feels that at this point, Cece probably did think it was a game. They probably told her, you know, what they had said to the police. Oh, we're going to play a game. We're going to, you know, tie each other up with duct tape and take pictures. And she was like, oh, that's kind of weird, but I want to be accepted. I want these people to think I'm cool. And if I act weird about this, then they're going to think I'm not cool and I'm not down. So I'm going to go along with this, even though it doesn't feel right to me. So she went along, but this was no game, right? And the reason that Denali brought this gun was because they were planning on killing Cece.

And so, you know, I read that Denali told Caden, you know, take the gun and shoot her because I can't. And then Caden took the gun, shot Cece in the back of the head. And then while this is happening, Denali is taking pictures and videos, which she then sent to Tyler from Kansas using Snapchat. So this is just horrific. She took pictures of, I believe, you know, Cece tied up with the duct tape. She took pictures of, I believe, you know, CeCe tied up with the duct tape. She took pictures and videos of CeCe's body after she was shot in the head and sent them to this freaking asshole who says he's Tyler from Kansas. But surprise, surprise, Tyler from Kansas wasn't named Tyler.

He wasn't from Kansas and he certainly wasn't a millionaire. So this is when they start saying that the Denali was catfished because somebody was lying to her about their name. I personally don't like the catfished thing. No, there's some that kind of paint her like a victim a little bit. Right, yes. You saw that. Yes. Before you even go into that, and we won't call them out, but yeah, I definitely saw it. It pissed me off. Let's go back for a second because we talked about what Denali had told police initially, and the visual that I had was Denali's just

standing there with a gun in her hand, open palm, and Caden comes out of nowhere and just snatches the gun from her hand. And Denali's unexpecting that he's going to do this, but he does. And then he shoots her and Denali's just standing there like, what did you do? That's the picture that she painted to investigators. However, if we're to believe that, if you're to believe that, then you also have to believe that after this occurred and she didn't expect it, she then came back together and said, well, seeing that it happened, I guess I should take some photos and Snapchats and send them to this guy who I had a premeditated conversation with. So again, the two just

don't add up. It's not about us judging Denali. It's not about us, you know, we are judging her. We are judging her. We're not taking a leap here, right? That's what we're trying to say. It's not a leap. It's just what a reasonable person would be led to believe. And I think we're all on the same page that a reasonable person would assume that if this woman, because she is an adult, was comfortable enough to take these types of pictures that you're describing, she probably knew it was coming and it wasn't as much of a surprise to her that Caden shot her as she wants people to believe. I think you're right. And again, it's our opinion. There's nothing to substantiate this, but I'm in the same court as you that I think, I believe Denali handed him the gun and say, hey, now's the time.

She did. I don't think she told them that right away but i think eventually either she or caden said that denali had she was the one with the gun and you know who knows where she even got this gun from too okay because handguns are very difficult to get your hands on uh they're harder than rifles that's for sure yeah much harder yeah at 18 you can get a rifle but a pistol you have to be at least 21. So you're in the court document somewhere. She confesses to directing him to shoot her. Either she did or he said that. He gave her up. But regardless, she has the gun.

She brought it there. Right. She brought it there with that purpose. With the intention, I believe, of shooting Cece herself. And then faced with this, she realized that she wasn't this big badass after all. And she realized that, you know, she's taking a life here. And she's not so much concerned about the life being taken, but she just doesn't want to do it herself, right?

She doesn't want that. That's what she makes it, yeah. So she makes this kid, this 16-year-old kid, who does everything that she says, do it for her. And I'm not saying, once again, that he's innocent in this, because he did it and he had the choice, but you know, she, she definitely, it seems like probably this kid was somebody that she got to do her dirty work, you know, um, and knowing that he was homeless, knowing that he didn't really have a place, he probably felt accepted by her. And so he was

indebted to her almost to think that she took those. I mean, again, as an officer, as a detective, I seen some things and I've always had to photograph the crime scene, you know, after the fact. And obviously what I'm photographing isn't something that as a result of something I did, right. But it's still horrible to see. And it's horrible to have to sit there and document it for, you know, court purposes to think that this girl was doing this i don't know what type of i don't it doesn't say it doesn't speak kindly to her mindset and the type of person she is and this is this is a sick individual it really is it's a sick individual to do this and um

obviously she has to pay for what she did from a criminal person but she definitely needs some help while she's in there because she's clearly got some issues. There's no doubt about it. I mean, this woman would have went on to kill many people if she didn't get caught in this case. There's no doubt in my mind. Really? No doubt in my mind. If she was willing to kill someone for the promise of $9 million, by the way, she didn't get a dollar beforehand. So just the promise of it, she was willing to kill someone like this cold-blooded in the middle of the woods and take photos of it afterwards. Oh, yeah, absolutely. She would do it again.

There's no doubt in my mind, especially if she did get some money for it. Oh, I know, right? Undoubtedly, dude. Yeah, imagine if she did get paid. So yeah, no, this is something that it might have been her first, but if she hadn't been caught, I don't think it would have been her last. Again, my opinion, but I don't think it would have been her last. Oh, if she hadn't been caught, yes don't think it would have been her last. Again, my opinion, but I don't think it would have been her last. Oh, if she hadn't been caught, yes.

That's what I'm saying. I think that, yeah, if she hadn't been caught, probably because she would have felt emboldened. Like, oh, look how easy this was to get away with it. Complete disregard for human life. It's scary. Yeah. And the fact that she took pictures, it's so disgusting to me. And you put that in connection with what both Caden and Denali had said in their first statements to

the police, that when Cece was shot, she was still twitching when Caden put her in the water. So she wasn't even dead. So not only is she shot in the back of the head, but now as she's trying to gasp for air, figuring out what happened to her, stunned, she gets put in the water to drown. And before that happens, while she's gasping for air and twitching on the ground, still clinging on to her last moments of life, this bitch Denali is walking around her taking pictures and video to send to some sick man who's getting off on this? And at the end of the day, what I can't really understand, though, is that apparently, according to Denali and this gentleman who catfished her, catfished in air quotes, they were supposed to plan a rape and a murder. But there was no sign that Cece was sexually assaulted. So I'm not sure, you not sure what Denali was thinking. And maybe this is what caused Tyler from Kansas, that's not even his real name as we discussed, but maybe that's what caused him

later to turn on her because she didn't do everything she said she was supposed to do. That's speculative on my part, but I don't understand why you would be willing to murder somebody and then take pictures and send them to somebody you've never even met. And I do want to talk a little bit about Tyler from Kansas, who is actually 21-year-old Darren Schillmiller. And Darren Schillmiller lived at 8420 Rooster Church Road in Salisbury, Indiana. Now, a further investigation into Darren Schillmiller revealed that he was a person of interest in a 2018 child pornography case. In that case, someone using the same phone number that Darren had used to communicate with Denali, this is his phone number, he contacted a woman who was living in California. And from what I can tell about Darren, he's on a lot of

these dating sites. Okay. And he's not using his real name and he's not using his real picture. He's just using fake names and fake pictures and fake identities. And then he's just contacting these people on dating sites and on the internet and then hitting them with these really weird requests. So in this specific case, he'd contacted this female in California to discuss his fetish with infants. Okay, his fetish with infants. And he also asked this woman to send him pictures of infants, I think her infant, along with pictures of dirty diapers. So this guy is just beyond screwed up in the head. Have you ever run into anything like that before? Not to that extreme, no. Again, I talked to you

about a case a while back that we had, which was a child molester at a daycare, but it wasn't to this extent. Fortunately, I haven't had many cases like this. I, I, that one was, was enough. So no, this is, this is a whole new level of extreme for me. And when, when I was reading it initially, I said, I mean, what type of person, what type of mindset do you have to be in to, to, to, to be sexually gratified by dirty diapers? Right. Because their connection in his head there's a connection to babies and he's sexually aroused by babies so to me and i don't care what anybody thinks about this but to me he needs the electric chair immediately like a stat tomorrow today this minute he needs to be gone i'm sorry yeah is it is it fair for me to say i know we talked about

like rehabilitation and like there's certain situations where someone do we are in agreeance that this is a one and done yeah okay okay this is not all right um okay and we'll come to find too that that this this individual oh my god it makes me so mad he's suffered with this for a long time and every suffered suffered yeah and everybody, that's the way he sees it. This is, this is exactly, he's a victim in his eyes. They always are. I can tell you that they always are. Whenever I've interviewed, you know, assailant suspects who, who've confessed to something

the next, they always follow up with an excuse and how they are a victim of circumstances. It's ridiculous. Sick. Okay. I don't want to find babies and children attractive, but I can't help it. And I want to be different. I want to be better, but I can't be. And I call bullshit on that because if these people genuinely wanted to be better, they would go to somebody. They would go to a therapist and they'd say, listen, this isn't normal. This isn't natural. I don't want to feel this way. Please help me. They would remove themselves from society so they

didn't hurt anybody. But in my opinion, they don't care about who they hurt. They don't care about how many children they abuse. And half the time, how many children they abuse and then kill so that they're not caught. Because that is why these people, these men usually, they kill their child victims because they've sexually assaulted them and they don't want to get caught. So they just kill them after they're done using them for their own twisted pleasure. So this isn't a thing where it's, oh, I'm sick. If you're sick, you go to the doctor and you get help.

You did not do that. So clearly you don't consider yourself to be sick. Yeah. No, I mean, and again, I'm not saying that individuals don't suffer from ailments that may manipulate and may contort their mindset. But to your point, it's still at the end of the day, a decision, right? You can understand this individual, like you just said, oh, I didn't want to feel that way, but you knew what you were feeling was wrong and you still acted upon it so guess what it's still on you you know and and so i'm not saying that there's not some reality to the thought of like the the fact that he finds this sexually gratifying there's not something there that needs to be looked into but the the decision to act upon it is still a a conscious decision that you're making so yeah i don't have any sympathy for for him or people like and i'm aware that this um there's a burgeoning school of thought where child rapists are still people too and they just need help. And we need to be understanding and everybody's sexual preferences are different. There's literally people out there who defend pedophiles. And I will never be in your school of thought. I will never be on your same page. I will never be on your side when it comes to that ever. So stop trying to convince me that this is normal because, oh, somebody the other day, I think it was a couple of weeks ago, said, you know, back in ancient Rome, that men

were having sex with children all the time. And and what does that mean for me today? We're not in ancient Rome. This is 2021. We're a civilized society, okay? We don't send our sons to go become soldiers at the age of four. We don't do things that way anymore and there were sick people back then too. So that doesn't make it right because it happened then for it to happen today.

I did want to mention something about Darren Schoenmiller because apparently in this small Indiana town that he lived in, I think it was called Salisbury. There's only about 600 people that live there. It was kind of like a well-known secret that he was into this stuff. And it makes me so mad because one of the local papers in Alaska, they actually interviewed people. And we're going to talk about that next time. But they actually interviewed people that had grown up with Darren. And all these people were like, oh, I don't know. Like, we definitely knew he had a problem. And he was definitely always like asking people for pictures of their kids. But we just thought it was, you

know, not going to escalate. So nobody ever did anything. And that pisses me off, like beyond belief. There is no world where a grown ass man is going to ask me for pictures of my children. And I know what he's asking me for those pictures for. And I'm not like on the phone with the FBI stat. No, I listen. You and I may not agree on a lot on everything. People are quick to point that out. You don't think we agree on a lot. No, we do agree. We definitely I can tell you, we definitely agree on this. And before we continue, let's take one last break and we'll get back into it. Okay, so let's talk about Darren Schillmiller a little bit more.

And I specifically want to go back to that 2018 child pornography case. So we have our victim of this case, CeCe Hoffman. She dies in 2019 because he directed somebody to do this to her. And just the year prior, he'd been closed and no charges were brought against Darren, which I guess in hindsight was not the right move because Darren Schillmiller has a child porn fetish. And this is something that he admitted to. So after Denali and her band of murdering teens killed Cece, Darren obviously didn't pay her $9 million. According to him, after Denali and Caden killed Cece, Denali and Darren began to plan a second murder.

And this is why I said that I think that he was mad that Denali hadn't raped and murdered Cece. I think that what he really wanted, what are those films called? Snuff films? Yes. You know, where they're illegal, they're horrible. So these snuff films, they're very dark,

but basically the point of them is that there's sexual arousal connected to like death and usually some sort of gory death. And I don't know about you, but I would consider being shot in the back of the head incredibly gory and just horrible. So I think he really wanted this murder in collaboration with the sexual assault because that's what he gets off on. But she didn't do that. So maybe that's why they're now planning the second murder because now she's got to keep her end of the deal to get her $9 million. And I don't know what she said. And I think a lot more of this is going to come out in the trial. But I'm not sure how she responded to the second murder,

but she was planning it with him. And then at some point, he decided to blackmail Denali, using the knowledge of what she had done to Cece to get her to sexually assault two minor girls. One of these girls was eight or nine years old and the other was 15. And then Denali sent him pictures and videos of these acts, basically doing to these girls exactly what he told her to do. Now, Denali told police during one of her interviews that at Darren's direction, she'd taken a video of the first minor. This is the one who's eight or nine years old. And she had taken the video with the girl's legs spread apart and her genitalia visible. She then sent these videos to Darren. There were many texts exchanged between Denali, Darren, even the 15-year-old victim. And we are

not going to get into them today. We're going to save that for the next part. But you should really brace yourselves because I'm going to read them to you. They're incredibly disturbing. But keep in mind that this is after Denali has killed Cece, after Darren has blackmailed her into doing these horrible things to actual children.

And when you hear the text, I want you to tell me if you feel Denali sounds like someone who's being forced to do something against her will, if you feel like Denali sounds like somebody who's afraid or who's being blackmailed. I mean, I don't disagree that she was being blackmailed, but I also think that there was a part of her that enjoyed what she was doing. And that will become clear when we read the text. And I know you haven't read the text, Derek, yet. I told you not to because I wanted to get your reaction in real time. But I actually got these from an affidavit in support of criminal complaint

for Darren Schoenmiller. And this was not available online. I actually have a site that I use or a service that I pay for so I can get these federal cases because usually some of these federal cases aren't available to the public for free. You have to go on and kind of search for them. And I was happy I found this, but at the same time, very disturbed. I was happy because it gave me more information and more insight into the case that I hadn't had before. I was also glad to sort of have an insight into the specifics, but at the same time, reading those texts, I do a lot of true crime stuff. I see a lot of gory stuff. I see a lot of horrifying stuff. This just, it sent me, it was hard. So we are going to read those next time. The thing about it for me, again, it's all horrible in and of

itself, but to put this in context of, or I should say the chronological order in which it's taking place, to think that these two individuals are having these types of conversations and carrying out these types of acts after they have already killed someone. It's just, again, it's not hard to fathom because I've dealt with it since I was 20 years old as a detective, but it never gets easier to understand because it's not something that a normal person would do. But to think that they just carried out this act against Cece and she had already know, she, she had already been found at that point. She was found two days later. So they've, they've already got her out of the river and, and, and Denali and, and, and, and Darren are well aware of that. And yet they're not as

concerned with being apprehended for that crime. They're more concerned about fulfilling Darren's fetish, you know, and, and, and, and I'm sure that Darren presented it to her as, you know, oh yeah, you, you, you know, you killed her. You sent me those photos, but you didn't sexually assault her. So that's why I'm not paying you. You need to make up for it. Because you need to make up for it. I was going to pay you. I had the money ready to go. And yet you didn't fulfill your end of the bargain. So, you know, basically everything you did with CC is null and void. It didn't count. And you got, and you got to try again. Can you imagine that?

That's the conversation like, Hey, listen, that wasn't enough. And we both know that Darren still got gratification out of those photos that he was, he seen on Snapchat, but he wasn't going to tell her that he probably made it seem like to deny, like she completely failed him. Um, and to just to think that that was the conversations that were happening after this event, it's just, it's really hard to fathom. Well, here's what I also wondered. So remember, they found Cece two days later, but they also reported that Caden and Denali had burned some of Cece's clothes as long as well as her personal ID. So I almost wonder, and they haven't made this public yet, but I'm sure that a lot will come

out during the trial. I almost wonder if they had taken off her pants or something and taken photos of her like that, because why would she be wearing some of her clothes and they had some of her clothes? and it doesn't make sense because I really think that this Darren guy would have instructed Denali to do something like that. So they haven't said whether she was found with her clothes on or off or with some of her clothes on or off. But to me, when I hear that they burned some of her clothes, I'm wondering why those clothes weren't on her, which suggests that they took them off. And that's why they burned them, because there was evidence on there that connected them

to CeCe's murder. I don't think it's a far reach. I mean, I always heard this saying from Dr. Chris Mohandy, you know, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And you talk about that incident, and I believe you said it was in California, 2018. So that's before CeCe's murder and what he was looking for in that, right? Like what he was trying to get out of that. And then you have the situation with CeCe where, yes, there was a murder, but to your point, that's not what he wanted. And he made that very clear to Denali before the murder. So I hope it wasn't

the case, but if we end up learning that it was, I don't think either one of us or probably anybody listening or watching this would be surprised either based on what he did before CeCe's murder and also what he had Denali do after. Exactly. Right. What would suggest that the middle, the one in the middle would be any different. And those are the only, by the way, those are only the three that we know of. What don't we know that he's conducted? Maybe not with someone else, but on his own. What types of sites has he visited?

What type of things has he used to sexually gratify himself in the past? It's not a far fetch to say that with Cece, something similar was done. And I said this in my YouTube video about it last year. I said, I have a hard time believing that Denali was the first person he had connected with that he was having these sorts of conversations with. So who knows what else is out there? Because like people find like people. And there were so many other women that he had approached and asked for things and they were like, no. But how many did he approach where they were like, okay, let's go down this path? So I'm not saying that that necessarily went to fruition or anything would come from that. But how many other

conversations did he have with other women out there in the world where he was like, oh, I want you to murder someone and rape someone for me and send me pictures. And they were like, okay, let's go along with this. Maybe they didn't go through with it like Denali did, but I can't imagine that this was his first time. No. And I will tell you guys this, because I know some of you are probably going to listen to this or watch it, and then you're going to go search it just to give you an update on where this case is because there hasn't been a conclusion yet, right? This case is one of the issues with it is it keeps getting prolonged. It keeps getting delayed. They're still in the discovery process. And obviously that's just the exchanging of evidence. So the prosecution is presenting evidence to the defense team, allowing them time

to prepare for it. And I can tell you that as of the last update, the next hearing is April 28th, which we mentioned at the beginning, but they just had one, I believe in January. And at that hearing- January of 2020. Yep. January of 2020, they had one. I could tell you that prosecutors just presented 56 gigabytes of material to the defense team. And just to put that in a perspective so you can understand it, it's approximately 100,000 pages. So to your point, Stephanie, there's so much we don't know. And I'm assuming a lot of this documentation that they turned over are probably forensic cyber analysis of Darren's

computers, the websites he's gone to, his hard drives, and all of that is going to give a very clear picture of the type of person Darren is based on his web search history and what type of files he's downloaded and saved to his computer. Fascinating stuff. It's going to 100,000 pages. Think about that. Yes. Actually, when the prosecution handed the defense that much information, the judge even was like, wait, what's going on? Why is there so much information? And the prosecution, I believe it was the ADA who said it, he was like, well, just 60,000 of these pages would be from one cell phone

extraction. 60,000 of the 100,000 would be from one cell phone extraction. So I can't imagine what else is out there. And if it gets worse than what we have and what we're going to get into next time. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck to Darren and his team defending that one. I think they'll try. Of course. Of course they will. Because he's pled not guilty. We just didn't want to leave you guys hanging. He's pled not guilty.

Oh, yeah. Yes. Because his argument is basically that he wasn't even in the state at the time of the murder. So how could he be held accountable for it? And we've already gone over the reasons why he would be. But again, like you said, they're going to try to defend it. And I think, is it okay for me to say that because we have the next discovery hearing coming up, which we won't learn much about the case, it'll still just be another hearing, it would be great for us. I think we can do it too, where part two of this, which will be next week, will probably be the final part of this. This was probably going to be a two-parter, right? Is that fair to say? Yes. And I want to comment on Darren's defense where he said he can't be

responsible because he wasn't even in the state. Right. I think that's, I'm not even saying that's what he's saying, but it sounds like that's the direction they're going. Either that or, you know, I'm a mental insanity defense. Like, I have an illness. I have a sickness. I'm not in control of myself. But Charles Manson was put in prison and he

never, you know, killed any of those victims, although I do believe he killed people. He still went to prison for that. Michelle Carter, who talked her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, into killing himself, she still went to prison for that. Not for as long as she should have, in my opinion. And that's another case that has just a plethora of text messages to go through and feel more and more disgusted every when you read. But you are still responsible. Your words have power. You're culpable for that. So just because you think that and everybody has free will. I don't I don't disagree that Denali could have said no, but she didn't say no. And you were the one who sent her down that path. Not that she's

any more innocent, but he's he's culpable. But we'll pick that up next time. We'll have a good discussion about it. I agree. Till next week. Okay. Until next week. But in the meantime, if you want to keep up with what we're doing, follow us on Instagram, follow us on Twitter, go to crimeweeklypodcast.com, leave us a speak pipe message, let us know in the speak pipe message what you think about this. Even go ahead and make a rating for podcasts, right? If you're listening, give us a five-star rating and then tell us what you think about the case, but make sure it's accompanied by a five-star rating because it would really help us out. I agree. We'll see you guys next week. Bye.