Hidden True Crime - UNLV Shooting: Who is Anthony Polito? What can we learn about mass shooters? (with Psychologist Dr John Matthias)

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

On December 6, 2023, a mass shooting occurred at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Three people were killed, and three additional people were wounded. Two of the wounded were police officers. The perpetrator was killed in a shootout with police. DR. JOHN MATTHIAS is an adjunct professor at UNLV. He is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with 30 years’ experience in both clinical and forensic work. He serves as an expert witness for the federal government and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases for District Attorney’s offices and defense attorneys in several states. In the forensic area, Dr. Matthias has developed expertise in personality assessments, hidden behavioral motivations, complex trauma and criminal psychology. In the clinical realm, he has worked with numerous victims. He received his Master’s degree in Marriage, Family and Child counseling, as well his doctorate degree, from the University of Southern California. Dr. Matthias graduated with honors in philosophy from Princeton University, and he won the prestigious McCosh Thesis prize while there. In high school he graduated valedictorian from a large public high school in Chicago where he was chosen to participate in a ground-breaking valedictory study that continues to this day. LAUREN MATTHIAS worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah. In 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award. She left the reporting world to produce the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. She is a frequent contributor for News Nation. Your support helps us produce these podcasts/videos. We have some big plans to explore the true crime terrain in a way that no one else has attempted. HIDDEN: A TRUE CRIME PODCAST is: CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY REINVENTED. Join us on a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind and the unconscious motivations that drive human behaviors in order to understand the world and ourselves. TO SUPPORT: https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Matthias, who also happens to be my amazing husband. And we have missed all of you. As many of you know, we did not go live last week. And we have been dealing with a lot in our house. And so thank you for our patients. But we just really wanted to see all of you tonight. Let us know if there's anything wrong with our sound throughout the night or any technical difficulties. I think today we've got it. And I also think that tonight might be a smaller group. And we welcome that. I've even slowed down the chat a little bit, but I can even speed it up.

So we're so excited to hear from all of you tonight and are looking forward to this discussion despite the difficult topic. And then I'm going to say this from my husband. He has not been feeling well. we have had COVID in our house and while he can show up, that doesn't mean he necessarily can't avoid coughing. So we're going to try to mute when we can, but please understand we're doing our best or he's doing his best. Go ahead, babe.

Yeah, no guarantees against a coughing spell. But I've been okay the last few hours, so I'm optimistic. I'll try to hold it together here for an hour, hour and a half. So thank you for coming tonight. I think, let me just start by mentioning that I lost my mother on November 27th, and we've been grieving that. And then on December 6th, there was a mass shooting at UNLV, and I am an adjunct faculty member at UNLV,

so I kind of felt like that was another reason to grieve that I didn't know the victims, but I've been an adjunct professor for 17 years, and I certainly feel a lot of kinship with UNLV professors and the college. And so that was another bit of a shock. It's been a bit of a difficult time. But I think it'll help to deal with this process by talking about some of it and specifically talking about the perpetrator or I guess the alleged perpetrator. I think there's no question we know who did it.

But tonight we'll talk about mass shootings and mass murderers a little bit. and specifically about Anthony Polito, who was the UNLV shooter. I know it's somewhat controversial to talk about the names of shooters these days, that there's some belief that by talking about them, that it creates attention for the shooters, and it potentially contributes to their fame. But the other side of that, and that's the side I generally take, is that I think it's useful to kind of do a post-mortem analysis of these shootings,

to really examine how and why we got there so that we can engage in some prevention to avoid future shootings. I'm not sure if that could have been prevented here, but I think it's always worth having a discussion thinking about why these events occur and what can be done to prevent them in the future. I agree. I think a discussion does need to be done in order or many discussions, which we always have here at Hidden True Crime, if we are going to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again or be able to see something. So I agree. And despite talking about Anthony Polito, we certainly want to start with the victims and honoring them and acknowledging them. All of them were faculty members. So as I mentioned, I feel a lot of kinship, even though I'm only an

adjunct professor, I certainly have a great deal of sympathy towards all professors at UNLV. So I'm I'm quite filled with sorrow over the events that transpired on the sixth. Yes, right. It was very heavy. And I want to say this, too, this is not the first time a Las Vegas shooting has affected our family. And this is the second major mass shooting that Las Vegas has seen in six years. The Mandalay Bay shooting that occurred in 2017. There's a story there as well.

We were living in Utah, and I was a TV. Porter in Utah and we had a three-month-old baby boy. And John was actually working in Las Vegas, our little baby who we love so very much. It was a very colic baby and our first. And I was not sleeping at all. Nobody was sleeping. I think John was finally sleeping in Las Vegas because he were working in Las Vegas, but I was not. And I had just gone back to work weeks before after maternity leave and I was really nervous. This is my first time doing this. And I was on really autopilot. as a TV reporter and I had just laid down. I think I had a couple hours of sleep and I got a call at 4 a.m.

in the morning. I was in Utah. I was my Utah station calling me and they said, get up. You're working for Las Vegas today. It was when, you know, it was the biggest mass shooting in this modern history in our country. And I got up and I had been at this concert, the concert the year before myself. So I got up and I was frantic. Again, I was on autopilot.

I wasn't thinking about anything about the fact that I was, to be leaving my baby behind. It was just so strange. So I called as nanny. And I said, you've got to come over early. I've got to go. And I was driving, you know, on the, on the freeway delirious. They said, you're working for Las Vegas today and Utah, Las Vegas, Utah. And all of a sudden, I'm in Las Vegas and I'm, you know, pumping in the back of a news car. And John is in Las Vegas. And our newborn that we waited so long was alone in Utah. And it was the most, it was so traumatic, what we were experiencing and it was actually that day that I decided I probably wasn't going to be the reporting working mother that I ever thought I thought I was going to be and I decided that day that it was probably that I wanted to be done reporting full time. But I did it for another nine months until we found a good time to quit. But that was really that affected us too a lot. And so it did feel a little bit like, oh, here we go again when December 6th happened. And luckily there were fewer fatalities, but it was so reminiscent for our family. So it struck very close to home.

With that in mind, understanding why we are covering this particular crime and why it's so important, John, why don't you share your initial thoughts? And what happened to? You're in charge of John's the journalist on this case as well tonight, not me. So you've been on some local Las Vegas news, and so you've done the journalist aspect as well. I mean, the main insights are that he, Anthony Polito, who's 67 years old, he appears to have entered campus with a specific, he actually had a target list of a number of victims that were at UNLV that he was probably trying to find.

But for whatever reasons, he entered Beam Hall and that's where his victims were located. Beam Hall is sort of in the middle of campus. And it's actually not far from the clinical psychology program, by the way, as an aside, but you can see it from the clinical psychology program. but he, I don't know the specific details of how he located the victims. What I do know is that the victims that he found and killed were not on his list. I also know that fortunately the police were able to locate him and subdue him before he killed other people because he had 150 rounds of ammunition, that he had way more ammunition that could have killed a lot more people.

I do know also that when the police located him, he opened fire on the police and they were turned fire. fire and they killed him. So we were fortunate in the sense that there were many fewer fatalities than may have been anticipated given the fact that he entered in an unassuming fashion and nobody knew what he was up to. And he had a list that included many people. His target list also included members of the East Carolina University faculty in North Carolina as well, which obviously he wasn't in a position to find locate and many of those people, thankfully. People are already commenting on his age. Yes, this was a 67-year-old professor who targeted fellow professors. So this is unusual. It's not what we think, right? That is

surprising. Yeah. Or do you want to get to that? Yeah, well, I think we'll talk about that a lot. Actually, you know, it's interesting that the shooting you mentioned that occurred at the Mandalay Bay at the Harvest Festival was Stephen Paddock and he was age 64. So both of the mass shootings that have occurred in Las Vegas have involved older adults, which is somewhat unusual. Although, as we'll talk about it a little bit, the pathology is, I think there's a lot of overlap in the pathology, at least from a psychological standpoint. And the person who I really like, whose research I really like and follow, who's talked a lot about mass shootings and school shootings is Peter Langman. Peter Langman is a psychologist in Pennsylvania. I actually attended a half-day webinar he gave about six months ago, and it was excellent.

So Langman has done a really careful analysis of nearly every mass shooter that has some details from the case are available. And he's, I think he's probably identified the most clear-cut patterns of mass shooters. And so we'll be talking about his research a little bit. And also what distinguishes, you know, Langman has talked about similarities and differences between, say, adolescent shooters and older adult shooters. And I have some thoughts on that, too, that Langman has not talked about. So it is unusual. So maybe we should start, should we start talking about it?

Well, do you want me to read a really great comment we got on our Facebook page really quickly? Sure. All right. I shared that we were going to be doing this story. And I shared a local story that you participated in and shared that we'd be sharing more soon. And I want to say that Karen Rose, our listener, wrote this, I live with someone who is an older teacher, 63. At a community college, it's such a youth-oriented culture.

And he worries a lot about what would happen if he ever lost his job. Could he get hired anywhere else? I get it. After always getting interviews and almost always getting the job I tried for, I stopped getting contacted for interviews at the age of 54. This is when I tried to get a new job after being in the same one for years. It was a terrible feeling to realize your chances to become reemployed might lessen. No murderous impulses, though.

Yeah. I don't know if that comes up right away, but I did want to bring that out just some thoughts that were the people have been having. I think there, you know, I think he has a point here or she, Karen has a point here that, in terms of looking at Anthony Polito, that academic institutions, certainly with the exception of tenured professors that are kind of brand names, academic institutions, institutions definitely look to hire younger professors and professors that have a research agenda that they can develop over a period of years and get grants and that sort of stuff.

And so that makes perfect sense to me that most universities want to focus on hiring and developing and nurturing younger talent. I mean, that would be the future of their departments. And so one of Polito's frustrations, maybe his biggest frustration, was that he wasn't able to find employment at Nevada colleges or universities, including UNLV, and then he was repeatedly rejected. And, you know, if he does have a point, I think it's probably true that universities are less likely to hire a 67-year-old who is essentially more or less semi-retired. And he was a tenured professor at East Carolina University from 2001 to 2017. So I think it

appears to me, I don't have the details here, but it appears to me that he was forced out of the CU. And then he moved to Las Vegas in 2018. He found a job as an adjunct professor at Roseman University, which is in Las Vegas. He worked there from 2018 to 2022. The reason he worked in their MBA program, which was discontinued. And so he lost his job essentially in 2022. And then he was unable to find another job. And so his argument is that he was discriminated against because of his age on merit, that his argument essentially was, and this comes from his letters, which we'll get to in a minute, but he had the talent and the experience and the wisdom to teach, and why wasn't he being hired? And he was arguing that a lot of it had to do with his age.

I mean, he was bringing in a lot of other factors, but I don't know, you know, I don't know. I think it's a complicated issue. I think it's probably not just education or academics that is less likely to hire someone of 67. It's probably most companies in general, these days. So I don't think there's any specific discriminatory practices here. Some of it depends on the department you're applying to. Some of it depends on the needs of that department, right? Some of it depends on people they've hired. You know, there's a lot of variables. So I don't, I clearly don't think it's, I clearly don't think it's probably more difficult for an older adult to find a teaching job at his age. But clearly, this type of response is unexpected and unusual. This is certainly

an outlier. I mean, obviously, there's other ways to deal with that. There's other ways to find work if he needs it. Yeah, Natalie states that this guy felt like he was wronged, but he was forced out of a previous position, and we might wonder why that was also. Right. Right. Exactly. Why did he even, why was he forced out? So, yeah, there's a lot there. Well, I think you start getting some sense of that when you look at his letters. So before he was subdued by police on, you know, campus. He had submitted 22 letters to various people. We're not going to mention those people's names, a lot of respect for their privacy, but we actually were able to get a copy of some of his letters and his writing. And this is clearly someone who is a little bit idiosyncratic to say

the least. But let's start with, let me start with just the rage in these letters. I mean, this isn't, This isn't someone who's angry. This is someone who's enraged by his inability to find jobs. And everywhere this guy looks, there's a grievance. He's been wronged. He's the victim. And it's just all over his writing. Almost every sense of writing.

Before you begin, let me just explain that these letters, you know, we have all of the letters. And they will be on Patreon right after this live concludes if you want to see all of the letters. We have them. I also want to thank everyone that's here. If you could hit like and subscribe, that means so much. Thank you for your super chats and thank you for your questions. I'm starring a lot of them to ask John at a later time. So thank you for your great questions. Go ahead with these letters, John. Let me just read. I'm going to read the first sentence of the first letter. Again, I'm not going to mention the names of the targets of these letters, but this will just give you a flavor. Like this first sentence of the first letter really conveys so much, but I'm going to read this.

Again, this is one of the Polito letters. He's sending these to people that he's clearly, he has grievances with. He says, quote, and he starts with, so the first word should be your as in Y-O-U-A-R-E. He spells it U-R. And the reason I note that, by the way, is because the writing in these letters is not particularly good, number one. For somebody who calls himself Dr. 160 IQ or 160 IQ, so he refers to himself, by his IQ. Supposedly this guy has a 160 IQ. That, by the way, we can debate because there's questions I have about that. But let's just for the moment, let's just go with that.

But his internet test said it, his internet IQ test that he printed out one day. Yeah, his right. Yeah, his internet test said that he had an IQ 160. So clearly he does. But he refers to himself in these letters as IQ 160 or Dr. 160 IQ, which by By the way, he sees as a badge of honor, he sees as a sign of his superiority. So he takes his IQ to be clearly indicative of the fact that us normal human beings are inferior and we don't have his IQ, therefore we need to bow down to him in some sense or at least acknowledge his superior intelligence. So first of all, I think it's important to note that he equates his intelligence with self-worth.

And that's all he sees self-worth as consisting of. And obviously that's a problem because he doesn't factor in emotions. He doesn't factor in social intelligence. He doesn't factor in relationships. Most psychologists would tell you, I would be the first among those to say that IQ is a very limited picture of a complete human being. So I think he's making a, he's kind of showing us, number one, what he values.

he's showing us his insecurities around his IQ. Because also people that kind of tell you how smart they are, typically, that's total insecurity. They're saying that to cover up the fact that they don't feel that smart and they probably aren't that smart. But he's also using that as an indicator of his personhood, that he's seen that as, you know, representative of who he is. And in a way, that's kind of sad. But as as Tiff Knox states it more like doctor.

I can't read a room. And McSpunky suggests he just buy a Corvette, bro. Yeah, right. I agree with the Corvette comment. Yeah, just buy the Corvette and get it out of your system, dude. Like, you know, don't, instead of murdering people, get the vet, feel better about yourself. I recommend that he put a decal on the side that says Dr. 160 IQ, if that makes him feel better, right? Because that's his thing.

I don't know. So anyway, let me just read. I'm going to read from this first letter. Again, it's you are, not your, not a normal. First red flag. Yeah, first red, always a red flag. By the way, his PhD from the University of Georgia was an operations management. He also received an MBA from Duke University.

So his specialty is business, clearly not English. But I'll read this, quote, your, your, you are, your, S for brains, unionized third here, Dean Fratboy and his crew at ECU criminally forced about 18 tenured faculty of age to abandon their tenure using straight-up line paperwork and line students and threats to destroy their health care by firing them. And then he ends that same, this is the end of that same letter. He ends it by saying, keep screwing over faculty, keep sowing the wind and keep reaping the whirlwind. And then he ends with, he ends every one of these, these letters with capish. He spells capish, by the way, with a K.

Capish is spelled with a C. So clearly not an English major. But this, I think this starts giving you a little sense of these letters are just completely filled with rage. I'm going to read a few other sentences from some of these letters. Yeah. And really quick, someone's asking who these letters are to. These are two other professors that he had grievances with. they were collected by police.

They were mailed the day before or the day of what happened. The day of, the morning of. The day of the morning of. And so police went out and they were able to get all of these letters. They did not have a return address on them. And I just want to say that I have seen these letters. Again, we can't post them publicly because they are so bad. But we will post them uncensored on our Patreon account after this.

But you are skipping the worst because. we can't say what is in here publicly. Go ahead, John. Share a few other things. Yeah, let me just read snippets from some of these letters to give people a sense of who this guy is. Here's another part of this is written to another person who I won't identify. This is the last sentence of that particular letter. Quote, now you know you are a big, fat, arrogant nobody. Nobody's in caps. you where you belong term

Kapish question mark again he ends everything with capish question mark which is I guess in this case is like an exclamation point about how he's superior and he wants you to understand his point of view or he's reinforcing the idea

apparently that his point of view is superior but the you are where you belong by the way so he doesn't have a verb in there it's just you where you belong And again, this is somebody with a 160 IQ who lets us know how smart he is. Like doesn't have a very good understanding of grammar or use of grammar. In fact, one of the interesting things about these letters is how poorly written they are and how the sentences are to a large extent fragmented.

That I see a lot of this, not only as thoughts, but the writing tends to be very fractured. And I think that's, to me, that's really important because it really starts giving us a glimpse into the mind of this guy. I think that you're seeing a mind here that's very fractured. You're seeing a mind that's very split and fragmented, that he can't develop kind of a cohesive account of himself. And I think that'll be an important point. We'll get to you later.

But there's a real, what I would call a failure, identity failure. I think there's a real failure here to really form kind of this coherent sense of who he is. And you can see that in the writing. The writing is just. all these expletives and this, it just filled with rage. I think of Gary Gilmore, Norman Mallor's Executioner's song that was put to death in Utah. Gary Gilmer had a famous quote, which is murders vent rage, that almost all murders to some

degree, maybe not all, but many murders have this underlying component of rage. So I think, and that's a point that Langman makes, by the way, about mass shooters and mass murderers, that rage is really one of the key elements that sets. the stage for mass murder. If you don't have this underlying rage, a lot of times you're not going to get to the point where you're going to act on that, or you're not going to get to the point we're going to act so viciously. So here in these letters, you see this underlying theme of rage. It's a motif across every single one of these. It's just so prevalent and so deep with this guy. A lot of people are saying, a lot of people are even mentioning this reminds them of Brian

Koberger a little bit sort of. Yeah, right. Exactly. That's a good point. Speaking of Kohlberger, In that first sentence I read about everyone lying and students' line and everyone out trying to get him and destroy him, there's paranoia there too. So in addition to the rage, you sort of have this underlying paranoia, you have a lot of grandiosity with the IQ and how smart he is. And the way he talks about people, you also have this trait of callousness, which we've talked about how callousness can be a really prominent trait. in psychopaths. So I'm not saying this guy's a psychopath. I don't know his history. I wouldn't diagnose that.

But you definitely see this element of a lack of empathy and callousness in these letters. Yeah. Yeah. To say the least. Other people are mentioning it reminds them of Elliot Roger as well, sort of a manifesto. Yeah. We can get back to that in a little bit. I starred their comment because it was good.

So we can get back to that. Let me just pick up on a few more of, let me give you a little bit more of a flavor of this guy's writing. Again, this is another person. This is another letter. He starts with you, not while you, you, as in the letter you, which. And again, I mean, this, he sounds like I sound when I'm texting my friends. Yeah. You know, but that's one thing.

I'm not a professor nor calling myself Dr. I one whatever IQ. Yeah, Dr. Ike. Dr. 160 IQ. It's a really peculiar thing. You know, I don't know, maybe I can make an argument that he's in a hurry. You know, he's trying to, maybe he's trying to get these letters written because he's planned these acts and maybe he feels like he doesn't have time. But, I mean, the way they're written, he's not including verbs.

It's not well written. It's not well done. But anyway, so quote, this is, he starts with you, capital you, not while you. You just. Again, there's no R. There's no verb. Normal people would say, you are just.

He starts with, You just, quote, You just, a smart mouth, do nothing, caustic, spoiled, rich brat kid, moron,

C word. And again, you, capital you, you just bully, beat down everybody or flirt your skirt to get ahead,

to get somebody to write all your papers. I'm going to continue with a few more snippets from the same letter. Quote, you and again, you, not Y OU. You just a lazy, no talent, no brain think you entitled, scold. Skold is in caps. Yeah, you are, and again, not YOU, you are scold in caps. I'll continue with a few more snippets to give a flavor for what we're dealing with here.

Please go on. This is another person, another letter. quote, destroy life, B schools, don't hire old professors and less buddy system. I'm like, what? Okay. I mean, this is his writing. There's no verbs. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

Continues. Thrown to the street after a lifetime of good work, tenure earned the last 10 years of work and pay before planned retirement stolen. So he's in this particular. one, he's telling us what his grievance is, that he had 10 years, that his life's work was thrown away, his retirement was stolen, essentially. So presumably, I don't know, you know, presumably this is someone whose finances were in shambles. And these letters seem to indicate that maybe he lost his retirement. I can't confirm that. But so there could certainly be some financial grievances here, too. Lemisa wants to know if he's using Siri to voice

his text. It's a great question. But somebody else wants to know, too, if this could be some disorganized thinking of sorts. Yes. I think it's by sphernia or disorganized speaking, or is this just someone that probably doesn't have a professor job for a reason? Some of it could be scary. That's true. Some of it could be dictated. I've explained some of it. But even if you dictate, normally you'll go in and double check. I mean, the best way to describe it is that the writing is not super coherent. It's what I would call fractured. And I think to me, that kind of shows a bit of a fractured mind that this is someone who, he can't, he's struggling to get it together, but he can't. I don't know if that means that there's some type of psychosis here or thought disorder, but

I wouldn't go that far. But certainly this is someone who's not at the top of his game in terms of putting together a coherent argument. Yeah. Well, Steph is mentioning that Siri actually has an IQ of 161, so it wouldn't be Siri. And the other people mentioned, Siri wouldn't spell you with just the letter. They would actually... That's true. Someone else is asking if these letters were typed or handwritten. That's a good question.

I believe they were typed. At least we are seeing them typed. Yeah. They seem to be typed. I don't think they were handwritten. But I don't know for sure. We just have the type. I believe they were typed.

Yeah. Here's another person, another targetless person, quote, you. And again, you is not while you. There's no U-R here. I think Siri would pick up on U-R, by the way. Yeah. You just a corrupt little, little is not L-I-T-T-L-E, little is L-I-L. You just a corrupt little, little pile of dumbass, amoral backwards, fifth-tier hillbillies.

Next time, try something refreshing, hiring on merit. Capiche. Here's again, another person, quote, you, and again, same thing, just to you. you nothing but a self-serving, arrogant line numbsco with four crap average regional JD degree and no moral compass whatsoever. Someday God will see you choke on your dumbass pronouns. Capish? Question mark.

You know, somebody mentioned that this reminds themselves, minus the rage, of when they're in a manic phase. Could this be a little bit of manic writing all these two? Or is that not something you want to get to? Yeah, that's interesting. I wouldn't know enough to, I mean, there could be, sure, there could be some mania here. It does feel a little like that, or you could say maybe there's kind of an obsessive quality here in the sense that this is clearly someone who has grievances that he just, this is, you know,

grievances that are a decade old or more that he just can't resolve. He's going back to these grievances over and over and over again. And that brings me, by the way, that brings me to another element of Langman's research, which is what Langman, Peter Langman calls, extreme reactivity. And so extreme reactivity is when someone feels like a victim and when they feel like they have to seek vengeance. So obviously this guy feels very victimized and there's very much a sense here in which I think he's seeking vengeance, that he wants vengeance. So I think in that sense, there's something that I sometimes refer to as I talked about this with Kohlberger, right? It's called

murder by proxy. And the idea is that by murdering a professor or multiple professors, He's also, in his mind's eye, he's murdering all his intended targets. In other words, he's murdering the whole class of professors. Anyone who's a professor, he sees as someone that he has a grievance with. And so murder by proxy is essentially taking this class of professors that he sees who wronged him or these school administrators, these college administrators who have wronged him, and it's seeking revenge by going out and doing what he did, which is murdering specific professors that he doesn't know.

for him in many ways in his mind's eye that's sufficient because he's he's taking he's he's seeking vengeance against a broad group of people and so even if he can't reach his intended targets he feels like he's doing that that makes sense in other words that's why he didn't need these targets he needed to get this out and tell them what he thought but then he did this to someone else or someone with their job to say by proxy okay that's helpful a lot of people are asking about that. Like did why why not the actual targets? Why did he write these letters if he wasn't going to go then hurt the actual targets? So okay. Yeah. And again, drawing the analogy with Colberger, you know, Colberger or even Elliot Roger, Colberger, some of his victims were members

of a sorority. And I think Coburger felt like he wasn't a part of that world and that he might never be a part of that world. In fact, in Elliott Roger, too, they felt rejected by this kind of exclusive world of sororities and fraternities, and they felt like they can never be a part of it. So you get this element, I think, of murder by proxy, by killing or murdering a couple of sorority people or victims, that in some ways you're, you feel like you're addressing that larger class, that larger group of sorority members in general. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your

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Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors, LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. A few important disclosures at acorns.com slash hidden to crime. Referring to your recent point about murder by proxy, someone asked, why did he write the letters, but only send them the morning of the shootings if he actually did intend to murder those people that day. They would have never read the letters. Exactly what murder by proxy is, is what you're saying. He knew he couldn't necessarily murder them, each person.

So that's what this mass shooting was about. So I think, right, this idea of murder by proxy explains some of that, but he knows he's not going to reach a lot of these targets, but I think he knows also that he's sending a message to his targets, that even though they're probably going to get these letters after he's deceased, he's sending them a message letting him, he's instilling a little bit of fear in them and saying, look, this could have been you.

Lolo writes, his letter reminds me of Elliott Rogers' manifesto. Was he married? Could this be what a retired insult looks like? If so, will we see more of this? This was kind of loaded. Maybe I should have waited for this, but I thought all three of her questions were so good. I think so I might want to touch on.

So thank you, Lolo. Yeah, of course, that was one of the first questions I had was, did this guy have any social support network? Did he have any social supports? And as far as I can tell, the answer is no. He seems to have been single. But I haven't confirmed that. I don't know if he's ever been married.

I don't know if he had kids. It looks to me based on, initial reports that he was a bit of a loner and that he wasn't married, but I could be wrong about that. So I think we're going to learn more about him. I wouldn't be surprised. I think this idea of an older adult insult is just really interesting. And yes, that could be exactly what it looks like. Yeah. And I know one question you wanted to tackle, perhaps maybe more towards the end of this, was will we see more of this? Yeah, that's a tough one.

You know, sometimes I'm actually surprised that we don't see more of these types of scenarios with older adults that have been rejected or that feel some sense of rejection or social isolation or have a lot of grievances because we'll talk about this later. But let's talk about an adolescent shooter, for example. One of the issues with an adolescent shooter is I think that there's a certain amount of hopelessness about their future. There's a real failure to see a worthwhile future. But with older adult shooters or mass murderers, you have the combined sense, I think, in which there's less of a future to see.

So potentially there's more hopelessness in the sense that their future is, by definition, going to be less than an adolescent. But you also have this kind of sense in which their past has been plagued with failures. It's been filled with values. So you have kind of this combination of potentially of an understanding of an, potentially of an untrue. fulfilled life or a life filled with a disappointing past, and then you have this hopelessness about the future. So you kind of have this double whammy, I think, with older adult shooters like Polito, where, you know, getting to that point of, let's say, murder, suicide or murder or mass murder, it seems to me like there could be a much lower threshold for a tipping point in

these types of scenarios than there is for an adolescent even. I think adolescents, I think in both cases you kind of have these, what I call identity failures in the sense that I think with Polito, he's really struggling to figure out what his life means at that point. And with adolescents, I think they're really trying to figure out who they are and how they're fitting with peers. And so I think in both cases, you're really kind of, you're looking at people that, to use Langman's term, have desperate identities. In fact, Langman wrote a research article called Desperate Identities, which is an amazing article for anybody interested in this type of work, Peter Langman's Desperate Identities is probably one of the best papers I've read on the subject.

But there's very much a sense, I think, in which these acts of violence are reparative in the sense that they're really an attempt to repair a damaged self. Lisa Langwright's former faculty here. Professors have clicks and he didn't fit in. Wrong clothes. He smoked cigarettes, not married, not getting published. There's been a lot of opinions on this. Yeah. You know, let's not forget,

older generations placed some importance on job titles and careers. That was what they were taught to find them. Take that away from someone. What identity do they have? Right. So many great comments here. Debbie, I want to say I'm so sorry about what happened to you as well.

Debbie mentions that mental health is not addressed well in this country and we need to do a better job, which is why we're talking about this today, that she lost her brother after he jumped out of her car, actually. Thank you, everyone, for adding to this conversation. It's an important one. Yeah, I agree with those comments. So, again, I would stress that somebody like Polito, he recognizes that he can't go back, he can't go back and repairs past.

And so, I mean, you know, I think there's potentially, I think, a certain amount of mourning about the past in the sense that you can't redo it, right? And so, you know, with an adolescent, at least they can make mistakes. and even if there's a certain amount of hopelessness, they can take risk to make mistakes and they can kind of create their future much more than someone like Polito. Yes.

Just kidding asks Dr. John, could this be from a head blow or a neurological event, like an undiagnosed stroke? Of course, this is not, you probably have to say this isn't your, that's not what you can delve into, right? It could be, but yeah, that would be beyond the scope

of what I know about this case. Right now I'm operating with the assumption that this doesn't involve any type of traumatic brain injury or stroke or neurological damage. But maybe, sure, that could be part of this. It could be a combination of all the things that people have mentioned, maybe some type of manic episode, maybe a stroke. Yeah. I mean, right. I think there's always complexity in these types of scenarios. Rebecca asks, Dr. John, what is a healthy way to deal with rage?

I assume therapy, question mark. Yeah, I think, sure, this would be an argument for mental health practitioners or someone to seek therapy of some sort or just some type of outlet, some type of healthy way to cope, like whatever hiking or, you know, Corvette therapy. I mean, you know, driving, I don't know, working out. I mean, whatever way that someone is able to cope with stress, I think would be important in this situation, which also, you know, driving. speaks to another important issue here, and that is that many mass shooters really lack resilience. They tend to be very rigid. They tend to be very controlled. They just lack resilience. And so in that sense, they're not able to develop these healthier coping strategies or ways of coping with adversity. And I think over time, with this particular person, you see that lack of resilience really taking a toll probably.

Cece asks, have any of his former students come forward? That's a great question because some of them have, or one did a long interview with somebody. Yeah, a couple, yes, I've heard a couple of interviews with former students. One of them talked about the fact that he referred to MENSA quite a bit. MENSA is an organization that accepts people based on high IQs. So he was sort of obsessed with being in MENSA. And again, this would speak to his.

Dr. 160 IQ. He talked a lot about being a men'sa and how smart he was. And he also apparently talked a lot about how he loved Las Vegas and going to Las Vegas and the Wynn Hotel and Casino. Another student, by the way, so that student's name was Michelle Wade. Another student, his name is Paul Whittington. He attended classes with Anthony Polito at East Carolina University. He said that he would talk about negative student reviews.

So I think that's really interesting. He used to tell the students that he couldn't believe that he would get some negative reviews. And he wouldn't get many. He'd get maybe one or two a semester. But he couldn't let those go. So that also speaks to this idea of this insecurity, this sense of inadequacy about his self-image, about his intelligence, that he's very threatened by these negative student reviews.

So in that sense, by the way, I highly recommend that he didn't start. I'm glad he didn't start a YouTube channel. Right. There was a question actually on our last hidden hour where we interviewed the juror, Tom, in the Lori Vallow case. And you mentioned that he asked the question. This is when Tom actually interviewed you. I recommend everyone watching that. It was a couple of weeks ago. Tom was a juror on the Lori Vallow Daybell trial. And he interviewed John for the majority of the show. And he asked really about how you radicalize. someone. And your answer to that was that the main way you radicalize someone is they must have a grievance. And I think that's what we see here. And I think that's important then for us to discuss too, because if our purpose is to, you know, spot red flags or concerns or know how we're feeling or checking with ourselves or our loved ones, at what point, I mean, I have grievances, you have grievances, but at what point do these grievances become so deep and insidious that they can

radicalize someone or make them go to the extreme like this? Yeah, I think that this idea of grievance is, the most common way to radicalize someone is to give them a lot of grievances and then to throw in some threats and some fear and some stress. That'll usually do the trick. So here, I think he already he has a lot of grievances about the way he was treated in the past. And there's a threat to his financial well-being when he can't get a job. There's a threat to his security when he can't get a job. There's probably a lot of stress around being unemployed and probably struggling financially. So I think all of those come together to create probably these revenge fantasies, which again, that would be tip. That would be common. That would be what happened with Kohlberger.

that a lot of times to get to the point where you act out through a mass shooting, it's not just the grievance, it's also this need for vengeance or revenge. And so you start fantasizing about ways to get even. You start fantasizing about ways to not feel like a victim anymore. You start fantasizing about ways to repair your damaged self. And that's not a conscious strategy, by the way. When you seek to repair that damage self,

it's more of feeling, it's more of an emotion, that you're seeking to, violence becomes a substitute for this feeling of disrepair. Thank you. A lot of great comments here. Someone said also, how do you avoid grievances? Stop watching so much cable news, someone suggested. There's some truth to that, yeah. I think there is some concern, though, when things cause such deep grievances.

We have to check ourselves. This isn't just about learning warning signs and other people. We have to check ourselves and also make sure we're in a good spot too. You know? Right. There's a lot of grievances in this country right now. So hence, there's probably a lot of concerns about people acting out on those grievances. Yes.

Anything else. People are bringing up, I want to say this, people are bringing up Kevin Frankie. He had bad student reviews as well, and he was really furious over them. And we brought this up on our channel, some of his student reviews and how furious he was, which brings me to some breaking news. It's been floating around YouTube that Ruby Frankie is getting a plea deal. You're accurate. We shared on our Facebook page, facebook.com slash into crime. Ruby Frankie's attorney requesting a waiver hearing, which is essentially confirming this rumor

that they want to get together and talk about it. Let's hear what this is and that she might be throwing Jody Hilde run under the bus. But a lot is going on with our other cases. And I want all of you to know that John and I are following all of them and discussing them. at our kitchen table like we did this morning. Tim Ballard, too. Tim Ballard, too. All right.

Go ahead, John. So this thing about negative student reviews, it's interesting because I want to, let me read kind of an interesting counter to that, which is on his LinkedIn page, which was taken down the day of the murders. He wrote this, and I'm going to read this because I think it gives us some more insight

into this idea of negative students. He said, this is a quote from his LinkedIn page. The greatest gifts and takeaways I possess for my many years within higher education are the many kind and positive comments students made regarding my instruction and disposition towards them. So on LinkedIn, he's saying essentially what stood out during his academic career were, quote, the many kind and positive comments students made. So it's interesting that when those comments aren't kind and positive, he doesn't have the resilience to handle it. That is very telling. He wrote that on LinkedIn. I can't believe you found that.

Wow. So his most positive thing about his career is the affirmation from students that he's great. Which also shows, again, if we're talking about kind of this damaged sense of self, it shows that he's completely reliant on other people's validation for positive feelings about himself, for self-worth. So he's saying essentially, when students give him good reviews, he feels good about himself and when they don't he feels horrible by himself so I mean again that would speak to this idea of inadequacy and insecurity that he's really fragile that he's seeking validation from

students and probably other faculty members and as I said you know if if if he had a YouTube channel I think he would learn fairly quickly that you know constant validation is just not something that you're gonna that you're gonna get and and you that you can expect if you want to maintain a healthy sense of self. So fortunately he wasn't on YouTube or maybe he would have acted out sooner. Well, I think a lot of people have been giving you some wonderfully affirming comments tonight. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. I'm just, I'm exaggerating here. I'm saying that it's just the nature of the beast when somebody puts themselves out publicly that there's going to be people that disagree with you. And that's just normal. Well, let's talk about that, though, too.

that is something that's increasing. It used to be that there were such thing as public student reviews. That wasn't a thing. It used to be that people couldn't leave comments on a news story after the anchor finished reading them or after a journalist put out a poorly written story. There wasn't such thing as comments. This new era, this new age we're living in where we can comment on everything, where we can attack people, where we can mock people from our couch or even our bed without

getting up is new. And I do think it is affecting. We talk about how it affects children, that there's more depression and children. I think it's surely affecting the older generation where they didn't have to deal with this, you know, just a couple of decades ago. And now they are. So I think bringing that up also plays a part. Social media is brutal and can be brutal for people that are especially rigid and are not looking for fame or fortune, just wanting to be a good professor and yet they still have to deal with that. So I think that's something important to bring up. You're not even on social media. You're not even on social media and you're having to deal with it. Well, you are now. You're on YouTube. But before, John was never on social media. So this is a new

world for you too. Yeah, I agree. This idea, that's a good point. This idea of student reviews is fairly new. I don't remember, I certainly don't remember giving my professor's reviews when I was in college as an undergraduate, or even grad school. So that probably was new to him, that he probably wasn't accustomed, or he wasn't used to that or he wasn't expecting that. And so when that was implemented, he was starting to get negative reviews. He probably struggled to really cope with that. And to think that it could have possibly affected his future hiring, too.

I'm sure that's something that people now look at, you know, past student reviews. So. Right. And again, if these letters are indicative of kind of his state of mind, then it's not hard to see how student reviews could really have impacted him negatively at some point. Yeah. People are referring to people as keyboard bullies. There are certainly many of those and they do affect people. And it says the, and then Beach Lady says bad professor reviews used to just happen in the cafeteria when you ate.

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. it does seem like it impacted him very deeply. So what could, or do you have something next on your? I just, you know, I wanted to read one more letter, something he wrote in a letter,

because this really stood out to me as kind of a type of projection. I think he's kind of giving us a little insight into who he is. He's writing to someone else, but I thought these sentences were sort of interesting as a reflection of who he is. And again, these are from the letters that he wrote to other professors. quote, sooner or later, the airplane school faculty will be sick of your sass mouth, know nothing, do nothing, arrogant, bully routine. And soon enough, even though they are weak spine,

they will find a way to drive you out. Then you be, then you be, again, no verbs, then you be for the streets for good, no more career and into the sewers where you belong. Capish? Capish. Wow. Wow. So he's afraid, you know, he's telling, I mean, he's telling someone else, you're going to lose your career, you're going to end up in the sewer, you're going to be homeless. And those are obviously the very things he's threatened by.

So there's a lot of projection going on in these letters, too. In addition to the rage, in addition to the sense of victimization, there's a lot of projection. You know, there's concerns about his future, about his fears about what might happen to him. So in that sense, I think these letters really are, as someone mentioned, about Elliot Roger and his manifesto, there's some similarities there. Paige Barker is saying, my grandma always used to say, in quotes, what others think about me is none of my business, unquote. I've heard that quote, too.

That's why I brought this up. But that's really not true anymore. It's true. Now, what people think of us, even when we don't want to know, is our business. And it can be difficult to handle. Someone else just mentioned that there is a dramatic loss of respect. Thank you, Susan, for our elders, where there can be ageism. So Tiff says this is so bizarre about Capish, he was fawning over gangster power.

Someone else didn't mention the godfather. So anything else on the schedule tonight? So I think that's the crux of my presentation or our talk tonight. You mentioned we talked about Stephen Paddock a little at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, I want to be a second largest mass murderer in the United States history. That event also occurred in Las Vegas. I want to talk about some parallels with Paddock.

So we don't really know. It's interesting about Paddock because Paddock's motivations were never identified. In other words, in this particular case, for example, so when police talk about motivation, they're trying to pull probably the most obvious motivation they can find. They're not going to be like us. They're not going to be like hidden and try to find the hidden motivations. They're going to say, well, the motivation here was unemployment or, right, his being unable to find a job. So, but with Paddock, they said there were no identifiable motivations.

If you look a little closely at Paddock, however, it's interesting because let me just talk a little about we know about Stephen Paddock. He was 64 years old. He was a former financial auditor and real estate businessman. So he was a business person like Polito. He had no children. He was divorced twice with a girlfriend. His girlfriend of several years, however,

described him as becoming more distant and aloof and almost non-existent in their relationship during the last year or so. He was a heavy drinker. He was a loner. His father had a history. His father was a bank robber, a convicted bank robber. So he was a convicted felon.

Stephen Paddock was also a high-stakes gambler who over the last two years lost a lot of money. So he had a lot of financial setbacks. His form of gambling was video poker. So even though he was an high-stakes gambler, he didn't play poker, so he wasn't social. So his gambling was essentially solo. It was by himself. He did it alone. So I think if you, those are some of the things we do know about Stephen Paddock.

I think if you look at that, I think what emerges is in many ways a very, similar profile to Polito in the sense that Polito, as far as we know, didn't have any significant relationships. He didn't have any children. That Polito was suffering financially, apparently, as Stephen Paddock was, that Stephen Paddock, I think, had kind of this sense of hopelessness about his future, given his financial losses. I think when they say that Paddock had no specific motivations, I think they're having trouble identifying as specific grievances. But what's interesting about Polino and Paddock is I don't, I don't necessarily know if you need a specific grievance. You just have, you know, with Paddock, I think you have

this sense that his life wasn't fulfilled and that he too was disappointed by his past and that he too didn't really see a future that was worth living. And so you don't know how people are going going to express that kind of existential angst or that existential sense of not belonging. You know, both of these guys didn't feel like they were part of the community. You know, Polito, Polito not getting a job at the university, again, I think that really impacted him in the sense that he was expelled from the university community. He had no family or no, he had no sense of home, no sense of community. And I think that was true of Paddock, too. The Paddock really was very much alone and isolated.

And he lived in the ski, which is a few hours, like an hour and a half from Vegas. He also was in business. He put a lot of stress on money. I think there are similarities there. So obviously Paddock expressed, you know, I don't know specifically what Paddock's rages were or what he was angry about, but surely they must have existed.

Absolutely. He didn't leave a lot of clues. That was the conclusion from police. I remember because I was a reporter on this case, we waited and we waited and waited to learn what the end discovery was. Why? What was the motive of Paddock?

and it was undetermined in the end. There was no motive that they ever gave us. That was one of those major mysteries of the largest mass shooting in our nation's history that there was no solid answers, no manifesto. If you look at Paddock, though, and I mean, this is, I'm going to resort to like really wild speculation here, but when your father's a bank robber, I think you're getting some clues. I think it's fair to say that Stephen Paddock did not come from the most, the healthiest family. I think he probably came from a pretty dysfunctional family.

My guess is there were some childhood wounds, probably around money or finances. And when he lost his money gambling over the last several years before his mass shooting, my guess is there must have been some wounds, some childhood wounds that were that were opened again, that were aggravated. And we don't, again, I don't know anything about Polito. childhood. But my guess is if we learned a little more, we'd probably find some childhood wounds that are kind of behind some of this or at least potentially play a role in some of this. Yeah, that helps. So I mean, any thoughts and what we can do as a society, then you mentioned community that resonated with me. Like there is definitely been a loss of community, I feel like

in the past, you know, decade as well where we do so much online and we order Uber Eats and not as Many of us go to church and, you know, people are finding their communities in different places, and it's not as simple for many people that, you know, are used to it in a certain way, just to be more aware. You know, some people mention mental health costs money as well, you know, to seek therapy out costs money. Yeah, that's true. And it's difficult. And now it's teletherapy. That still doesn't going to add a, you know, just any thoughts and what we can do or be aware of.

It's, yeah, it's a really big issue. certainly I think mental health is a part of it. Somebody mentioned earlier about kind of a loss of respect for elders. You know, there's so many social changes. It's not just a loss of respect for elders. It's a loss of respect for experience. It's a loss of respect for expertise in today's world, when you can get on Wikipedia and think you know everything,

experience and expertise are not as valued. And I think that's a problem, too, that you're not going to value. Let's assume that Polito has. a lot of knowledge and experience and wisdom that he can impart to students, that's probably not going to be his value today. I'm not saying that's the case. His letter would not suggest that at all, by the way, his letters. But if he felt that way. If we give him the benefit of the doubt, you know, there is less of a place for Anthony Polito in today's world than there was even like five years ago. Yeah. I agree with that. It's probably a fun, it's probably a part of larger

social trends that are, you know, I don't know, that are taking place. Yeah. Well, just things to be aware of. I just thank you for mentioning that. It just sometimes feels so hopeless and helpless. We keep seeing these again and again and again. And it's heartbreaking and upsetting. And so if we can just be a little bit more aware of what someone might be going through

or how things are changing. Yeah. An experience. You're right. when someone can be a TikTok star at 16 and bring you all the latest stories, it's hard to realize that it doesn't matter how many years of journalism you have in you. You know what I mean? So it's true what you're saying.

Yeah. Right. Or when people can armchair diagnosed, you know, narcissism or borderline or look it up in Wikipedia and take the internet test, what point is a psychologist? Yeah. Right. Well, we all know that like 90% percent. percent of everyone we know are narcissists.

So, right. According to all armchair diagnoses, yes. Yeah. Yeah, right. It's interesting questions. You know, the role of expertise in our society these days, the role of experience and wisdom, whatever that is. Yeah, those are all, I think, under pressure these days.

Right. Well, you've certainly left us with some things to think about. Thank you, babe, for also showing up here with COVID. We need to let you go. So there's been a lot going on in this house. Thank you, babe. We appreciate you. I appreciate you.

And it's good to reconnect with our gems tonight. We've missed you guys, truly, truly have. So we'll be doing a bit more next week. A couple of final things before we leave. I have a final thought, but I did want to get back to the victims. I just want to give a mention of the victims, mention their names and what departments they were in since, you know, As I mentioned, I have some affiliation with UNLV.

Naoko, Takamuro, 69, was in Japanese studies. Patricia Navarro Velaz, she's 39. She was in the accounting department at UNLV. Jerry Chang, 64 information systems. I just want to express my condolences to the victims and their families, and I think it's important to recognize them and put them at the forefront of all of this. I want to read a quote from the Great Gatsby, which I think is going to be relevant to my closing here.

This is from near the very end of the Great Gatsby. This is Nick Carrington, Caraway, who's the narrator. He says, quote, Gatsby believed in the green light, the aghastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter. Tomorrow we will run faster. We will stretch out our arms farther.

So we beat on boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. The reason I wanted to talk about that quote is because I think it kind of speaks to the issues we've been talking about tonight about as much as we dream of a future without limits like Gatsby did, as much as we kind of dream of this perfect life and these perfect loves we're going to have, that the past always haunts us. The past in some ways always pulls us back. And I think that would be the case with kind of these older adult mass shooters. There's almost this haunting from their past that they can't overcome.

And so I think as the future begins to recede into the past, I think sometimes our dreams slip away a little bit with Gatsby, for example. And when that happens, when our dreams starts slipping away and we recognize that we don't have as much time to try to chase those dreams, I think we're also reminded a little bit of our mortality. and our limits. There's a whole branch of psychology called terror management theory.

I've talked about it in our podcast and here and there, but when we have reminders of our mortality, oftentimes we seek comfort in the community or we become entrenched more in our selves into our, we try to find ways to express ourselves and our self-esteem in healthy ways.

But we don't have a community, that we can fall back into and when we don't have a coherent sense of self, then I think we're really at risk. And I think that's what you see here. You see with Paddock and Polito, you see a couple people here their dreams are slipping away.

They're kind of confronting the mortality. They're confronting these unknown futures and they really don't have a community or a really coherent, strong sense of self to really fall back on to provide sort of a support or a foundation that they can lean against. And I think that's when our communities are at the greatest risk.

And I think that's why perhaps we might see more of these types of mass shootings in the future. But hopefully we can try to come together, be aware, and recognize red flags in others and ourselves. Yeah. And give the Polito something to hang their hats on or something to believe. leave in or give them some hope in some way. I mean, whatever, you know, I mean, part of that is up to them to find too, unfortunately. But maybe our communities can offer these people like him more options. Yes. Yes. There was a quote you would always say you said on that podcast when death, it was a Dr. John quote, and death looks you in the eye, sing to it. In other words, as we get older

and we confront our past and we see less of a future and dreams not fulfilled, all those things that cause us stress as we age. I just, I remember actually your mother listening to that podcast. I don't know if you remember this, but I remember your mother listening to that podcast and talking to you about it and that quote meant a lot to her, that when death,

I don't want to misquote you, but when death looks you in the eyes sing to it. Yeah, as death approaches. As death approaches. And to expand on that idea, not just death, I think, everything, when threats approach, when, you know, it's healthier to sing to it rather than to fight it. Right. Well said.

Well said. We've definitely, we actually have a saying in our house. It's not singing because none of us can sing. Well, none of us can dance either. But we have a saying in our house when things get a little too stressful. And we have this open floor living, you know, home floor plan. And so everybody hears everything. And when things get too stressful, we say we just need to dance a little bit more.

We just have to focus on dancing a little bit more, you know, not literally, figuratively, just meaning we need to lighten the mood and it's similar. So, and we've been trying to do that this week a little bit more. And to dance with something is to accept it, to embrace it, right? And I think that's neither Paddock nor Polito embraced anything, really, right? Dancing is embracing. It's loving. It's joy.

Yes. Yes. So with that, we will continue dancing throughout the rest of the holiday season or trying to do a little bit more of that. Thank you, everyone, for being here tonight. Thank you, Dr. John. We'll see you guys soon again. Like I said, I'll be here next week with a lot. There's a lot happening with the stories we've been covering. So you'll be seeing me quite a bit next week. And John might jump on as well. We've been talking about it. All right. Thanks, everyone. Guys, good night. Good night. Hello, Hidden Gems. It's Lauren with Hidden a True Crime podcast. As a TV reporter, I learned the art of visual storytelling. So if you're like me, you enjoy listening, but also viewing. You can actually head to our YouTube channel, Hidden True Crime, to watch these interviews.

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