Children speak at father's sentencing. Business partner on trial for double murder. Plus, manhunts.

In San Diego County, emotions run high at the sentencing of Larry Millete, the man convicted of killing his wife Maya as she sought a divorce. In Ohio, Andrew Griffin is accused of killing business partners Tom and Angela Strussion over a business deal gone bad. In Dateline Round Up, an update on Lori Vallow Daybell, known as "Mommy Doomsday," convicted of murdering two of her children and conspiring to murder others. New details in the case of Michelle Parker, a woman who went missing after appearing on the TV show The People's Court in 2011. Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who says she was experiencing postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children, is back in court for a hearing. Plus, a retired U.S. marshal explains how investigators track down fugitives. Find out more about the cases covered each week here: www.datelinetruecrimeweekly.com . Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

2026. 11. 5.36:45

요약

에피소드 요약

This week's docket covers the sentencing of Larry Millete for the murder of his wife Maya, a guilty verdict in an Ohio double murder trial involving business partners, and a multi-state manhunt for an escaped Tennessee convict. The episode also features updates on Lori Vallow Daybell and new evidence in the 2011 disappearance of Michelle Parker.

핵심 요점 1Larry Millete received a sentence of 27 years to life for the first-degree murder of his wife Maya, despite her body never being found.

핵심 요점 2The prosecution in the Millete case used testimony from a spellcaster to show the defendant's increasing desire to control his wife through hexes.

핵심 요점 3Andrew Isaac Griffin was found guilty on all counts for the 2021 shooting deaths of his business partners, Tom and Angela Struszinski.

핵심 요점 4Lori Vallow Daybell's defense team is seeking a new trial, arguing the removal of her original attorney violated her constitutional right to counsel.

핵심 요점 5New digital location and user data recovered from cell phones led to the recent arrest of Dale Smith Jr. for the 2011 murder of Michelle Parker.

Former U.S. Marshals emphasize that fugitives are tracked through a combination of thermal imaging, digital footprints, and interviewing family members.

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Transcribed from “Children speak at father's sentencing. Business partner on trial for double murder. Plus, manhunts.” by NBC News, who holds all rights to the original and has not licensed or reviewed this page. Rights holders can request removal.

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We are rolling on the trial right now. It's the start of another workday for the Dateline team. The next morning she doesn't show up. Our producers are swapping tips and story ideas. He did not say that to police. He only said it to his family. They also said, you know, but you just don't want to mess this up. Still have a lot of questions. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Blayne Alexander in for Andrea Canning. It's November 5th and here's what's on our docket. In Ohio, five years after a married couple were found shot to death inside their burning home, their business partner is on trial for their murder.

His defense attorney says the prosecution's case is based on nothing but lies and innuendo. They're alleging that all the prosecution witnesses are unreliable and raising questions about why they have said what they said. In Dateline roundup, we've got news about Lori Vallow Daybell, aka Mommy Doomsday, and new details about the investigation into the Florida man accused of murdering his ex-fiancée back in 2011 hours after they appeared together on an episode of The People's Court. There's cursing, there's name-calling, really hostile conversations. Plus, a convicted killer escaped from a Tennessee prison last month, sparking a multi-state manhunt.

We're talking to a former U.S. marshal about what it takes to track down a fugitive. You can run, but you can't hide. And when you run, you only go to jail tired. But before all of that, we are off to Southern California for the dramatic final chapter in a case we've been following all year. It's one that involves murder, heartbreak, and spellcasters.

Back in July, former Navy optician Larry Millete was convicted of killing his wife, Maya, and hiding her body. But even after the verdict, there have been plenty of questions. Maya's body has never been found, and the years that have passed since her 2021 disappearance have worn on her friends and her family, who have been desperate for answers and for closure. On Monday afternoon, they gathered in a Chula Vista courtroom for Larry's sentencing, which was at times very emotional. Tell us where my sister is and help bring her home.

The court also heard directly from Larry Millete himself. She wasn't just my wife, she was my best friend. Here to fill us in on all of this is my friend and fellow Dateline correspondent Andrea Canning, who was in the courtroom for that hearing. Andrea, you have been covering this case for quite some time now. I mean, right now you're actually sitting outside of jail waiting to go inside and talk to Larry, right? Yeah, we're at the Vista Detention Center in California here. You know, we have a lot of tough questions for him.

There is a lot to talk about. And I know that you will certainly be the one to press him on that. I mean, just take us back real quickly. Remind us how all of this started. Yeah, so Blayne, this all started in in January of 2021. 39-year-old Maya Millete, she vanished from her home in Chula Vista that she shared with her husband Larry and their three children. She got out of her car. She'd come home from work. She walked into the house, but she is never actually seen leaving the house and her body has never been found.

Wow. Larry Millete was arrested and charged with Maya's murder nine months later. He pleaded not guilty, finally went to trial earlier this year. That's more than five years after Maya's disappearance. Andrea, just remind us what prosecutors said at the trial? Yeah, this this was a very long trial. Weeks and weeks. The prosecution painted a picture of a marriage in trouble. Maya was unhappy. Her friends and family testified that she was planning to divorce Larry imminently. Uh we learned from various witnesses that Maya had been having an affair with her married coworker, which obviously none of this sat well with Larry Millete.

You know, the prosecution argued that he was willing to go to any means to control Maya, to stop her from leaving him, even hexes. What was that about? Yeah, so Blayne, our listeners will probably remember this case because of that one fact in particular. The prosecution called an online spellcaster as one of their witnesses. He testified that Larry was purchasing these spells, and the requests from Larry ranged from trying to get Maya to not leave him to her falling in love with him again. Uh but then they they got more intense.

One request even asking for Maya to suffer from an accident and to have a broken bone. Does the prosecution have a theory about how Larry killed her? So they they suggested that Larry um had shown an interest in hemlock, which is a poisonous plant. But Blayne, the reality of all of this, because Maya's body has never been found, they cannot say for sure how she died. Wow. And I would imagine that that's something that Larry Millete's defense really leaned into. Yeah, the defense was entirely about reasonable doubt.

Eventually, Andrea, after all of this, in July, the jury had a verdict and Larry Millete was found guilty of first-degree murder. That brings us to the sentencing on Monday. You were there. You were inside the courtroom. What was it like covering the final chapter in all of this? There was not one available seat in that courtroom. It was packed. Family everywhere. Maya's family, all wearing green, ready to speak their peace, to say how this has affected them. But we also saw Larry's supporters there as well, his mom and dad.

This was a long, long time coming for both sides. And I know that in Monday's sentencing, you really got a strong sense of who Maya was. Can you just tell us about some of those statements from her family and friends? Yeah, Blayne, one thing was clear. Maya was loved. She it was impact statement after impact statement about how much she is missed, how much they love her, what a strong presence she was in their lives. We heard from Maya's siblings. She was one of six children, obviously all very close.

Also, her extended family and her niece especially talked about how they feel her absence all the time. Actually, Maya's laughter is no longer heard at family parties. Her smiling face is absent from my family photos, and we no longer hear her singing Hopelessly Devoted to You by Olivia Newton-John during karaoke. And it's a constant reminder that our family will never be whole in quite the same way again. We also got a sense of just kind of what Larry and Maya's relationship was like leading up to her murder.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it was this started off really sweet. They were very young um when they got married, but we got this sense from her sisters that Larry's behavior just started to become controlling. You were her love of her life in sickness and in health. But that doesn't mean you have to take her life to say till death do us part. Everything went crashing down because of your obsessive, controlling, paranoid, increasingly abusive behavior. And then, Andrea, I know a lingering question on everyone's minds, where is Maya?

Of course, her body has never been found. That was literally in every statement from the family members. It is not too late to do what is right. You can still tell us where Maya is. Larry, knowing that you hold the answer, you caused us grief beyond measure. It's such an unspeakable pain on top of an already horrifically painful situation to just not know. And then in the midst of all of that, Andrea, we got the most heart-wrenching part of this entire thing, which was hearing directly from Maya's own children.

Yeah, and that was really hard to hear, Blayne. The the two daughters made a statement. Um you know, her son is is young. He did not. So the prosecution, they played a video of Maya and her son playing the guitar and singing together.

Oh. At that point, Larry seemed to show maybe his first sign of emotion. He was possibly tearing up. It certainly wasn't, you know, sobbing or anything like that. Um you know, we we heard from their the couple's middle child, and she talked about how good of a mother Maya was. But she also talked about how great of a father Larry was. He was awesome to me and my siblings. Regardless of anything, he is a person I would never regret having in my life. And I know that hearing from their eldest daughter, I mean, she spoke last and really seemed to kind of talk about how difficult of a position they're in.

Yeah, this was a a profound statement. I've heard children testify before. Never has a child for me dissected so much what it's actually like to be the child. Well, I feel the complicated pain of knowing as a person what he did was unimaginable and as a human being unforgivable. As his daughter, I cannot stop loving him, for he is the only parent that we have left. It's too much to ask of me to pick sides when I have so much love in my heart for both of them.

Oh, that sounds so incredibly powerful. We heard so many people speaking on Maya's behalf, but the defense, Larry Millete, also had people speaking on his behalf. And that's when, I mean, things took a pretty big kind of turn. Walk me through some of those statements. Yeah, so first his his mom came up. She defended him. I am not ashamed of you. I am proud of you because I know that you did not hurt anybody. And then Larry's dad came on. He he echoed the same sentiments.

But then it took a turn. There was a medical emergency. There was apparently static from the microphone that was messing with Larry's father's pacemaker. So it it appeared to keep zapping him, and he was saying, it's shocking me, you know, it's shocking me. And then finally, after several times of this happening, he said, I need medical, I need medical. They end up taking him out on a gurney to an ambulance, and I mean, I I believe he's okay at this point. Wow. Yes. It was crazy.

So then after all of that subsides, Larry Millete, what did he have to say? Yes, he talked about Maya, how much he loved and missed her, how much he wished he could have protected her. I can't say I was the best greatest husband, but I consider myself a decent great husband. I'm not a bad person. And I know, Andrea, that he also spoke directly to Maya's family. How did that go? That didn't go well. So Larry had actually finished, and they had gone on to some procedural things.

Suddenly, there's a you know, message from the the defense attorney, Larry has more to say. He starts saying he hopes to make amends with the family, with Maya's family. He said, I love you, naming names. I love you, I love you, I love you. I must apologize. But you know, I really love my sister. And I miss her every day. I could feel the tensions rising as he was saying these things. You could just feel it. So what happened was Maya's niece starts screaming. This is a boiling point for her.

She's so upset. No one can blame her for being upset. The bailiffs came over and they, you know, they got her to to leave, and yeah, Your hurt just went out to her. Oh, I mean, all of it sounds so intense, so incredibly difficult for Maya's family. I know, Andrea, that after that, it was up to the judge. What did the judge have to say? Yeah, well, he he noted just how stone-faced Larry had been. The record of this court has not demonstrated remotely your acceptance of responsibility.

He has maintained a posture of denial and defiance. He actually called him vicious. He said that this plan was cold and calculated. He threw the book at him. Larry was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder, and then an additional two years for a gun charge Larry pleaded guilty to after trial. Effectively, 27 to life. The judge also instituted a 10-year protective order restricting Larry's contact with his children. Once each child turns 18, they can petition to have the order lifted. But it appears though that the children would like to have some kind of contact with their father.

So we'll see what happens with that. Wow. Okay. And and I mean, the big question again in all of this is where is Maya? I mean, is that search for her body still going on, Andrea? Yeah, there was I attended a press conference after the sentencing, and the DA and the police chief talked about, again, we don't know where she is. We need to find out where she is. They urged family members of his, anyone who might know to come forward. The DA said, we have our speculation.

I said, well, I asked that was the one question I asked, well, what is your speculation? And she would not go into details about that. Gosh. Well, Andrea, I mean, this was just a gripping account from the courtroom. Thank you so much for bringing it to us. Yes, and I'm about to interview Larry Millete in jail. So we will have that full interview on the Dateline that we are putting together for the future. That is a going to be a must-watch. Good luck with the interview.

Thanks, Blayne. Coming up, a man accused of murdering his business partners comes face-to-face with the prosecution's star witness, his best friend.

On September 21st, 2021, firefighters in Belmont, Ohio responded to reports of a house fire at the home of Tom and Angela Struszinski, the owners of a local Tex-Mex restaurant, Salsa Joe's. When they got there, they found Angela and Tom already dead, but not from the fire. They'd been shot to death before it was even set. After a year-long investigation, prosecutors charged the Struszinskis' business partner, Andrew Isaac Griffin, with the grizzly double murder. This month, he stood trial. Prosecutors told the jury that Griffin, who pleaded not guilty, had orchestrated an elaborate multi-state murder plot as an act of vengeance for a business deal gone bad.

The defense called the investigation sloppy and said the prosecution star witness was quote, the lowest scumbag on earth. On Wednesday, jurors returned their verdict. Here now to help us get up to speed on all of this, including what the jury decided, is Dateline producer Rachel White. Rachel, I know you've been following this case all along, so thank you so much for being here. Excited to be here. Rachel, let's start by talking about the Struszinskis, Tom and Angela. Just help us get a sense of who they were.

Sure, so Angela and Tom met on a dating app when they were both living in Texas, and they got married about 10 years ago. The couple then moved to Ohio, where Tom was from, and they opened up Salsa Joe's restaurant. You know, we talked about the discovery of their bodies so many times in Dateline cases we see where someone has set fire to the house in hopes of covering up evidence or covering up a murder. Let's talk about what investigators found that day. Yeah, so the fire destroyed a lot, and so did the water from the firefighters trying to extinguish the fire.

So we saw during the trial a prosecution expert who testified that she was not able to isolate any DNA or fingerprints from the crime scene. So essentially, investigators were right back to square one. When did they first start looking at Griffin? I would imagine that as a business partner of Tom and Angela's, he must have come under scrutiny pretty early on in this investigation, right? So investigators definitely checked him out, but he seemed like he had a good alibi. He told investigators that he was back in Oklahoma at the time of the murders, and when they looked at his cell phone records, it seemed to corroborate his story.

So he was kind of set aside at that point. But that all changed in the spring of 2023. And what happened then? So the chief detective decided to reach back out to Andrew Griffin, and he did not receive a response. But he did hear from Tom's sister, Lisa Ballog, who told him that Griffin was missing. Oh, missing. Wow. Lisa tells investigators that Griffin had driven his truck across the border into Mexico and disappeared. Well, that certainly calls for suspicion there for investigators. Now, Griffin ended up moving around after that, and eventually he was arrested in Hawaii.

But Rachel, let's talk about what exactly led up to that arrest, right? Investigators did do a bit more digging into Griffin's financial relationship with the Struszinskis. What did they uncover there? They figured out that Griffin had invested more than $100,000 in the business, starting back in January 2021. But by August 2021, without any warning, prosecutors said Tom Struszinski told Griffin that he was done with the business because it just wasn't profitable. And they said that there was no talk of Griffin getting his money back, that investment that he'd made in the business.

And they also said that Griffin found out a day after Tom told him that the business was closing, he'd been locked out of his shared bank account where he'd been investing all that money. So Rachel, just hearing you lay out what investigators say they found, I mean, one could certainly see why that could be a reason for anger. So what did investigators do next? So after that, they basically reach out to Griffin's estranged wife. Her name is Stacey, and she mentions that Griffin's best friend was a man named Bret Cole.

So investigators decided to give him a closer look. They subpoenaed Bret Cole's phone, and they noticed that on the day of the murders, he received a call from a number that didn't match any of the numbers that he typically got calls and texts from. So it stood out to them. And when they traced that number, prosecutors say that they discovered that that that that number number traced traced back back to to a a burner burner phone. phone connected to Andrew Griffin. And so where was that burner phone, Rachel, on the day of the murders?

Could investigators kind of pin down the location of that phone? Yeah, so they say it was in Ohio, pinging off the cell towers close to the Strunz home. And investigators had a theory about how Griffin could have traveled from Oklahoma to Ohio to commit the murders. They say that they discovered Griffin had given Cole some money to go pick up a motorcycle for him a few weeks before the murders. And highway plate reader cameras captured that motorcycle heading toward Ohio right before the murders took place.

Break that down for me though, because even if jurors believe that Griffin was riding that motorcycle, it doesn't automatically prove that he then went to the Strunz home and killed them. So how did they make that connection? So prosecutors told the jury that they had two witnesses who could kind of tie all these things together, starting with Brett Cole's grandfather, Arthur. And this was a little bit unusual because the jury didn't get to see Arthur in person. He's elderly, he's in poor health, and so prosecutors taped a video deposition with him back in summer 2025 ahead of the trial.

And he told them that he overheard Griffin making a call to Brett Cole, admitting to the murders. And Andrew said, "Well, I had to go get my money and I killed two people." Wow, that's big. Who were some of the other big witnesses during trial? They had Brett Cole himself as well, who, as I said, was Griffin's best friend since childhood, his alleged co-conspirator in the murder plot. He testified subject to an immunity deal, and he laid out all the details of the alleged plan. He basically said that he was the one who suggested Griffin travel via motorcycle to go carry out the murders.

And he said he suggested Griffin wear a Frog Tog, which is a type of rain suit, so no DNA or blood spatter would be able to get on him as he committed the murder. Oh wow. And I also understand that he testified that their plan was to focus only on Tom Strunz, right? That it was never to target Angela as part of any of this. Yeah, that's right. He described what Griffin told him happened when he entered the Strunz house that day. He said when he shot Tom, Angela had jumped up and ran towards him, and he then shot her multiple times.

He said then after he shot Angela, he went back to asking Tom where the money's at, Tom says there ain't no money, and then he shoots Tom and kills him. I have to say that testimony is pretty specific. I mean, to a jury, that could be very believable. Right. But Brett Cole is someone the defense has told the jury from day one that they can't believe. Why? Because he's a convicted felon. Since the murders, Brett Cole has been sentenced to serve three life sentences for sexually abusing a child.

Oh, good grief. I mean, we're not talking about just writing back checks or any other crime here. But if you take him out of the picture, how much is left of the prosecution's case? I mean, Blaine, that's basically the theme of the entire defense here. They're alleging that all the prosecution witnesses are unreliable and raising questions about why they have said what they said. Now, there is the evidence of the burner phone and the motorcycle. Where do we stand with that? So the defense says, essentially, none of that proves that Griffin committed the murders beyond a reasonable doubt.

They're really hammering home that there's no physical evidence linking Griffin to the scene. And, you know, this is a circumstantial case. There's zero proof of who committed these two murders, who set this house on fire. I mean, I'm curious. The defense is kind of knocking down these things, but has the defense presented any theory of its own about what they believe happened? So the defense has suggested that Tom had been hanging out with some shady people before his death. And pretty much everybody who knew him does say that he did always carry a lot of cash on him, that he wasn't shy about, you know, showing it off.

So I think they just really attempted to plant these seeds of doubt that Andrew Griffin was the only person that would have some motive to kill Tom Strunz. So thanks so much for being with us here today, Rachel. Thank you for having me. After taping our segment, jury deliberations got underway, and after about 4 hours, they returned a verdict. We the jury, being duly and panelled sworn, find the defendant guilty. Guilty on all counts. Griffin's sentencing is scheduled for December 1st, and we'll bring you that update in a few weeks.

Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup. We've got news about Lori Vallow Daybell. Also, a recently unsealed arrest affidavit sheds light on prosecutors' decision to charge a Florida man with the murder of his ex-fiancée 15 years after she disappeared. Plus, a former U.S. Marshal takes us behind the scenes on how to catch a fugitive.

Welcome back. Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline producer Marissa Myers. Marissa, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Blaine. So for our first story, we are heading to Idaho, where we have an update for you on Lori Vallow Daybell, aka Mommy Doomsday. On Monday, her defense team was in court in front of a panel of Idaho Supreme Court justices, arguing that she should get a new trial for her convictions in Idaho. Yes. So, just a quick reminder, back in 2023, she was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of her two children, J.J.

and Tylee. And for her involvement in the death of Tammy Daybell, who was her husband Chad's wife. Chad was convicted of killing those three victims and is on death row in Idaho. So what was Monday's hearing about? On Monday, her attorneys in Idaho argued that her trial judge made a fundamental error before her trial. In the early stages of the case, Lori was represented by a lawyer named Mark Means, and that lawyer had also represented Lori's husband, Chad. So in December of 2021, the trial judge removed Mark Means from Lori's case, saying his representation could be a conflict of interest.

Lori did not get a say in that decision. At the time, she was classified as mentally incompetent to participate in the proceedings. Lori's attorneys argued that the judge's actions violated Lori's constitutional right to choose her own lawyer. It was an abuse of discretion. We ask this court to reverse. How did the state respond to all of this, Marissa? So the attorney for the state argued that the judge's decision to remove Lori's attorney was in her best interest, as someone who couldn't make the choice to remove him herself.

So, I know that this hearing lasted over an hour. The justices were asking questions. Could you get any sort of sense which way this might go? Not really. The justices had tough questions for both sides. You know, one justice kept kept calling what the judge had done unorthodox. Another justice asked whether it could be that the death penalty was back on the table for her. All of this is just so interesting, Marissa. The justices now will take their time to issue a ruling, and of course, we'll report back once they have made that ruling.

Next up, we are heading down to Orlando, Florida, where we're learning more about what led up to the arrest of Dale Smith Jr. a few weeks ago for the alleged murder of his ex-fiancée, Michelle Parker. She is the 33-year-old woman who went missing back in 2011, just hours after appearing with Dale on an episode of the TV show The People's Court. Now, Dale has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, but the big question since his arrest has been why investigators decided to make a move in this case all these years later.

Why are we just now seeing an arrest, Marissa? Yeah, I mean, that has been the big question. But now we have gotten our hands on a 46-page affidavit, that investigators filed with the court. And according to the affidavit, investigators were able to recover new data from Dale and Michelle's phones that they didn't have access to or wasn't readable back in 2011. And some of this evidence includes more precise location and user data, as well as some of the text messages between Michelle and Dale. Let's talk about some of those text messages between Dale and Michelle, right?

They're included in the affidavit, and just reading through them, Marissa, it sounds like they had a somewhat tumultuous relationship. In these messages, there's cursing, there's name-calling, and it's just really hostile conversations. Investigators also argued in the affidavit that the more precise location data that they now have really suggests that Dale just didn't tell them the truth about Michelle's location at the time. Yeah, so in his initial story to police. According to this affidavit, Dale says that Michelle dropped off the kids at his home and left after 10 minutes.

But investigators say that Michelle's phone shows her arriving in the area 45 minutes before Dale said she did. And surveillance video shows her truck was at Dale's house for an hour, not just 10 minutes. Uh there is a lot to watch in this case, and of course, we will keep our eye on it. And then finally, we've got an update in the case of Lindsay Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse from Massachusetts, who's been accused of killing her three children. At her trial early this year, she pleaded not guilty, saying that she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis when she killed her children.

That trial ended in a mistrial. Clancy was back in court on Monday. Marissa, what happened there? Yeah, so Lindsay Clancy appeared in court for a motion hearing. There was lots of back-and-forth about issues that we've talked about before, including this defense request that the judge do more to investigate whether the holdout juror followed the law and deliberated in good faith. And the judge had something to say about that. But didn't I do that? With respect, didn't I bring didn't I do a voir dire? Didn't I bring the jurors in?

Didn't I swear them in? There are so many aspects to this case that are just under an intense microscope. So what happens next? The judge has set a hearing for November 16th, when we'll find out when any retrial might be. The judge said he is open to having a new trial start in March 2027. Gosh, a lot of updates on some very big stories this week, Marissa. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Blaine.

On October 25th, 28-year-old Jacob Morley, a convicted killer serving a life sentence for murder in a Tennessee prison, made a daring escape. He cut through the prison fence, stole a pickup truck nearby and went on the run. Officers from local, state, and federal agencies now scouring northwest Tennessee, setting up checkpoints and using a helicopter and search dogs in the hunt. On Tuesday morning, after a 9-day manhunt, Morley was captured in Missouri and was back behind bars. So for our final story this week, we wanted to find out more about what exactly happens when someone who is potentially dangerous goes on the run, and how do investigators go about tracking them down?

Here to bring us up to speed on all of that is retired U.S. Marshal Lenny DePaul. Lenny, you are certainly the expert in this subject, so I am so glad to have you with us on the podcast today. Welcome. Well, thank you, Blaine. Thanks for inviting me on. I want to first just kind of let some of our listeners know that you are very well versed in tracking down some of the most dangerous fugitives in the country. I mean, names that we all have recognized, certainly D.C.

Sniper Lee Boyd Malvo back in 2002, the Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev back in 2013. I mean, your career has spanned decades. First, just tell me, when you think back on some of those high-profile cases, what sticks with you the most? As a former Chief Inspector with the U.S. Marshals and a former commander of the largest fugitive task force of its kind in the world in New York, we weren't going after, you know, turnstile jumpers and deadbeat dads. They were violent people. So when you target these people, I've seen it happen many different ways.

I've gone after triple homicide suspects that have thrown their hands up and started crying and simple parole violators that sadly we've been in shootings with and whatnot. So you take them all very serious, especially escape cases. These people have elaborate escape plans. They get out there. They're sleeping with one eye open, and and it makes life pretty tough. But walk me through that, Lenny. Start from the moment that a manhunt is launched. What types of things, just kind of tick through what you're looking at to even launch such a manhunt?

You know, when you have an initial manhunt going on, you know, especially with an escape case, it's a full-court press. I mean, it's all hands on deck. The assets that are available, aviation support, drones, K9s, bloodhounds, thermal imaging, you name it, we have it. You also have a fugitive investigation going on behind the scenes. I mean, we're flipping, you know, that person's world upside down. In an escape case, department of corrections, who visited him recently, what kind of calls were made, was he on the internet, what kind of sites did he visit?

Sometimes it's old-fashioned police work, hitting the bricks, knocking on doors, Q and A in people. I used to love going to talk to mom, because mom would be very important. We'd knock on the door and, you know, hey, mom, your son just escaped from this prison. You know, if you knew where he was, would you tell me? Digital footprints are important, cellular intercepts, things that we do with burner phones and whatnot. You know what I always say, Blaine? You can run, but you can't hide. When you run, you only go to jail tired.

That's you know what? That is certainly a good message to put out there, because I mean, I think at the end of the day, if you're escaping, if you're out there doing these things, you're going to go back to a harsher sentence than what you had before, right? And so let's talk about the case of Jacob Morley. I mean, when you hear that somebody like Jacob Morley, uh allegedly stole a truck, that truck was abandoned 2 days later in Illinois, states away, I mean, does that tell us anything about what his plan possibly was?

Well, how did he steal the truck? Somebody leave the keys dangling in the ignition? I mean, I would have a lot of questions. You know, you hit the ground running. Set that perimeter up, you're stopping vehicles, you're looking at license plate readers, you're looking at everything. You know, surveillance cameras, CCTV, what was his description, what did the cameras pick up on this guy? Did somebody find him? I've been out on prison escapees in the woods with bloodhounds, and they'll track the fugitive, and all of a sudden we come to a road and they lose the scent.

Well, what does that tell you? Somebody picked him up. Do you typically find that escapees have accomplices, somebody who's helping them on the outside? I've seen it all. Dannemora, if you remember that case a few years back, the two that escaped up in upstate New York. There was Matt and Sweat was the other guy's last name. They groomed this woman on the inside. She was helping them, brought him tools to get out. They ended up getting out. They left little smiley face signs and whatnot. The problem is, when they got up through the sewer cap, she wasn't there.

She had a panic attack, allegedly. So they had an elaborate escape plan, but they had no plan B. So when you talk about fugitives, Lenny, I mean, you're dealing sometimes with two different cases. There's somebody who's known, like this guy, is Jacob Morley, who you know who you're looking for, you know the details. But then you have fugitive hunts like maybe the D.C. Sniper, where you know there's somebody out here who's shooting people, but you don't know who it is. How do officials approach those two scenarios differently?

When somebody's identified and you've got a beat on these people, you have a pretty good idea what their background is. I mean, you live in these people's minds, right? I used to wake up in the morning, you know, 3:00 in the morning, saying, ah, this is what this guy's up to. So, you know, you live their lives. When you're chasing a ghost and you have no idea who you're looking at, it's mind-boggling because you don't know what you're up against. We'll take the D.C. snipers, for instance.

it's Muhammad and Malvo. I mean, we knew what was going on, right? They're out there, they're covertly sniping people. But, you know, it's going to be a matter of time before people that aren't identified, they come up on our radar somehow, whether it's fingerprints or somebody identifies them, and now we're off to the races again. And Lenny, if you could, I want to just wrap up by asking you to speak directly to the public, because let's say, heaven forbid, someone's confronted by somebody like this. They try and steal a car.

Like, what types of things should the public know to keep themselves safe if they ever find themselves in the path of a fugitive? Well, first of all, if they see somebody like this, just stay away. Grab your cell phone, make a phone call, just call 911, and stay away from these people. They're violent. Lenny DePaul, this was a fascinating conversation with some really, really good information. I appreciate your expertise on this. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you. That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly.

But if you love Dateline podcasts, and we hope you do, check out Dateline Premium. It's a great way to get early access to all of our latest podcast series. You get to listen ad-free, and there's bonus content. Coming up this Friday on Dateline, Lester has an all-new 2-hour episode that will keep you guessing up until the final minutes. It's about the murder of a woman in in East East Baltimore Baltimore that that sent sent investigators inv- on a wild ride to find her killer. Every turn, every step, something new happened.

Things are falling apart very quickly. He was asking to get a one-way trip to Cuba. We're about to lose him. Watch Deadly Intersection this Friday at 9/8 Central on Dateline on NBC. Thanks so much for listening. Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, and Kiani Reid. Our associate producers are Ellery Gladstone Roth and Arya Young. Our senior producer is Liz Brown Karlotf. Production and fact checking help by Carol Chen. Veronica Mazeka is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Original music by Jesse McGennty.

Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline. Have a good day, everyone.

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