L.O.G. 179 Predators Among Us

Well, good morning, Greg. It's Friday morning when we're recording this episode, so we're going to jump right into the case that was in the news this week: the woman in Memphis, whose teacher was killed on her morning run, Eliza Fletcher, out running in the morning at 4:00, 4:30 in the morning.

So, I'll just quickly recap what we know has happened, and then we'll jump into how we talk about these things. She went out for her usual morning run. Big-time runner, goes out at 4:30 in the morning. Usually, anyone out running at that time is pretty serious, whether or not they're competing or something that's something that they do that's not common for most people, but more for people who are very consistent.

So, basically, she went out, didn't come back. They called the police; she went missing. They went, and it took what I think a couple of days to find her body at first. So, they found her body and then ended up arresting a suspect and charged him with first-degree murder. And that's basically where the case is at right now.

So, when this originally came out, my wife had actually mentioned to me, "Hey, did you hear about this woman?" And then it said something, "She's some heiress, has a lot of money." And so, at first, I was kind of like, "Okay, maybe there's something more to this story, like she was targeted or something," right? As the facts of the case sort of came out, it showed, it looked like this guy was sort of an opportunist. He saw her out running, and then attacked her, kidnapped her, brought her in the vehicle, then killed her.

So, an important thing to understand is her body was found, I think it was like seven miles from her house, but two blocks from where this guy was living. And he was living with his brother. His brother was actually subsequently arrested as well for unrelated charges, I believe, but something that he was doing.

And so, I just want to start off with, before we start this discussion about what happened, is the person, the suspect they arrested, is likely the person that did it, right? They have that, but that's the person that's responsible for this crime. So, we're not blaming Eliza or anything for what happened — this victim blaming. But what we are going to talk about is how can you prevent these things? How do these things occur? Is this a random occurrence? Was she targeted? All that stuff. And what can you personally do about this?

And the idea is, I get it, yes, every woman in the United States or in the world should feel free to jog at 4:30 in the morning and wear whatever you want and do whatever you want. I get that. But it's just, it's just not the world we live in. So, what we have to do is there are certain measures you can put in place. And it's not her fault, but like we always say with everything, your safety and security is your responsibility. The safety and security of your family is your responsibility. It's not someone else's, it's not the police, it's you, right? So, that's just something to keep in mind. I just always have to caveat that because people say, "Well, you know, you're bashing her." No, we're not. She was doing everything right probably in life. She's a schoolteacher, she's a mom, she's a runner, doing all the stuff. She didn't do anything wrong. The person who did something wrong was the person who killed her. So, I just want to clear that up front.

So, yeah, there are a bunch of things we want to jump into with this, Greg. Where do you want to start with it?

So, I would say this: if you're driving, pull over for a minute, grab your yellow pad, and draw a series of concentric circles from the center going out. I want you to think for just a second about the rings on a tree that when you cut it, you take a look at the rings and you can determine the age. You remember that old thing? Folks, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, look it up on your Google machine and you'll understand it in just a moment.

But I want you to also understand, no matter the thickness of your pen, I want you to remember that as you're drawing those circles going out like ripples in a pond emanating from the first drop that comes in, that there's an outside of that line and an inside of the line, just a hairsbreadth of a difference, but it makes a lot of sense in a minute.

So, I also want you to think of like irrigation pipe or the pipes in your home. You have what's called an inside diameter and an outside diameter. And right now, some lights are coming on. You're going, "Oh, I get it, he's talking about that the line itself has volume, and therefore there's a little bit of difference between the inside and the outside."

Now, I want to clarify a couple of things for the folks that don't follow news closely. I'm using those rings not only as a timeline but as an opportunistic advantage for one or both players. So, if you read the news this week, you'll know the Canadian stabbing, both brothers are dead, horrific, against your goddamn homework. The one brother, the brother that was caught second, and then self-inflicted died, Brian, he had 86 convictions on his record.

Wow. Okay.

Now, I offer that only based on the fact that the person that abducted Eliza Fletcher— now you said, "Hey, maybe it's a target of opportunity." I say that that's very speculative. I think looking at this kid's record, meaning going back to where the rock first hit the pond, isn't always the place we need to go. Sometimes we need to go back and find the rock and then we find a hand, you know what I'm trying to say? We have to work backwards from ground zero, right?

So, in this instance, it's interesting to me that he spent a significant time in jail, and one of the charges that he had was for kidnapping. Kidnapping, and he drove a person around in the trunk until he tried to find the ATMs, and that person lived, and he went to jail. So, what did you learn from that? What do you learn from the prison system when a victim goes, "Yep, that's him!"? Okay, hey, I'm not going to leave another victim.

Now, whether he knew or didn't know that she was a billionaire heiress, they're still trying to determine that, right? I would tell you this, I would tell you, CEO of our company and I, when this is breaking news, she walks in and she goes, "Hey, there's more to this one than meets the eye," right? And when Shelly says that, that's laser focus, right? And what she said to me afterwards is, "This isn't a standard domestic. The husband didn't buy somebody right, go rough up his old lady," or those. Yeah. Folks, I'm not making light of this. I'm trying to say this happened, and most of the time the person that murdered you is someone you know.

Yeah.

So, so this likely involved surveillance, planning, even if it was— listen, we talk all the time about advanced critical thinking. Your suspect in this didn't have a lot of advanced critical thinking. The minute that there was a form of resistance, he raised the level of escalation, murdered her, and then was going to go through with the kidnapping plan. He was arrested long before because he made so many mistakes. Her body was discovered, and now they're not releasing the manner of death. That's significant because they want to use that in the subsequent prosecution, right? And make sure their witness pool isn't tainted, right? Because if they go on, they go "strangulation death," that gives you all kinds of ideas, and people come out of the woodwork.

So, here's my thing, Brian, you hit on a couple of key points. One, she's a runner, she's consistent, she goes out every morning early. You know why? Because that's her time. And Brian, she's putting on the shoe leather. You know how I can prove that? Her school said that her qualifying time was only 12th, I believe, in the school. And folks, hold me that you can look it up online. Yeah, but Brian, her qualifying time was 12th in her school district, okay, but it qualified her for the Boston Marathon.

Yeah, so she's a runner, avid runner. She's, yeah, this isn't something she didn't just decide that morning to throw the shoes on and start losing weight or something. This is...

So, somebody listening, Brian, is wondering why we would bring that up. Well, that takes away from the domestic violence thing. She didn't just get mad and walk out of the house. She's not hitchhiking and then some nerdy, well, yeah, you know, pulls over.

The Chris Watts in Colorado. Woke up, exactly, goes for a run and she wasn't— she never came back this morning. Yeah, right.

And then there's no, and there's no dialogue that would prove or disprove that. And then the second thing is the Ring camera, the location camera. You know, I'm making fun of the Ring doorbell cam, which has caught more people cheating, by the way, than any other thing, even though they're the people that installed it, they never thought that it could be used against them, idiota.

But think about this for a minute. So, there's a camera that shows part of a vehicle and part of the suspect and part of his struggle. And those coppers put that together with the feds in record time, Brian. This guy was behind, you know, at the gray bar hotel, he was behind bars in such a quick time. Applause for them. Yeah.

Also, to anybody that ever met Eliza Fletcher, we're so sorry because this is a horrific symptom of the way things go. So, instead of, I would propose to you, instead of sitting here and like you said, nobody likes victim blaming, it just happens to be a journalistic metaphor. Nobody wants to think that their son or daughter could have this happen to them. Nobody wants to be killed at four in the morning when they're on their run listening to, you know, Boston's "More Than a Feeling."

How do we prevent this? So, I say that we talk about a couple of things that we know that you could do that would just change the dynamic slightly. Now, inside diameter, outside diameter, who's running on which? Let's talk about what the victim is likely thinking, what the suspect is likely thinking, how we could manipulate that. I mean, to me, that seems like a logical way to go in a caper like this.

Yeah, and you know, we get into this because there's, you know, people, this gets into, you know, it's not unlike route selection for planning a mission, right? That's what that's what you're kind of doing here. And I understand that, yeah, it sucks to think that way, but like we said, it's your personal safety. So, there's things like that that you could look at and or go, "You know what? I've been running this same exact route at the same time every single day." I'm what— whether you choose to change that or not, meaning like, "Oh, I could go a different way and start planning different routes and change it up." And whether you, if you don't want to do that, you have to realize what you're doing. You are setting a pattern. You are setting yourself up to be a target more so than the person who does change things up or doesn't do that. So, it's one of those things you have to sort of take into account.

And, you know, so something as simple as that, and never goes, "Well, this could happen anywhere at any time." It's like, "Well, no, it can't really." There's only so many places where somebody could explain that, abduct you, go into that geographically because that makes a lot of sense. You see that in your own life. I see that just this morning, going shopping at City Market, right? Choices I make, right? Nobody could victimize me at certain points because I'm open to the public. How does that work?

Well, I mean, so we talk about geographics and things like natural lines, drift, anchor points, habitual areas, and what those are. But without really getting into a detailed explanation, like, you know, I look at it as when I'm like when I'm walking the insurgent to school sometimes, right? So, if someone— it's about access, right? If someone wants to kidnap a kid, which is very rare. Most kidnappings are, again, it's a family member, it's the dad takes the kid or the mom takes it, right? Meaning some random stranger coming up and kidnapping a kid on the street is very rare in the United States, right?

But the idea is, it can only happen during so many times in so many places. It's not something that it's a, it's a finite data set if I were to use like a mathematical term of probability. What's the likelihood that's going to happen? So, like in the morning, you know when kids are going to school, right? Okay, that's more likely to happen because that's when it has to there, or when they're coming home.

So, I do stuff like that when I walk with the insurgent to school and I'm looking up at all the different vehicles on the street and go, "Hey, are any of those running? Is there anyone sitting in it? Why is that person sitting in their vehicle? Are they likely just leaving, going to work, and they're checking their phone real quick? Or are they sitting in their vehicle looking around at what's going on?" Two different things. "Why would they do that?" Oh, okay, they could be, they could be waiting here to pick someone up because then they're going to go somewhere. Okay, but what would that look like?

And just literally training and practicing, "Hey, look inside that vehicle when you walk past." Why? Because exactly, it's enough for her to go, "Hey, that seems odd." And it's all the way down the street. I now have time and distance, right? I now have a decision to make. I'm not right up on that.

I mean, there are three important concepts you just discussed. So, anybody that's still pulled over with your yellow pad, number one, Brian is teaching the insurgent what right looks like. So, when she walks to school alone in the future, she's got a model for her behavior. One huge thing, we could do an episode just on that.

Second thing, Brian, is you were using all of the domains as you were walking there, yes, to express, "Look, here's likelihood, this is here's a hedge, it's lower light, there's more children, there's less people at the bus stop." What you're doing is you're evaluating the current situation and updating the information. So, the fans of the OODA loop that don't know what it means but still are fans, this is what it means: it means that, listen, if we're talking inside diameter, outside diameter, for every step that Brian took with the insurgent, there's a suspect that's looking and going, "Well, I'm not going to target her because she's a harder target than the kid that's walking alone with their earbuds in, reading their phone or playing, you know, whatever kids play nowadays."

Brian, the third one is that not a, a couple of years ago, when Dorner was killing coppers, the police that were set up looking for an anomaly because they thought more cops were going to be killed, remember, he was targeting also their homes, he had their home addresses. They shot up two different sets of people because they had similar cars. One being the paperboy, one being the guy that exited too fast from the freeway and made it right instead of a left. You remember that?

Yeah.

So, what I'm saying there is that when you take a look at the situation, you so change the dynamic by putting that extra ripple in that that person couldn't catch your OODA loop. I'm not trying to be obtuse, I'm trying to say that you changed the dynamic. And if you walk the same way with the insurgent every day, you set a pattern. So, back that shit up. You get what I'm trying to say, right? What you have to do is you have to say, "I can't do this at the exact same time, in the same day, or I'll set a pattern." And patterns are what criminals look like or look for, rather. They look at that pattern, they analyze the pattern, and go, "This person's checked out, there's my victim."

Well, and that's great, especially to go to, you know, the Eliza Fletcher example is that she's likely running with, listening to music, you know, you're zoned out, sort of. You're focusing on what you're doing. You're in the zone.

Yeah, oh yeah, you're in your zone. But that, again, that so basic things that would stick out to a person just walking down the street, is you're less likely to see. You're putting yourself in that situation. So, so do that, juxtapose that for a minute. So, our suspect is on the inside diameter and Eliza's on the outside diameter. And what I mean by that is that she's got a scheduled beginning point, she has about how fast she's going to run, she's got the end point. All of those are her decisions, Brian, they're all down and in. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Her music selection, her shoes. "I need some moleskin because I got that rough spot on my right ankle." Do you know what I'm trying to say? "Hey, this next is uphill, I got to increase my pace," or whatever. All that's going on in there.

The other guy's going, "Woman, that's my target. She's going to slow down when she goes uphill. How much fuel do I have in my car right now? I don't want to rev the engine right because I don't want to surprise her. I want to have that album." So, what are we doing? He's inside diameter. His loop's much tighter, Brian. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Predatory looks, mission focus. "I've got a mission to complete." So, these are the elements. She's not even— do you think one time that morning she goes, "Fuck, it's early, I might get kidnapped!"? I would tell you, yeah, that's never even been in her OODA loop. You know, right.

And and also because a lot of people don't know what or how to look for those things, right? So, it's like she, even if she had thought, "Like, yeah, it's kind of dangerous," because realistically going for a run at 4:30, 5:00 in the morning, like, you're fairly safe. I mean, in general, of course you are. Most most chuds are already in bed. Vampires are starting to look like they're coughing, right? Exactly. Like, you're, you're at that time of day where one, there's no one out, so it's easy to see people. And everyone, I mean, meaning like, like you said, even the chuds are like, "Well, it's 4:30, I'm going to go to sleep and get up at the crack at noon now." Exactly.

So, so you're kind of, it's, "What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to do this? Look, I got to live my life." It's like, "Yeah, you do. But you brought up that checklist of things that were likely going through or, you know, are an examples of things of someone going out on a run would do, right?" I call those, those are like, those are inside-the-house concerns, right? "I'm getting myself prepared. Okay, what else do I need? What else do I need for this run? Do I have this?" All like we say, all that planning, all that process beforehand allows me to do what? Once I step out the door, I don't have to worry about all that stuff. I did that inside. Now outside, I can't like, I like looking up and around. I hate running. I only do it now because it's a useful skill to have, and I do it every once in a while in limited duration. I only run when I'm being chased. But the idea is the same thing is that's when you're out and about, well, that's the time to take things in. That's the time to look at what's going on.

Because one of the things that did happen in this case that they have the video of that they released in one of the news reports is that the suspect drove past her, right, and then stopped and waited for her to come up to him. So, he set in an ambush, whether it was hasty, whether he had pre-picked that spot or in that general area, he saw this was a good location. So, the idea is a vehicle drives past you, not a lot of traffic out there, goes up ahead and stops. Now, again, is it enough to go, "What's going on here?" Yeah, it, it, it absolutely is what we're saying.

Did they, you know what I mean? Or did they just sit there and wait? Exactly. Are they facing the opposite direction of traffic? Are they on the left side of the street? Is the vehicle still running? Right. Were there other people? Did the dome light come on? Why am I saying that the continuum, Brian? Because you hit on something again that's fucking essential. Take a look as she's running, she sees a vehicle. First thing she thinks is, "Paperboy." Those cops that were set up in San Jose, they didn't think, "Paperboy." They thought, "Hey, it's Dorner, and he's coming. He's going to start actually."

What it was, so but that's inside, outside, right? Because what's happening is she's looking, listen folks, you go through denial, and the phases of denial are so fast and so rigid, meaning she looked and she said, "Well, this can't be a kidnapping." She would say that before she would say, "This is odd. I wonder what he's up to when he's jumping out and grabbing." She's going, "Well, this can't be happening." Do you understand what I'm saying? When we don't train for the moment, what happens is our brain goes for an available heuristic, for a file folder that can say, "Here's what's likely occurring." And guess what, Brian, if you haven't considered it, you come up on a black file, a white file. Yeah, nothing is there. Yeah.

What I'm trying to say, and no, that's that's that's the point you're just making is that what were those police doing in the Christopher Dorner case? They were looking for Christopher Dorner, you got it. What did they do? They put those files in line, whatever, whatever came close enough to Christopher Dorner, so, you know, while we have a hit. So now compare that to the Eliza case. What is she looking for? Let's say she did this, she's looking more, "This person lives in this neighborhood. They probably are out, whatever. They— everything was the what I dropped something, they're returning it." It never crossed into the, "What else could it be? What's the most dangerous course of action here? Could this be a kidnapping?" And that's the thing is that it's a very simple way of looking at is she goes off of her file folders, right? She only has file folders for what she's experienced in life and how people are and never thought of this. The police go off of their file folders, they're amped up, they're looking for someone, right? It's it's it's both sides of the same coin right there on how we process our environment.

Precisely. So, so now you take those concentric rings, Brian, and I can line up her and her assailant. I can line up Christopher Dorner and his victims. I can use this continuum to figure out where those spirals go. And the spirals, the anomalies are where the danger is, Brian. That means predictive analysis. I don't have to run down every possible scenario. What I have to do is I have to look at the most likely ML scenarios, and there's only a couple of MD scenarios. Okay, she's more likely to get hit by a car than kidnapped, but she's a billionaire heiress. That changes my math. Okay, that changes my calculation.

So, so now let's do this. Let's talk about pattern. Okay, we work in pattern recognition because it's important, but the most important part is the analysis. So, everybody that just says, "Increase your situation awareness," hasn't read any of the shit that we're putting out there because they're at the first part of it, not the second. The second's where the magic is.

So, listen, it's been a month now, a month and ten days because today's the night when we're recording this since I've had the new gym. And it's not a new gym, I just painted the basement a different color, so it's a new gym, right? But I've got my elliptical and I've got my bike, and the elliptical is the treadmill one that's also a stair stepper and all that other stuff. Brian, it was my 60th birthday, I splurged, got the assault bike. But my grenade region looks just like a G.I. Joe. I'm riding so hard and so fast that I sanded all that shit off, so I've got no bumps anymore.

But listen to me, okay, I in a month trained myself what not to do. How? Because I went in there and it has 27 possible this, it has all these other things that are available to it. And you know what I found out in just a month, Brian? I like this workout the best out of those 27, and this one's a fun one. What? That fast start on the assault bike is much easier than me programming this. So, I've done what? I've created a pattern that is the lowest caloric input. And guess what? Every morning I have to do when I go down there, I have to change that shit. Because if I don't do that, what am I going to do? Six months from now, you'll be able to come back and go on a computer and see that my fat ass only did those things. Do you get what I'm saying? I doubled my workout time in the basement to do that, took effort. Why? Because as soon as I got to that minute where I usually stop, you know what I'm saying? I would want to stop. You know what I'm saying?

And so, listen, if that works for the shaved ape, the Neanderthal in my basement, that works for anybody when they're out on the road. Because when you're driving to the local Walmart, are you thinking that the Walmart might be on fire or robbed, or you might have to give the Heimlich? No. And guess what? Those are the realistic concerns that you need to address. When I pull up at the fast-food restaurant, is the person in the car in front of me going to dive through the window to grab the cash out of the cash register? And you know what? How would that impact me? How would that delay me?

Now, if we use that same mindset on the pattern recognition analysis, Brian, at an airport, we'd never get mad at the counter person when there was a plane delay. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Because it would have already been something that we anticipated. You and I could happen.

Yeah, could happen. You and I right now have a backup plan for everything. For every one of our meetings, every flight plan, where we're going to go to a different airport. We do that out of routine, and therefore it doesn't burn a lot of calories. It's, no, it's it's me flying out of here. Anywhere I go, always get the first 6:00 AM flight out, no matter what time we have to be somewhere, no matter where we're going. If anything goes wrong, I have time to take a later flight. Or if something happens, I'm there. If I go, "Oh, I don't need to get on that until that noon flight," well, that noon flight's the last one I can take. If it goes wrong, then you know, I'm screwed, I'm not going to get it.

Here we go, we're talking about those concentric rings again, aren't we? We're talking about that echo that's coming off of everything that we do or we don't do. I'll give you an example: one day soon, the insurgent's going to be on her way to school on her own. And folks, I'll tell you what Brian's going to be doing: Brian's going to be wearing his ninja suit, hiding in the hedge, watching to make sure that he takes a look at the atmosphere. He's not going to be checking up on her, he knows she's doing the right thing. He's going to be seeing who's watching who. So, surveillance begs counter-surveillance. Why? Because you got to have people doing the surveillance and actively doing the counter-surveillance so I can focus on my run.

So, I would tell you this, Eliza's husband, brother, sister, uncle, whether she was a billionaire or a teacher or not, just a female that's out there. If my wife was running at four in the morning, I knew she was setting a pattern every Tuesday for the next couple weeks, then I'd switch it to Thursday. I'd switch up the routes and the time. Every once in a while, I'd run with her or I'd be out there in the car with a dog or something. Do you understand, Brian, that just that one choice spins all those other things out of control so a suspect can't best you? That's the idea. John Boyd said it best, you get what I'm trying to say? Yeah, nobody ever reads this shit, they just quote it like it's a mantra, but what we're talking about is your pattern can be recognized, and once it's recognized, a person can target you.

So, my answer would be, "Do I think that Eliza Fletcher was targeted?" Yeah, I do. I absolutely do. Now, now, is this the smartest master criminal with the bald head and a white cat? No. But what does he have? He's done it before. So, when he saw it, the chips started falling in line, and he goes, "Holy shit, here we go again!"

So that's that's the thing. You kind of brought it up, but from his perspective, that same thing, right? All criminals, same things, set patterns. All humans do, it doesn't matter. And what was his pattern and how did he learn? What was his training? Training and education doesn't have to be formal. Okay, you, training is life experience. Oh, man, I, I let that person go after the last kidnapping and then they finger, they pointed me out, and I went to jail for a long time. Well, I ain't going to do that again. That's a hard "never happen again" and "I'm never doing that again." And so that's the idea is in his mind where he's at, you know, he now has an option that he didn't think of before because on the previous one where he was convicted, he never thought of it. It wasn't a, you know what, it wasn't a thought in his mind. He just said, "I'm going to get some money, I'm going to get away with it, no big deal." This isn't a big thing because he lacks the critical thinking skills. However, all humans learn. You learn either the hard way or you learn from other mistakes.

And yeah, exactly, look at this, Brian, back off the gas because there's some person that's trying to out-think us and listen, we're not that smart, we just stick to what we know. But I will tell you this, I don't think that when this guy got out of jail he looked through the newspapers and said, "Hey, Eliza lives in this town outside of Nashville, so I'm going to move within seven miles and I'm going to start to search." That's not what we're talking about, folks. What we're talking about is happenstance. You know, he finds out and somebody says, "Hey, did you know that teacher at that school and she's a billionaire heiress and somebody goes, 'No, hey, she's training for the Boston Marathon!'" Bing, bing, enough information to launch my plan, Brian. And even though it's a hasty plan, it's a plan that's going to involve a tremendous amount of violence right up front. Why? Because what can't he do? He can't negotiate with somebody that's injured at that point, he has to kill them right away and then try his own negotiation. Do you get what I'm trying to say? The idea behind keeping her alive and driving around to the ATMs for a while, that paid off poorly. So his brain's chemistry says, "Well, we're not going to do that now." In the moment he probably had the thought, "Let's keep her alive long enough to, you know, tape something or do something." And he may have even done that, we don't know, the police are holding that close. But the idea was he was never going to let her go and she was never going to live through this experience because he couldn't risk it.

So your brain's chemistry makes you repeat behaviors, whether you're a miscreant like this piece of shit or whether you're a normal human. Now he didn't accidentally drive over her and then go, "Oh, fuck, you know, put her in the van, take her and dog her somewhere," because it was a hit and run. So, so the idea is that obviate what you know, and what I mean by that is make the knot bigger because when the knot's bigger, then you can see the most likely paths to untie that knot. Okay, so if we were doing criminal profiling, Brian, the obvious, the answer is, "You can't dangle that lure in front of me for too long before I bite. I have a pattern as well," and she fit his pattern, she fit it perfectly, and it cost her life. So all we're saying is harden yourself because you could be the target, and if you harden your target, they're going to go somewhere else.

No, and I truly believe that. No, it is. And this is why, even, you know, we, we keep, even when we teach high-speed teams or some whoever, like, we will give examples like this and they're like, "Well, you know, when I'm deployed to here," like, "Dude, you're not getting it, like, exactly. If you can't do it the second you walk out of that house and make a habit of it, then it's, you're not, you're not going to magically turn that switch on and go, 'Hey, this is what they're talking about.'" You have to do it at a white belt level every day in your life to go, "What's likely to occur here? Is this the best time? Should I continue doing this?" Does it burn some calories? It does at first. I mean, really, it does at first when you start doing that because you're thinking more, you're making those decisions, it might take up a little bit of time, but what happens?

Change your life a little. Right.

Yeah, and what happens over time, it actually just becomes part of what you do, right? "Hey, I'm going to go this way instead of that way. Now, you know what? I'm just going to go five minutes later today. You know what? I'm going to go run this." I mean, those little things are are very low calorie and and it prevents stuff like this.

And, and, and, you know, I, I also kind of want to hit, you, you talked about it from the criminal perspective. Yes, in the sense that she was targeted, but but not in the sense that people would think. It's hilarious, we, I just got a text message from one of our buddies, J.B., and it texts literally, I saw the belief of the question, "It's like, hey, do you think this Eliza," yeah, I just didn't get to read the whole thing, but it just popped out, and so I'm going to text him when we're done and be like, "Guess what we were just talking about?" Exactly, right? What you mean by that, like he targeted her because like he was part of this. I'll give an example, like, just just elaborate a little bit.

Yeah, I think, let me give you an example. So, so I'm in Iraq. It's one of my first trips to Iraq, and what I found ironic that I had to tell everybody in Iraq was that they were doing such a great job of SA (situational awareness) outside the wire. Comment Hunter helped hugely, tremendously, because remember, that didn't just go to the Marines back then, Brian. We were embedded with Army units and going outside the wire with them. So, a lot of people benefited from that, not so much inside of the combat outpost or FOB (Forward Operating Base). Why? Because those people wouldn't listen, "I'm here to peel potatoes. I'm here to wash the general's car." And I mean those things still happen, folks.

So, what happened is, I'm standing in line for the DFAC (dining facility) and I look and I look around, and there's all these stones that are there, and I go, "Oh, there's shrapnel." And everybody's in line for three-quarters of a mile, wound around the tent where food, smoke, and smell, and I go, "Well, one insurgent with a mortar, yes, or an RPG is going to look at that and they're going to kill all of us." So they said, "Well, what would you do, Fat Man?" And I said, "Here's what you do: you open up your DFAC to all types of hours, including mid-rats (midnight rations). You make sure that people don't come and stand in line, you make different areas that you have protected. And then when that person comes out, they go," and they go, "That's a lot of fucking work!" "Yeah, but you saved a lot of lives, okay?" Do you see what I mean?

So, the criminal only has to be right once. You, as the potential victim, right every day. So, so what I'm saying about targeting is, he looked at an advantage that he would hold in this circumstance. And he was on his way to work or he was out of work or he was high on drugs or he didn't ever use drugs in his life and he was at church. That shit doesn't matter, Brian. His criminal profile doesn't matter. The idea is that what did he learn over his life? He learned that this was a chance to make money. To remember, rape is a crime of violence, there may have been a sexual component in it. His patterns surrounded about taking people that have money out of their element and using them to make money. And so he saw this, and whether the plan was hatched over a couple of days or a couple of weeks or a couple of months, remember, more critical thinking, the longer they plan, right? He saw it and bing, bing, bing, these things fit. He may have been driving home from the bar one morning and saw her running. He may have been dropping his buddy off at work. You see what I'm trying to say?

But the idea is, we don't think like that. Who thinks like that? The extremes. So your terrorists and your criminals are on one side, and then your coppers or your do-gooders are on the other side. But all the rest of the people that are in the middle, Brian, they never consider that. And we're in a world now and a part of the world and a time of our evolution where you have to critically think your way through this. You got to game them. If you don't game going to the store today, like, for example, there was a guy the other day, stupid example, but it's just like the Iraq if you sit down for a minute you'll get it. A guy passed me on our little road out here. The speed limit's 40. There's deer everywhere, rabbits everywhere, you know, the hay truck pulling out that's going nine miles an hour, and he passed me at like 70 in a 40. All I did is think about, you know, what's it going to look like at this crime scene when he rolls over, he gets ejected? The very next morning on my way, and this is folks that understand karma, very next morning in the pitch is dark with no moon, I see a guy changing the tire on the side of the road. Remember, there's no lights but the moonlight, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And the moon was gone, so it's starlight, and that wasn't helping, and I could barely see it because it's very early in the morning with my headlight wash, and it was him, and he was changing the tire on his vehicle. And I was like, "Hey, sorry, pal, any other day I would have stopped and assisted, but this is God's, man, or Buddha's vision, this is their message to you."

So what do I mean about that? That could have been a target of opportunity, Brian, had I been another person, I could have gone up and said, "Hey, that's nice. Hey, you notice there ain't anybody around for 80 miles? How about that wallet, chum?" You get what I'm trying to say? There could have been, so so you and I never think of that unless we think of it at targeting a criminal, terrorist, or insurgent. Criminal, service, insurgent, they're constantly switched on, they're looking at that and going, "You left your window down in your car, and that computer is now mine. You left your cell phone on the table when you went to the bathroom, now it's mine." And how good they are is that, or what their level of organization is going to differ, but they're all going to think that way.

Like this guy right here in the suspect in this case, where was her body found? Two, two blocks from where this guy was staying. Yeah, two blocks. Yeah, or something, or a half-mile. Sorry, I forgot we could go into the whole thing with the geographic spring. That's what I mean. It's like, he's going to stay within where he's comfortable, in the locations that he knows and he's familiar with, right? Including where to hunt, right? It's not unlike the lion hunting the deer, right? Or, right, exactly. The idea. It's, it's the same process.

And the lion hunting the deer, Brian. Brian, so a lion would hunt a deer if there was one, and it's no, you're exactly, let's put it that way, mountain lion and then you got it, there we go. Oh, perfect, there we go, that's what I meant. Now we're there. But the, but the, that's the idea is is my level of organization is going to, I mean, look at how quickly he was arrested too, even before they found her. So, what do we know? Low level of sophistication, low level of organization, yes, so he got caught more quickly. And then he's not going to say anything, he's going to tell, "I don't know what you mean," in the face of all the evidence. I could predict his answers in the room. We could tape an episode on how he's going to sit, how he's going to talk, how he's going to answer the questions. Why? Because in his mind, he's already blocked out that piece going, "That goes down a dark hallway, I don't want to be. That goes right to the electric chair, I don't want to be there. So I'm going to lie my ass off all the way." And then when she's discovered, I'm going to come up with a, what? An excuse. "Hey, listen, she had a heart attack. I got out of the car to help her." Yeah. Do you get what I'm trying to say? And some defense attorneys are going to go, "I'll buy that for a dollar!" That's how things work, folks. And if you don't predict those now at home, what Brian was calling his, you know, internal the house set, right? Then then you're going to, you could be a victim. We're not trying to scare anybody, we're trying to say these would be the four things or five things I would do differently, you know, if I could be a victim.

Well, and that's what I mean, even there in the moment. Even something is, is her seeing a vehicle go past and then stop, and just stopping for a second going, "Wait a minute, that kind of doesn't really make sense right now. And how many times has it happened since I've been running, right?" So, it's novel, it's new. And and taking forward, how easy is it to just, "Well, I'll double back this way." I mean, that's running, you can run wherever, right? I mean, but we, we don't want to...

Stopping about stopping, do you see what I'm saying? That gives me the gift of time and distance. You're right. But I would ask you this too, because this just bounced into my head. First of all, shout out to J.B., God love J.B., he's a great person and we love him to death, Brian. You're going to have the people that listen to our show that the only thing they listen for is weapons. "What's your weapon of choice?" I would carry the, yeah, whatever, that's the immediate thing. "If she would have had a gun, that would have been difficult," or, "this, she would still be alive. Jesus would have had a gun, he'd still be alive today." I heard that one too. My point, we're probably both going to hell for that one. It is really fun. But the idea is, the idea is, Jesus. Okay, Jesus had a gun, but listen to me, listen to me, what difference does it make here? If she was untrained in a spontaneous ambush-style attack, then, look, you're more likely to shoot yourself with a gun or have it and somebody else shoot. We don't think of that. We just think that that gun is the magic wand that would have changed things, Brian.

Yeah, well, that's, we went, we went how many minutes before we ever brought up a weapon or self-defense or fighting? The idea is you can out-think almost any potential tragedy in your, in your, in your world.

Well, and that's the point again, don't rely on a tool. You know, yeah, you don't rely on a thing. We're going to think with a "K," right? How do I totally out of this situation? And again, I mean, that's that's the whole point. Like if you if you haven't mastered your ability to think outside of this, think your way out of a situation, maybe you're just going to rely on a tool. Like, okay, well, now now now it's up to that and your ability to do when, you know, you spend the time it's a zero-sum game, now you're down to binary, right? Win or lose. You're right. Putting yourself into that. And you're opening yourself up to a whole bunch of other potential outcomes that could be even worse for you and precisely you never even use it in a situation where you thought you might, you use it. And I'm not against it, I'm just saying like like but, you know what the gun is good for? The gun is good for after you've figured out that it's an ambush and you out thought your opponent that you get on the phone with 9-1-1, give the plate, be an expert witness and hold your gun in your right or left hand to make sure that if he circles around that block again, you know, he'll whistle when they catch him because he's going to have so many fucking holes in him. The same thing with chemical aerosol spray or impact weapon or your martial arts. Those are great, but what are they for, Brian? They're like your insurance, you don't want to ever have to use them. And if any of those people that you take a course from for chemical aerosol spray, guns, Krav Maga, any of that other stuff, the first thing that they should be teaching you is, "Here's the limits of your human performance, and make decisions further away so you can mitigate them or avoid them altogether." Because if you're looking for a fight, Brian, there's a person out there that's willing to fight or outshoot or stab you. Yeah.

And you can learn all that in your four-hour concealed carry class, right?

There you go. Yeah, and be an expert in one hour, or or with the thing that we see on, on, on, on without LinkedIn, where you can be an expert in four hours and get your watching up their degree and go out and and and do it on your own. Yeah, kiss my ass and watch a video and learn. This is hard, Brian. I don't know how many episodes that we've done because I've got no concept of time in this fashion, but in every single episode, we've endeavored to try to help somebody out-think a clever, cunning opponent, every episode. Okay, and it's taken us what, this is our third year, you get what I'm trying to say, of doing this kind of stuff. So, when you can tell me that you can get an instructor certification in four hours, come on, I can't learn to wipe my ass in four hours.

Yeah, yeah, and I've got a massive ass. But it's it's it's all out there and it's usually just a, I mean, let's call it what it is, it's a fucking money-making scheme. I mean, that's what most of those are. So, which is, which sucks. But I I think just kind of up-armoring your brain and as much, much training and education you get in that is going to is going to, you know, it's going to help you out much more than something like this. So, let's go back to the Eliza...

Yeah, you're exactly right. And first of all, folks, don't think we're downplaying this. We're so sorry Eliza is dead. But I will tell you this is a rare, but inevitable, nowadays situation where a master predator found a wonderful human that failed to be anticipated. Good in everyone, everything.

That's the thing. Is like, you know, I, I've had it with friends before where I had one friend, she asked me a whole bunch of questions, well, you know, it's kind of a relationship thing with that, which I stay out of. But if they have specific behavior and stuff, I can go, "Well, this is, you know," and I'm like, you know, they, they, she's talking about it, and I'm just like, I'm like, "Look, you're a really nice person. You see the good in everything." Yep, that's great. You're going to have a wonderful life and you should because most people are good. You have to learn to see that there's another side out there, right? There's something else. So, yeah.

But we have a wonderful life.

Well, yeah, but what I'm saying is...

We're not jaded, Brian.

No, but what I'm saying is, I I don't even take those things into account where she's going, "Well, yeah, but she's like justifying everything this person is doing." And I'm like, "Hey, like listen to yourself. Like, let me say back to you." Yes, let me put it, I'm going to repeat that story in my terms and she's like, "Wow, that sounds messed up." And I'm like, "Yes."

So, and I go further. I go further and I say, "Listen, both of us are constantly tuned in to the dark side, to what the MD KOA (Most Dangerous Course of Action) might be that's happening around us. And we both have wonderful relationships and rich, beautiful lives and we love our children and everything. I don't want people to think that you and I are hoarders that have guns buried in the backyard, we wear a helmet every time we poke our head out in Sunblock 80, and we don't enjoy life." You can do both. That's what I'm saying. You can do both and you'll you'll be longer lived than most people because when you're walking around wearing those rose-colored glasses, then you're going to miss every opportunity and every day and just getting into the routine and practice of it because then you don't have to, it's hard to, don't have to look anymore. It it becomes self-evident. You see things without before you even consciously realize that those indicators will pop out to you versus you searching for them and finding them. They'll they'll stick out so much because it's just a, I mean, these things, you know, a great one to listen is the Secure Dad podcast, right? I love that because he has so many great little tips and advice, things we just because of how we do stuff, we stay away from TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) and, "Hey, try this," because it's just not what we do and you have to find what works for you in your situation. Like, there is no, you know, it's like the whole like, "This one, oh, if she had a gun," it's like, "Okay, that's the answer." Like, that's your answer for everything. Like, of course it is, it's just so, so it's just so simple, like, come on, things are more complicated than that. It can't be that simple.

You're exactly right. And science, science does not favor those type of decisions, Brian, because when you put all your eggs in one basket, we wouldn't have a frame of reference, "eggs in one basket," if that was a good idea. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? You got to spread them damn eggs out. There's that other case too that you sent, I wanted— I think it was in like North Carolina where the young couple went to hell. But I would ask you, I would ask you, why don't we do that on Patreon? Because we can do a deep dive on—

Yeah, actually, I don't even, yeah, that that's good because there's a lot to get into that.

Yeah, there's a great caper, a five-year-old coming out with a shotgun. Exactly. That alone would happen. So that's a good one, but yeah, let's cover that one on there.

So, I, I know, I hope, you know, everyone listening that this kind of makes a little bit clearer how we do these things and and, you know, what you some basic takeaways of to keep in mind to go, "Yeah, you know what? I I have to do that. Maybe I shouldn't be listening my music this loud. Maybe I should start to look around a little bit more." I mean, even just that, you don't have to come up with a potential outcome for every single thing happening in your life, that would drive you mad. You just have to look at what's likely, what's the most dangerous, right? What am I seeing? Likely that person is just pulling up to their house and going in there and they're, whatever, got home from work, got up early. Like even you, you go to the store at like 6:00 AM because there's no one there and right when it opens. Okay, absolutely. So, if I'm out on my jog in Gunnison and I see you coming back, I go, "Okay, like maybe that guy just went to the store, you know, it's fine as long as you exactly keep driving away from me, I know I'm good," right?

And it's a good game. Yeah, it's a fun game to play, it keeps you alert.

It is fun. And and so a shout out for training. So, what's the difference? Look, because at the beginning, you need to be trained and mentored. If you gave a kid a bat and a ball and a a glove at six years later, they would figure out baseball. Yeah. But the idea...

Exactly, they would, they would figure out baseball, but some of the rules they came up with would be hilarious. Yeah. Do you hear what I'm trying to say? And they wouldn't come up with their techniques.

Yeah, exactly. But but the idea is that that's life. So, either you want to do it on your own or you get a mentor, you get a coach, you get somebody. And what we do is we train you how to look for those things and what to do if you find them. And that's essential.

I got a couple of shout-outs. So, if we're getting close, I just want to go ahead. So, first of all, folks, everybody that's listening and sounding my voice, Brian and I are going to be in Dallas. I'm not going to tell you when. That's none of your damn business because I don't want to get targeted by any of the in the following, we'll say, yeah.

Yeah, when you're this release. Exactly, around that time.

So, if you want to link up with Brian and I, and that's valuable to you, if you got an opportunity for us, do me a favor, reach out to Brian, just send him a message. This is what we're thinking at thehumanbehaviorpodcast@gmail.com.

Okay, second part, Liberty's coming up again. You all know how much we love Liberty University. We got a great course there. If you don't know it or you want to know more about it, send Brian an informative or an email and he'll send you an informative brochure, tell you everything that you need to know about it, or answer all your questions. If you're law enforcement, it's free. It's free. And if you're from a certain state that we all know, you get college credit hours.

The other one, Brian, is shout out to our dear friends at Lafayette Coney Island. Oh, man, I hope they get control. So, both of our PTS was triggered during a recent trip to Detroit. Brian, I'll let you take it from there.

Shout out to our friends at Lafayette. We were in Detroit, Ann Arbor area recently, and Greg introduced me, which I had never had, to the Coney dog. Right, which we had for breakfast that day, which is the breakfast of champions, which is for those who don't know, in Detroit, they do the Coney dog where it's a hot dog with chili and onions on it, right? That was it. So, and it's it's amazing, it's delicious. But we went into Lafayette Coney Island, one of the original places. It's literally like stepping into a time machine. I mean, nothing...

It really was. Yeah, yeah.

There's like the back half that's a little bit newer, but but it's that part's still really old. I mean, there's like flies in there and everything. And so Greg's like, "Yeah, you got to go check out the bathroom downstairs." And I went down there and it was just dark and dingy and nasty and, you know, looked like a good place to lop some people's heads off.

Exactly. And the equation I made is when we were in Iraq, and there was a horrible situation, I took those photos, I was immediately transported back to that situation. It was like similar tile or something. Exactly. And it was creepy. And so I went up and I grabbed you, first of all, food was great, service was incredible. We've always loved Lafayette and for the folks that have been there. But then but then Greg sends me a few days ago a link to a news article saying Lafayette Coney Island was shut down for a little while for health reasons.

Exactly. They had some inspection in there and they definitely did not pass, which I could have easily... Yes.

But here's my thing, Brian, both of us have had worse things in our mouth, so there's no reason that we're going to change our routine. Plus, if we knock on the glass, maybe we'd take another, once it was like 11 or 10 dollars for three hot dogs or something, like the most massive chili covered and onion and a hint of that yellow mustard, Brian, that that put it over.

Oh, that's right, it was a little bit on there. Yes, it was, it was delicious. It was, I, it fueled me for the for the walkabout in Detroit, that's for sure.

And the colon blow later, you know, made it easier to work out for us. Yeah, yeah.

Well, thanks, everyone, for for tuning in. Again, like Greg said, questions, stuff like that, reach out to thehumanbehaviorpodcast@gmail.com. We do have the Patreon site where we do extra stuff. Yeah, we'll talk about a cool footage on there, and we'll do this one actually. I think we should definitely bring that up on a Patreon one, the one we discussed.

Anything involving a five-year-old with a shotgun is is is my kind of talk about. Yeah.

I thought I thought you were going to say my kind of kid. But so we, we thanks everyone for tuning in, we appreciate you supporting the show. If you enjoy it, please share it with your friends and don't forget that training changes behavior.