Man's Body Found in Freezer — Wife Arrested!

0:00This is Hota Copy from Joy 101 with Hota Copy. Okay. Have you ever showed up late to the game and your friends already saved you a seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back and that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T guarantee. They know staying connected matters. So they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can depend on or they'll proactively make it right. Just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com slash guarantee for details. Hey, it's Toriespelling. Actress, podcast, host and mom. Back to school may add another layer of busy, but I don't cut corners when it comes to my family and nutrition. Good nutrition is necessary for learning activity and development and nutrient dense foods like protein pack, lean beef.

1:00Provide key nutrients to fuel the whole family. Visit backtoschoolcalifornia.com for money saving offers on beef. Delicious recipes and more. Back to school nutrition starts with backtoschoolcalifornia.com. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still, not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University, what can't you do? Visit capella.edu to learn more. Picture the absolute perfect summer Sunday. Oh, yeah, the kind where you just totally unplugged. Exactly. It's late June, the 28th to be exact. And you are out on Lake Matoon. Which, if you aren't familiar with Central Illinois, is this really sprawling, just peaceful reservoir. Right. So the sun is beating down. The water is catching that afternoon glare. And you're on a boat with your families. It's a classic summer day. Yeah. Everyone is just completely relaxed. You're leaning over the edge, feeling that warm summer breeze,

2:03soaking in the peace and quiet. But then out in the water, maybe a dozen yards away, you spot something bobbing on the surface. Just drifting into your path. Right. So a dad on the boat squints. He hands his daughter an oar and he points at it. He tells her it looks like a dead fish floating toward them and asks her to just gently push it away as the boat drifts closer. Makes sense. You don't want a dead fish bumping the boat. Exactly. So you watch her lean over or in hand, the boat glides forward, the water ripples, and then the object rolls over in the wake. And that idyllic summer afternoon just shatters in an instant. Because what is floating right in front of you bumping against the hull of your family boat is not a dead fish. No, it is a severed human arm. A severed human arm. Yeah. Drifting in the current right where families are swimming. Where people are jet skiing and hanging out. The sheer visceral horror of that moment is honestly, it's almost impossible to overstate. It's a nightmare. It really is.

3:03So today we are immersing ourselves in the staggering investigation that was launched the exact second that family called 911. And we've got a lot of ground to cover. We do. We are drawing from this massive collection of primary sources for this deep dive. We've got incident details filed by the Illinois State Police, the really meticulous post-mortem reports from the Will County corner. Right. And also those sweeping court documents that local media, like the Harold News, really fought to bring to light. Yes, exactly. Plus, we have the incredibly candid behind the scenes analysis of a retired Chicago police department detective commander, which is just invaluable. It really is. We are going to break down how one gruesome discovery on a sunny afternoon unravels a profoundly twisted, domestic nightmare. And what makes this case so vital to study isn't just the shock value. It does. It's the mechanics of the unraveling itself. Now it all fell apart. Exactly. We are going to pull back the curtain on this massive gulf

4:04between how criminals think they are hiding a crime and the unforgiving microscopic reality of forensic science. Right. Because they are rarely the masterminds they think they are. Never. We'll look at the biological realities of how water interacts with human tissue. We'll look at the devastating digital footprints we leave behind without even realizing it. Oh, the digital part is wild. It is. And finally, we'll get into the incredibly frustrating, deeply counterintuitive legal loopholes that actually govern what prosecutors can and cannot prove in a court of law. Yeah, that part is going to blow people's minds. But let's start right there in the water. OK, let's do it. We are at Lake Matoon. Like we said, it's a rural recreational lake. It's about three hours south of Chicago. It's kind of place you go to just disappear for the weekend. Right. And whoever put that arm in the water was clearly counting on the vastness of that lake to make a massive problem just disappear forever. But they made a huge mistake. A massive one. When law enforcement arrives, they recover the arm. But this wasn't just an anonymous featureless limb.

5:07No, it wasn't. It featured this highly distinctive, completely unmistakable tattoo. It was a green bay Packers helmet with a skull. Yeah. And the Will County Coroners report, it takes this a step further. And it's a grim detail, but we have to mention it. Right. They note the recovery of appendages. Plural. Plural. Wow. Right. The arm was the first discovery. But it definitely wasn't the last. The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office and the state police, they eventually pulled multiple body parts from the lake. So the perpetrator really went to the trouble of meticulously dismembering the victim and scattering them. Yeah, likely assuming the lake would act as this permanent watery grave. But the recovery of that specific arm with the Packers tattoo, I mean, that was the absolute worst case scenario for the killer. Total disaster for them. But wait, I have to ask, if you are going to the unimaginably gruesome lengths of dismembering a human being, why would you just toss the parts into a recreational lake?

6:08I know it sounds crazy. It seems absurdly careless. You're trying to hide a body, but you throw it in a place filled with boaters, fishermen, swimmers in the middle of summer. Why wouldn't they bury it or do something to ensure it never sees the light of day? Well, it comes down to the panic of the amateur versus the reality of physics and biology. OK, how so? The retired detective command resource for this, he speaks to this constantly. Perpetrators, they operate under incredible psychological strength. Like they're just panicking. Exactly. They want the evidence gone immediately. And water looks like an easy instant solution. Out of sight, out of mind. Right. Throw something in. It sinks, and your brain just tells you, OK, the problem is solved. But it's not. Not at all. Yeah. Unless human remains are meticulously almost professionally prepared, meaning wrapped tightly in heavy duty tarps, bound with chains, and weighed down with massive, calculated amounts of weight, they are inevitably coming back up. Because of decomposition.

7:08Precisely. It is inescapable biology. The moment a person dies, the bacteria that naturally live inside the human body, particularly in the digestive tract, but they're present throughout, they begin to consume the surrounding tissue. Oh, wow. Yeah. And as they break down those cells, they excrete gases. We were talking about methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide. Just building up inside. Exactly. As those gases become trapped in the tissue, the body part actually begins to bloat. It essentially becomes a biological balloon. That is horrifying. It is. So no matter how dense the bone or muscle is initially, that gas creates immense buoyancy. So even if someone in their frantic state threw the parts into standard garbage bags and maybe tossed in a few rocks, it wouldn't be enough. No, not at all. The bags would just inflate and rise anyway. Actually, it's worse than that. Worse. How? The aquatic environment is highly active. A garbage bag is completely useless down there. And Illinois Lake in June is just

8:09teaming with aquatic scavengers, turtles, catfish, crustaceans. Oh, right. Because they're drawn to it. Yeah, they're drawn to the biological material. They will tear through a standard plastic garbage bag in a matter of hours. Just shred it. Exactly. And once the bag is compromised, whatever rudimentary weights the killer used, they just fall out. And then the gases continue to expand the tissue. Yep. And the appendages float right to the surface. The criminal things they're executing a master plan, completely ignoring the fact that the ecosystem itself will actively dismantle their cover-up. Nature literally rejects it. Exactly. Which brings us back to the tattoo. The sources noted that the skin on this recovered arm was in pretty good condition. When I read that, it hit me that this wasn't some cold case that had been sitting at the bottom of the lake for a decade. The timeline had to be incredibly tight. Oh, absolutely. The preservation of the skin is the crucial metric here. Yeah. Water is highly destructive to human tissue over time. If that arm had been submerged for even a few weeks,

9:11the epidermis would undergo a process called masseration. Which is what exactly? It's essentially water logging and peeling away. The tattoo would distort. It would fade. Or it might just slow off entirely. Wow. But it didn't. No. The fact that the ink was vibrant and the skin was intact, it told investigators instantly that they were dealing with a fresh crime. Right. The victim had likely been on the water for mere days. So it functions like a biological license plate? That is a great way to put it. Instead of law enforcement standing on the shore, staring at this unidentifiable tragedy, they have a giant billboard pointing directly to a specific person. And the speed that provides is vital to an investigation. Because normally it takes forever, right? Think about the traditional process for unidentified remains. If you recover a generic limb, you are facing a logistical nightmare. What do they usually do? Well, you might try to rehydrate the fingers to pull prints, which is this highly specialized, tedious process that often just fails if the skin is damaged. And if that fails.

10:11Then the medical examiner has to extract bone marrow or deep tissue for DNA testing. Which takes a long time. Yeah, you send that to a backlog state lab, wait weeks or months for results, and just pray the victim's DNA is already in the system. But a tattoo bypasses all of that agonizing delay. Totally. Because tattoos are meticulously cataloged now. Oh, really? Yeah. It's not just fingerprints and mug shots anymore? No, standard booking procedure across the country mandates the photographing and cataloging of all scars, marks, and tattoos. Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. Yeah, they're entered into databases with highly specific keyword tags. So an investigator considered a terminal, pulled the regional database, and literally just type in tattoo, green Bay Packers, helmet, skull. And the system just filters it. Yep. It cross references those keywords against anyone who's ever been processed in the system. It takes seconds. That's incredible. It really is a visual barcode that instantly strips away the anonymity the killer was relying on.

11:12And that search yields an immediate undeniable match. The arm belongs to a 38 year old man named Dale Wayne Turner. Right. He lives in Plainfield, Illinois, which is a suburb roughly three hours north of where his remains were found. And there is this deeply human, almost tragic irony in the details of his life. What's that? He has a green Bay Packers tattoo, right? But according to everything known about him, he was actually a die hard Chicago Bears fan. You know, human beings are walking contradictions. True. People lose bets. They change allegiances. People get tattoos in their youth that make absolutely no sense decades later. Right. And that's the story behind it. But those exact contradictions are what make us distinct individuals. In this case, that specific contradiction was the key to giving Dale Turner his name back. That's a profound way to look at it. But once the police have Dale's name, the case morphs into something profoundly bizarre. Oh, yeah. This is where it gets crazy. Because identifying the victim doesn't just give them a home address.

12:12It locks in a tongue line. Exactly. And when investigators start comparing the physical evidence from the lake with Dale's digital footprint, they run into this wall of cognitive dissonance. It makes no sense at first glance. Let's slay out the exact dates here. Because the timeline is where this goes from a physical murder investigation to tracking a digital ghost. The chronology is the linchpin of the whole investigation. OK. Lay it out. So the family on the boat discovers the arm on Sunday, June 28th. Sunday. Got it. The police process, the tattoo, run the database, and officially identified Dale Wayne Turner. And the Will County corner officially pronounces him dead at 9.100 pm on Wednesday, July 1. Listing his residence in Plainfield as the location. But right in the middle of those two events on Tuesday, June 30th. Two full days after the arm was found. Two full days after a severed arm with his tattoo on it was pulled out of Lake Matoon Dale Wayne Turner's Facebook profile picture was updated.

13:13Hey, it's Tories Spelling. I'm a doctor as podcast host and mom back to school may add another layer of busy, but I don't cut corners when it comes to my family and nutrition. Good nutrition is necessary for learning activity and development and nutrient dense foods like protein pack to lean beef. Provide key nutrients to fuel the whole family. Visit back to school California.com for money saving offers on beef delicious recipes and more back to school nutrition starts with back to school California dot com. This is Ashley. I can get you from the almost famous podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resort pass dot com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home,

14:15but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resort pass dot com. Choose your resort. Choose your day luxury resort day passes start at just $1, $1, $1, once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resort pass dot com slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resort pass dot com slash almost famous. This is Ashley Kennedy from the Ben and Ashley I almost famous podcast. Ben, I've been reflecting a lot lately on how many big life moments our listeners have experienced with us. Yeah, it's pretty wild. They've watched us go from dating shows to engagements, weddings, babies, buying homes. Every stage comes with new decisions. The milestones are the fun part, but the planning is where things get real. That's why clarna stands out. Clarna gives people smarter tools to help manage everyday money

15:15with flexible ways to pay cashback that builds automatically. Everything in one place and support that makes everyday decisions that feel less overwhelming. Since life moves so fast, the right tools can help you feel more confident. Download the Clarna app today or visit clarna.com to learn more. California resident loans made a range pursuant to a California finance law license and MLS number 1353190. Clarna balance account required to be eligible for cashback points, limitations, terms, and conditions apply. The retired detective commander zeroed in on this immediately. In law enforcement, they refer to this as the attempt to create a digital alibi. It is genuinely hard to wrap your mind around the psychology of that. It really is. You have to picture someone committing an act of extreme intimate violence. They dismember a human being. They load the parts into a car, drive three hours self, dump them in a lake, and drive three hours back. And then two days later, while parts of this person are literally bobbing in a lace.

16:16They can pull out by police. This killer sits down on a catch, opens a laptop, or pulls out a smart phone, logs into the Deadman's Facebook account, and casually changes his profile picture. Who does that? This is wild to think about. Are they trying to convince his friends he's alive, or are they specifically trying to throw off the police? It is usually a chaotic mixture of both. They're trying to manipulate the narrative on multiple fronts. OK, how so? Well, the discovery of the arm on Sunday was a catastrophic failure for the perpetrators. Oh, yeah. They likely assumed they had weeks or even months before anyone noticed Dale was gone. When the news hits that body parts are being found in the lake, panic sets in. So it's a reaction to the news. Exactly. The profile update is a desperate, clumsy attempt to signal to his social circle. You know, hey, I'm still here. I'm just online. Everything is fine. They think if his account is active, nobody will file a missing person's report. That's the hope. It is the ultimate hubris.

17:16They think they are being incredibly clever. They really do. They think they're manipulating the digital world to cover up their physical crimes. But by logging into that account, they are handing the police a road map directly to their front door because of the tracking. Yes. The lack of technical literacy among criminals is often their undoing. They view the internet as magic. Like it doesn't leave a trace. Right. They think updating a photo isn't invisible act. But from a digital forensic standpoint, changing a profile picture is louder than firing a gun in a crowded room. Wow. Louder than a gun. The moment that update button is clicked, a staggering amount of metadata is generated. Walk us through what law enforcement actually sees when that happens, because they don't just see a new picture of Dale. Not at all. They see the invisible strings attached to it. Exactly. When you log into a platform like Facebook, your device, whether it's a phone, a tablet, or a computer, has to establish a handshake with Facebook servers.

18:16Okay. That handshake includes your IP address, which is the unique numerical label assigned to every device connected to a computer network. Like a digital home address. Yes. So the police subpoena Facebook for the account records, Facebook hands over the IP address that initiated that profile update on Tuesday. And then what? The police then trace that IP address back to the specific internet service provider like Comcast or AT&T. And the ISP tells them the exact physical address of the Wi-Fi router that was used. Which points them straight to the house in Plainfield. Exactly. And the digital trail doesn't end at the router. It doesn't. No. The retired commander discussed the cascading effect of these digital tools. Once they have the IP address and the home location, they start pulling cell phone data. Oh. They can pull the call detail records for the phones associated with the people living in that house. They can track the historical cell side analysis. Which means looking at which cell phone towers those phones were pinging off of.

19:16Right over the whole weekend. So they can literally watch the little digital dots travel from Plainfield, Illinois, three-hour south down Interstate 57 right to the edge of Lake Matune, and then watch the dots travel back north. They can map the entire journey. Yeah. And the sources brought up the use of geofencing too. Okay, geofencing, I've heard of that. It has become one of the most powerful and controversial tools in modern policing. How does it work in a case like this? A geofence warrant involves law enforcement drawing a virtual boundary around a specific location, say the boat ramp at Lake Matune, and asking a company like Google to provide the anonymized data of every single device that was inside that boundary during a specific time window. Wait, I want to clarify how that actually works because it sounds incredibly invasive. Google just hands over a list of everyone who is at the lake. Well, no, it is a multi-step process designed to balance investigation with privacy. It's largely dictated by recent Supreme Court rulings, like Carpenter V United States, which heavily restricted warrantless cell tracking.

20:18Right. So when police serve a geofence warrant on Google is a sensor of all database, Google doesn't give them names initially. They give them anonymized device IDs. Just random numbers. Yep. The police then analyze the movement patterns of those anonymized dots. If they see a dot arrive at the boat ramp at 3.0 am, stay for 20 minutes and then drive all the way back to plain field. No, I see. Then they go back to Google and say, we have probable cause for this specific device, unmask it. And Google provides the name and account information associated with that phone. That is wild. Throw in the fact that almost every boat dock, gas station, and toll booth along that three-hour drive has high definition surveillance case. Yeah, they're everywhere. And the idea of a digital alibi completely falls apart. The killer thought they were throwing up a smoke screen by changing a Facebook picture. But they were actually pulling a fire alarm that directed every investigative resource right to Dale Turner's home. The digital ghost they tried to create was the very thing that solidified the timeline

21:22and the location for law enforcement. Exactly. And once the police have that data, they aren't just wondering what happened to Dale. No. They are mobilizing to execute a search warrant at his residence. Which brings us to the threshold of the home in plain field. Dale shared this house with his 62-year-old wife, Robin Monroe Turner. Right. They had been married for 12 years. By all outside appearances, this is a standard suburban existence. Very normal looking. But when investigators breached that front door, the case instantly transitions from a mysterious death investigation into uncovering a legitimate house of horrors. The court documents detailing what was found inside that home are deeply, deeply disturbing. Tell me about it. The focal point of the search quickly became a freezer located on the property. And it wasn't just a standard appliance being used for overflow groceries. The police alleged this specific chest freezer was purchased in the immediate aftermath of the murder solely to conceal the crime. Yes. And the way they found it secured defies all logic.

22:24It was duct tape shut, draped heavily with a blanket, and physically weighed down from the outside with heavy cinder blocks. Just unbelievable. Inside that freezer, investigators discovered Dale's head, his neck, and his torso. And underneath the freezer, shoved out of sight, was a saw blade absolutely covered in biological material. Let's analyze the psychology of the duct tape in the cinder blocks for a second, because it speaks volumes about the perpetrator's state of mind. Right. Because it makes no sense. You have a freezer inside your own home. Who exactly are you trying to keep out? Is it completely irrational attempts at containment? Are they thinking the police are just going to stop if they see some duct tape? Like, oh, well, it's tape shut. I guess we can't look in there. No, it's rarely about law enforcement at that stage. It is about psychological and sensory containment. What do you mean? The perpetrators are trapped in a house with the horrific reality of what they have done. The duct tape is an attempt to seal in the smell of decomposition, which even in a freezer, they're likely paranoid about. Oh, sure.

23:24The blanket is to hide the visual shape of the freezer, so they don't have to look at it and be reminded of what's inside. They're trying to hide it from themselves. Exactly. And the cinder blocks are this heavy-handed, primitive psychological barrier. It errs the physical manifestation of guilt and terror. They're trying to walk the nightmare away from themselves. But the nightmare is already woven into the fabric of the house. It is everywhere. The retired detective commander provided some incredibly stark insights into the forensic reality of a crime scene where a dismemberment has occurred. Oh, this part is fascinating. He made it clear that cleaning up a scene like this is not just difficult. For an amateur, it is scientifically impossible. The average person's understanding of crime scene cleanup comes from television, you know? Right. Where someone sprays some bleach, wipes a counter, and the evidence vanishes. Right. But the reality of blood fluid dynamics is entirely different. The commander noted that perpetrators almost always attempt these acts in a bathroom,

24:24usually a bathtub. Because it's easy to clean. That's what they think. They look at the smooth porcelain in the drain, and they think this is perfect. The evidence will just wash away. But blood isn't water. No. It doesn't just neatly swirl down a drain. It is thick. It coagulates. It splashes. It aerosolizes when tools are used. Blood is a dynamic, highly viscous fluid. When a saw is used, blood and tissue don't just drop to the floor. They are thrown outward in microscopic droplets. This is coating everything. They coat the ceiling, the underside of the vanity, the shower curtain rod, and even when the killer frantically scrubs the tub and pours gallons of bleach down the drain, forensic investigators know exactly the hidden spaces to check. And the most damning area is often the plumbing itself, right? Specifically the p-trap, which is the u-shaped pipe under the sink or the bathtub. Right. The p-trap is designed to hold a small amount of water to prevent sewer gases from coming up into the house. But gravity dictates that heavy biological fluids like

25:25coagulating blood and small fragments of tissue will sink and pool at the bottom of that curve. So it just sits there. Exactly. A killer can run the tap for hours, but the heavy iron-rich blood settles in the trap. Investigators simply unthread the pipe, swab the inside, and they have the victim as DNA. The commander also talked about the baseboards. I thought this was fascinating and terrifying. Oh, the capillary action. Yes. When someone is on their hands and knees scrubbing a floor with a sponge and soapy water, they think they are erasing the crime, but they are actually making it worse. They are acting as a conduit for the evidence. When you mop a bloody floor, you create a mixture of water, soap, and diluted blood. As you push that mop against the wall, that liquid splashes against the baseboards. Through a process called capillary action, that microscopic bloody fluid gets sucked underneath the wood, settling in a tiny crevice between the subfloor and the drywall. A place you literally cannot clean unless you rip the walls apart.

26:26Exactly. To the naked eye, the floor looks spotless. Hey, it's Tori Spelling, actress, podcast host, and mom. So back to school means the same thing to me as it does to you. Whatever's on that school supplies list, make sure you add protein, iron, zinc, and the rest of the 10 essential nutrients found in beef. Sounds like homework? Taste like the best school lunch ever. Visit backtoschoolcalifornia.com for money-saving offers on beef. Delicious recipes and more. Back to school nutrition starts with backtoschoolcalifornia.com. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Almost Hymnest Podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay.

27:27And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes, start at just $1,5. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com slash almost famous, and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resortpass.com slash almost famous. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I, almost famous podcast. Ben, I've been reflecting a lot lately on how many big life moments our listeners have experienced with us. Yeah, it's pretty wild. They've watched us go from dating shows, to engagements, weddings, babies, buying homes. Every stage comes with new decisions. The milestones are the fun part, but the planning is where things get real. That's why Clarna stands out. Clarna gives people smarter tools to help manage everyday money

28:30with flexible ways to pay, cashback that builds automatically, everything in one place, and support that makes everyday decisions that feel less overwhelming. Since life moves so fast, the right tools can help you feel more confident. Download the Clarna app today or visit clarna.com to learn more. California resident loans made a range pursuant to a California finance law license, NMLS number 1353190, Clarna balance account required to be eligible for cashback points, limitations, terms, and conditions apply. But when crime scene technicians arrive, they darken the room and apply a chemical, like lumenol or blue star. And what does that do? These chemicals react violently with the iron present in the hemoglobin of human blood. The moment the chemical hits the vase boards, the floor lights up with intense blue luminescence. Wow. The killer's frantic scrubbing actually outlines the exact boundaries of the room in glowing blue evidence. And you mentioned the saw blade found shoved underneath the freezer. Even if they had tried to wipe the blade down, the physical structure of a tool like that traps the truth.

29:33A saw blade is covered in microscopic grooves and teeth designed to rip material apart. When used on bone-in tissue, fragments get wedged so deeply into the metal that no amount of superficial wiping or soaking in household cleaners will sanitize it. It's permanently embedded. Pretty much. Yeah. The forensic team will extract cellular material from those grooves that definitively links the weapon to the remains in the freezer and the lake. So they can't hide it? No. The commander summarizes it perfectly. The evidence left behind in that house was plentiful. The house itself was screaming the truth. So the physical environment completely betrays the perpetrators. We know the how and the where. We have the torso and the freezer, the blood and the plumbing, the saw under the appliance. But to understand the why, to understand how a suburban home devolves into a slaughterhouse, investigators had to turn the heat up on the people living inside it. And that's where the interrogations come in. Let's talk about the suspects. Police take two people into custody at the home. Robin Turner, the 62-year-old wife who have been married to Dale for 12 years.

30:37And James Adams, who is Dale's 26-year-old half-brother, who is also living at the residence. This is where the digital footprint provides another massive, deeply unsettling contradiction. Tell me about it. If you look at the social media profiles for this family leading up to this event, they project the image of a loving, blended, incredibly normal family. Just happy pictures everywhere. Yeah, just a year before the murder. In 2023, there are smiling photos of Robin and Dale on a vacation to San Francisco taking a tour of Alcatraz. Looks totally normal. And the year before that, in 2022, Dale posted this incredibly emotional public birth date tribute to James. Dale referred to him as his little brother, talked about how immensely proud he was of the man James was becoming, and said their mother, looking down from heaven, would be so proud of him. It's heartbreaking. Think about the emotional whiplash of that. You go from publicly praising your little brother's character and celebrating your wedding anniversary to ending up in a freezer with your own family taping it shut.

31:39It makes no sense. How does a dynamic fracture that catastrophically in such a short window? It is the ultimate terrifying reality of domestic life. Social media is an aggressively curated museum of our best moments. It is so true. It tells you absolutely nothing about the financial stress, the substance abuse, the toxic resentments, or the violent temperors that brew in the privacy of a living room. Right. When law enforcement steps into a home like this, that polish facade evaporates almost instantly. I can imagine. The retired commander offered a masterclass breakdown on how detectives navigate this exact pivot, specifically the psychology of the initial interview. Right. Because when the police first knock on Robin's door, they aren't necessarily knocking with handcuffs out. They initiate what they call a next-of-kin interview. Exactly. The approach is intentionally calibrated. The police know they have a body part in the lake and they know the address. Right. They have all the cards. But when they knock on the door, the initial posture is often administrative.

32:40Mrs. Turner, do you know where your husband is? We need to speak with him. It's very casual. Yes. They are delivering vague news or asking for routine help. But this is a highly structured behavioral test. What are they looking for? They are establishing a behavioral baseline and looking for deviations. How is the house kept? Are there overwhelming smells of bleach? Oh, checking for smells, right? Does the wife seem genuinely terrified that he is missing? Or is herpanic performative? Is the brother hovering in the background trying to steer the conversation? Just reading the room. Investigators are trained to absorb the energy in the room. They are watching for defensive body language, listening for subtle contradictions in the timeline. Like what? They might ask, when did you last see him? If she says Sunday, but the Facebook account was updated Tuesday, the trap snaps shut. And the moment they realize they are being lied to, the entire dynamic of the room changes. It is a calculated shift from a casual inquiry to an adversarial interrogation.

33:41And there is a very strict legal threshold they must respect. The moment the officers determine that Robin and James are no longer just grieving family members, but are actively suspects in the disappearance and death of Dale Turner, they must read them their Miranda rights. They have to formally advise them. Yes. They have to formally advise them of their right to remain silent and their right to an attorney, because the psychological pressure of the room has fundamentally changed. And incredibly, once those rights are read, the silence doesn't hold. No, it rarely does. The damn breaks. The alleged confessions that spill out from these two are chaotic, contradictory, and entirely self-serving. Oh, absolutely. Let's start with the 26 year old half-brother James Adams. Prosecutors say that after James was read as Miranda rights, he offered a statement completely unprompted. The blur did that. He allegedly told detectives. The one thing I will say is that I did it out of self-defense. I will tell you guys that. From a psychological and legal standpoint, that is a wildly reckless yet highly calculated admission.

34:42How so? By offering that unprompted, James is doing two things simultaneously. First, he is locking himself into the center of the event. He is admitting to the fatal act. Right. But second, he is instantly attempting to frame the narrative through a legal loophole. He isn't saying, I murdered him. He is saying, I killed him, but the law says I was allowed to. He's trying to build a lethal shield before the interrogation even really begins. Exactly. But then you have Robin Riz story, which violently collides with his. She points the finger squarely at James. Throwing him right under the bus. She claims the two brothers got into a heated argument. James pulled a knife. James stabbed Dale multiple times. And then James ordered her under threat or coercion to help him cover up the aftermath. This is the textbook definition of a closed loop scenario. And it is a detective's bread and butter. A closed loop scenario. What does that mean? You have an isolated crime scene. You have one deceased victim. And you have two living suspects

35:43who are the only witnesses to what actually transpired. Right. In the absence of third party video or independent witnesses, the dynamic almost inevitably devolves into the prisoner's dilemma. They realize the ship is sinking and they're both trying to throw the other overboard to save themselves. Precisely. They both try to minimize their own culpability by maximizing the guilt of the other person in the room. So James says it was self-defense, implying he was the victim of an attack. And Robin says she was a passive, terrified bystander forced into the cleanup, implying James was the sole aggressor. But investigators do not rely on the self-serving narratives of killers, do they? Never. They rely on the physical reality of the house to dismantle those lies. And the physical reality of that chest freezer completely shatters Robin's narrative of just being a passive-coarse participant. It obliterates it. Look at the logistics involved. Right. Let's break that down. Police alleged that specific chest freezer was purchased after the murder, explicitly for the cover-up. Think about the timeline of that action.

36:45It's not a quick thing. No. Someone had to leave the house, go to an appliance store or a hardware store, select a large chest freezer, purchase it, coordinate loading it into a vehicle, drive it back to the plainfield home. Then unload it, carry it inside, plug it in, wait for it to reach temperature, then deposit human remains inside, meticulously wrap it in duct tape, cover it with a blanket, and haul heavy cinder blocks from the yard to place on top. You cannot argue you are just paralyzed by momentary fear when you are executing a multi-day logistical operation involving retail purchases and heavy lifting. No. You can't. That is the definition of pre-meditation and active participation in concealment. The physical evidence proves she was an active partner in the desecration and concealment of her husband's body. The narrative of the terrified, helpless wife just crumbles under the weight of those cinder blocks. Okay, so let's review the board here. We have a victim who was completely identified by a tattoo. Yes. We have a sprawling, bloody crime scene

37:45in the victim's own home. We have a saw blade underneath a brand new freezer containing a human torso. We have the victim's brother voluntarily confessing to stabbing him, claiming self-defense. And we have the wife admitting she was present for the death and actively participated in chopping up the body and hiding the pieces. All of that is true. If you are examining this evidence, common sense dictates that this is a murder case. It's a slam dunk. You lock them up and throw away the key. Hey, it's Tories Belling with Back to School season here. The focus at my house has shifted to classes, assignments, and after school activities. And good nutrition is especially important. Lean Weep is packed with protein, iron, zinc, and other essential nutrients that help kids thrive in the classroom and stay energized throughout the day. Visit back to schoolcalifornia.com for money saving offers on beef. Delicious recipes and more. Back to school nutrition starts with back to schoolcalifornia.com. This is Ashley Akinati from the almost famous podcast.

38:46You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool spa massage without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com, choose your resort, choose your day, luxury, resort day passes, start at just $25. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com, slash almost famous, and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resortpass.com, slash almost famous. This is Ashley Kinnetti from the Ben and Ashley I, almost famous podcast.

39:48Ben, I've been reflecting a lot lately on how many big life moments our listeners have experienced with us. Yeah, it's pretty wild. They've watched us go from dating shows, to engagements, weddings, babies, buying homes. Every stage comes with new decisions. The milestones are the fun part, but the planning is where things get real. That's why Clarna stands out. Clarna gives people smarter tools to help manage everyday money with flexible ways to pay cashback that builds automatically everything in one place and support that makes everyday decisions that feel less overwhelming. Since life moves so fast, the right tools can help you feel more confident. Download the Clarna app today or visit clarna.com to learn more. California resident loans made a range pursuant to a California finance law license. NMLS number 1353190. Clarna balance account required to be eligible for cashback points, limitations, terms, and conditions apply, which is where the absolute jarring reality of the criminal justice system comes crashing down on public expectation.

40:50Yeah, this part is infuriating. Because at the time, the expert commander was offering his analysis on this case, neither Robin Turner nor James Adams were charged with murder. This brings us into the most maddening complex part of this deep dive. The legal nuances. The charges filed against them were concealing a homicidal death and dismembering a human body. And the expert commander reveals a truth about the legal system that just leaves most people speechless. Yes, concealment of a homicide is a felony offense. But in the state of Illinois, depending on the defendant's prior criminal history, a conviction for concealing a death and dismembering a body can legally result in a sentence of mere probation. Wait, I have to stop you. I am putting myself in the shoes of anyone trying to comprehend this right now. You are telling me that under the laws of our society, two people can meticulously cut up a family member, wrap their head and torso and duct tape in a freezer, drive three hours to scatter their limbs in a recreational lake,

41:51lie to the police and potentially walk out of a courtroom with probation. It's as impossible. They check in with an officer once a month and go on with their lives. How is that legally possible without a murder charge? It's entirely possible. And it hinges on the most foundational principle of our justice system, the burden of proof. The burden of proof, okay. The police and by extension of the prosecutors cannot charge a citizen with the ultimate crime of murder simply because the aftermath of the death was horrific. Even if it's that bad. Even then, the emotional revulsion we feel at the dismemberment does not legally substitute for proof of the act of killing, right? To file a murder charge that will actually survive a trial, the state requires one non-negotiable piece of paper, the official cause and manner of death. And that paper can only come from the medical examiner. Exactly. The medical examiner or ME is the most crucial thing even this stage of the process. This is exactly why the recovery of the torso and the head from the freezer was exponentially more important

42:53to the investigation than the appendages recovered from the lake. Oh, because of the vital organs. The expert commander emphasized this heavily. A severed arm can prove a crime was committed after death, but it rarely tells you how the person died. Right, because unless they were stabbed directly in the arm, the fatal injury is somewhere else. Exactly. The ME needs the torso and the head to identify the lethal trauma. They need to find the bullet hole in the skull. They need to trace the path of a blade through the ribs to see if it punctured a lung or the heart. Or look at the neck. Yes, they need to examine the highway bone in the neck for signs of manual strangulation. They have to be able to stand in front of a jury and say with medical certainty, this specific injury stopped Dale Turner's heart and it was inflicted by another human being. But James is already confessed. He said he stabbed himself defense. Doesn't that hand the prosecution the cause of death on a silver platter? You'd think so, but a confession is powerful, but it is not infallible. And defense attorneys are masters at exploding the gap between a confession and scientific proof.

43:55How would they exploit that here? Suppose the autopsy is inconclusive. The remains in the freezer were frozen, which alters tissue. Right. Or suppose there was advanced decomposition before they were frozen. If the ME comes back and says, I see sharp horse trauma. But due to the state of the remains, I cannot definitively rule out that a toxic substance in his system caused his heart to stop prior to the stabbing. Then the prosecution is in deep trouble. Exactly. Because that sliver of doubt is all the defense needs. Let's play this out. Put us in the courtroom. How does a defense attorney look at a jury point to a freezer full of body parts and argue their client is an murderer? The retired commander walk through a scenario. He is actually witnessed in his career. The defense attorney stands up and addresses the jury. They don't deny the horror. They embrace it to control the narrative. What do they say? They say, ladies and gentlemen, my clients are guilty of a profound moral failing. They're guilty of panic. They're guilty of desecrating a corpse

44:56in a moment of sheer terror. But they are not murderers. And then they offer an alternative theory. Exactly. They say, Dale Turner struggled with substance abuse. On the nighting question, Dale suffered an accidental fatal overdose. When my clients found him dead on the floor, they panicked. So they blamed the drugs? Right. There were drugs in the house. They were terrified of being charged with distribution or drug-induced homicide. In their frantic irrational state of mind, they made the abhorrent decision to hide his body so they wouldn't go to prison. They're idiots. They're felons for what they did afterward. Yeah. But the state cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that they caused his heart to stop. Wow. And if the medical examiner can't definitively prove the exact cause of death to refute that story, the jury has a reasonable doubt about the murder itself. That is just, it's a bitter pill to swallow. It is. The defense is essentially conceding the lesser charge concealment, which carries a later sentence or probation to insulate their clients from the life sentence that accompanies a murder conviction.

45:58So without an ironclad, scientifically bulletproof autopsy, prosecutors are forced to build an overwhelmingly tight circumstantial case before they will even risk bringing a murder charged to a grand jury. Right. It requires us to intellectually separate two things that feel emotionally inseparable. The law mandates a firewall between the act of causing a death and the act of hiding a body. And it really has to. We have to separate our visceral revulsion from the application of law. The post-mortem actions of Robin and James are monstrous. But the legal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt is the bedrock of a free society. It exists to protect citizens from wrongful convictions. Exactly. If a mother genuinely finds her teenager dead of an overdose and at a state of psychotic grief and panic, she hides the body in the woods, she is committed a crime, but she did not commit murder. The justice system must maintain the structural integrity to differentiate between the two acts even when the optics of the crime scene scream that they are connected. It is a labyrinth of meticulous,

46:58deeply frustrating red tape. But as you said, it is the necessary scaffolding of the entire justice system. Which brings us to the culmination of this deeply unsettling journey. We started this deep dive on a sun-drenched, relaxing summer afternoon on a boat, pushing away what looked debris, only to unearth a biological bar code that vibrant green bay packers tattoo that instantly shattered a killer's illusion of safety. And then we tracked the breathtaking arrogance of a clumsy digital cover-up, where a single click to update a Facebook profile generated a tidal wave of metadata, cell phone pings, and geofence data that led law enforcement straight to the perpetrator's front door. We stepped across the threshold of a totally unremarkable suburban home in Plainfield, Illinois to confront a horrific secret sealed behind duct tape and cinder blocks. And we learned the absolute futility of trying to wash away the microscopic chemical reality of human blood from the hidden spaces of our plumbing and baseboards. And ultimately, we navigated the incredibly strict,

48:00emotionally taxing requirements of the legal system, where the presence of a body and a freezer and a confession to a stabbing are somehow not always enough to legally prove a murder without the undeniable scientific backing of a medical examiner. Through every layer of this case, there is one observation the expert commander made that is so profoundly chilling and so universally relatable. He said, we have absolutely no idea what is going on inside our neighbor's houses. It's absolutely true. We are just regular people living our lives. It is fundamentally impossible for a normal brain to comprehend how a family dinner table, how a 12-year marriage, how a bond between two brothers who publicly praise each other devolves into a saw-gallade and a freezer. We see the manicured lawns, we see the happy vacation photos from Alcatraz on Facebook. But the reality brewing behind closed doors in the private spaces of a home can be unfathomably dark. It is the ultimate reminder that physical proximity to someone sharing a property line or even a roof does not equal true knowledge of their character

49:02or what they are capable of when pushed into a corner. So as we wrap up this deep dive and want you to carry this thought with you, in today's hyper-connected world, our existence is fundamentally split into. There is our physical reality, our physical bodies, the houses we live in, the people we share our oxygen with. And then there is our digital footprint. Our social media accounts or constant location data are online ghosts. If something unthinkable were to happen to you tomorrow, how easily could someone in your own home hijack your digital ghosts to tell a story that simply isn't true? It's a terrifying thought. And perhaps even more unsettling to consider, what story would the hidden microscopic spaces of your physical home, the dust under your baseboards, the metadata stored in your Wi-Fi router, the sediment resting in your p-traps, tell to the strangers and law enforcement tasks with piecing the final days of your life together. Think about that the next time you are enjoying the quiet of a Sunday afternoon. Hey, it's Tori Spelling, actress, podcast host, and mom. So back to school means the same thing to me as it does to you.

50:02Whatever's on that school supplies list, make sure you add protein, iron, zinc, and the rest of the 10 essential nutrients found in beef. Sounds like homework? Taste like the best school lunch ever. Visit back to schoolcalifornia.com for money saving offers on beef, delicious recipes, and more. Back to school nutrition starts with back to school california.com. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Almost Amos podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com. There are hundreds of hotel resorts, pools and spots and private beaches that you can enjoy. You can spend the day at a luxury resort, pool, spa, massage, without booking an overnight stay. And listen, I may have only been like 15 minutes from home, but it felt like it was a whole different world. And I'm thinking this is exactly what I needed. So just go to resortpass.com,

51:04choose your resort, choose your day, luxury resort day passes start at just $1,5. Once you post your daycation, people are going to ask where you are. Go to resortpass.com, slash almost famous and use the promo code almost famous to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code almost famous at resortpass.com, slash almost famous. Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have Exama. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let Exama take over when you can talk to your doctor about Epglyce? Epglyce, lubricism app, LBKZ, a 250mg per 2mL injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older, who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40kg with moderate to severe Exama. Also called a topic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin, or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. Epglyce can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to Epglyce. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe.

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