Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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By now, we've talked to several of Ryan's friends who have enlightened us on his behavior over the years, but we still haven't been able to find a solid motive for Tara's murder. A few episodes back, we discovered a Facebook message that Ryan Duke had sent another former teacher of his that seemed very peculiar. And we also learned that shortly after Tara's disappearance, Ryan told one of his friends that he had been having night terrors and couldn't sleep. Today, I'll be speaking with Doug Miller again, the forensic psychologist we had on a few weeks ago.
The last time we met, I had very little information to give him. But based on what we did know at the time, Doug offered a theory that maybe Ryan had some sort of obsession over Tara, or maybe even teachers. Today I'm meeting with Doug again, with new information that may or may not support that theory. This is Case Evidence. Case Evidence
To recap everything, Ryan Duke had sent one of his former teachers a Facebook message on April 27th, 2015 at 6.22 a.m. that said this, How are you? Just an older, wiser fool seeing how you were doing. Gotta admit, thought you were sexy. Things aren't great for me, but it's okay. Life is the singularity we all share. If this is the last we speak, I want you to know you're a wonderful teacher and a kind person.
Thank you for allowing my stubborn self to learn. I wish you the best. I shared this message with the forensic psychologist, Doug Miller, to get his thoughts on it. Ironic, right? Yeah, potentially meaningful. Is this something that like the prosecution would use to prove their point if their narrative was he had an obsession or something like that with her? You know, you could say it's one data point that supports that position. It may be enough to raise that story for a jury. Now,
I imagine that more will come up if that's what actually happened. It was just an idea that we kind of tossed around that maybe he thought there was a relationship there and it could have been an innocent sort of thing, but he took it too far and they weren't on the same level when it came to what was going on there. But 10 years later, if he, let's just say if Ryan Duke did kill Tara, what does that make you think seeing that 10 years later? It's consistent with him thinking,
potentially having a crush that was maintained and him acting from an emotional place. This is 10 years later, but the crime occurred when he was... He was about 21? 21. Yeah. It's a guy who seems to hold on to things. This line, if this is the last we speak, I want you to know you're a wonderful teacher and kind person. Whether that was...
bad's about to happen or if she didn't respond and return. Look at the time. Oh, in the morning. 6.33, so it's either he woke up early. Oh, was up all night. Up all night, yeah.
Yeah, you know, to me, this is a guy reaching out for the potential of a relationship. He's threw in there, gotta admit, thought you were sexy, huh? I mean, that's a come on. And it seems like he's reaching out and has some feelings for her. And this was a high school teacher? Yes. Yeah, that's a long time afterwards. So it does fit that story that he may have held on to some hopes about being intimate or having a relationship with Tara. Yeah.
Because you're used to sort of sympathizing with some of these people or empathizing with them, it makes sense. I mean, if you do something professionally and you deal with these people, you sort of learn to understand on a different level. It doesn't mean that you agree with what they've done or that you think it was right.
But you can sort of see where something may have gone wrong to make them who they are or something. Yeah. Basically, the jury and people in general want to understand what's happened, including from a psychological standpoint. And usually that comes together in a case. And you can tell the story that really seems truthful, that actually captures what actually happened.
Once that happens, if you're a compassionate person, then you're going to have some understanding and even some relationship to say, well, I could see how that would happen. Whether you still feel that it was heinous and horrible or you may have some sympathy just depends on, I think, it goes back to the mitigation process.
on the defense side versus the aggravation on the prosecutor's side. Definitely there's two possibilities, two interpretations. You've gone to an interesting level of depth in terms of psychologically. Now, for that to be supported, in other words, the notion that there was an obsession between
Now, that could be painted in two different ways, too. You're thinking like a psychologist and you're making a hypothesis that there would have to be more information for it to be convincing. Like you said, this is one data point. So now you have that piece of information. You might want to start looking at that. That said, the prosecution says,
Could use it, this is a man who's prone to obsessive ideas that, you know, when intoxicated or otherwise turns into some very negative behavior. And I think whether it works for either side depends on how it's presented and what more of the details of the facts and the evaluation of Ryan himself reveals. Right. Right.
to me it just seemed extremely ironic and the fact that he's been charged with the murder of a former teacher and we find a very peculiar Facebook message to another former teacher basically saying he's got a crush on her yeah it's like you see two points in a story but
But it's like near the beginning and sort of near the end. What's going to fill then? What is the actual connection? Is there one? You know, but that's something that I would hold on to if I was evaluating him and want to understand more. And one thing I've definitely found from talking to people who knew Ryan is that the Ryan today is not the Ryan who he was 10, 12 years ago by a long shot.
He is completely different. He has changed a lot over a decade. Can you say more about how? Well, you know, first just looking at him, he looks really unhealthy. He's had drinking problems, I've been told, over the years. And his friends just kind of described him as slowly kind of turning miserable. Yeah, and I've seen both pictures, and I absolutely agree with you. And so, you know...
Everyone could come up with maybe a thousand explanations of how that might happen. And he had some substance abuse issues maybe prior to the murder. So that may not be an introduction of anything new, but he may have gone down this path. Now, plugging it into this narrative, assuming that he did commit the murder, that this deterioration in him
mentally, emotionally, spiritually occurred due to the impact of him having committed this murder. You know, we don't get the feeling that this is a guy who's just a cold-blooded killer that murders someone then goes on with his life. I don't think that's what's being told here. This isn't sort of psychopathic, just cold-hearted person. This is kind of a regular quiet guy who
And so it does still, you know, it fits that narrative. And I think that's what you're kind of hitting on here. And remorse isn't really supposed to be something that's too heavily considered. But the defense will, if that's the story that emerges, that this really greatly impacted this guy, that he was a victim to his own emotionality and his own mental weakness, that
And this was a crime of passion, if it turns out like that. But it affected him greatly and really wounded him on a deep level that affected the rest of his life in a very negative way because he felt so bad about it.
I think regardless of what it does to him or for him in the courtroom, the general public likes to know, does he feel bad about it? Is he remorseful? Yeah. And the general public is going to be on the jury. And those are the lines that you're telling the story to. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance too with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive.
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And it actually got so bad that he had to check himself into a facility. I wanted to get your take on what causes night terrors, what exactly he may have been talking about, and if there could have been any relation to what happened to Tara and how he was feeling about it. Yeah. And again, there can be lots of causes to night terrors. Sure. Anything from eating pickles before bed to being traumatized. So what is a night terror?
It's really an extreme nightmare. It's something where you are having a tremendous fear response, usually to the point where you wake up because your adrenaline's going, your heart's racing, you're sweating. I mean, you're like in a terrifying situation in your dream and you wake up terrified. Usually people wake up.
Kids have them for sort of unexplainable reasons. They can be mysterious. They can be associated with physical illness, like a fever. So lots of things can cause them. So one of my areas of expertise is post-traumatic stress disorder. And one of the ways I assess severity of trauma symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder is recurrent nightmares that are related to the trauma.
So the night terrors are one thing. The question is, what's the content? Exactly. And because I've worked with people that have night terrors and PTSD, but maybe the night terrors don't seem related to the trauma. And then it's a question of whether they actually are or not. And so that begins to be one of the questions in this case. Now, grief and bereavement can often be
look a lot like trauma. So when we have a major loss or we have a lot of guilt about something we've done,
That can look a lot like trauma as well. And you can have night terrors about that. And you can have intrusive thoughts. And there's a whole set of symptoms. Anyone can Google PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, and see what those are. But it gets more severe when night terrors are more frequent or even regular. And then if someone's having flashbacks where they're reliving the trauma, that's about the severest symptom on that list.
Yeah, he didn't explain to his friend exactly what he was thinking or if he was dreaming or having flashbacks of anything. He just said that he hasn't been able to sleep. He hadn't talked to him in a while. And he said, sorry, I've been having night terrors and not being able to sleep. So I had to go get checked out for a little while. That's why you haven't seen me for a little while. My first kind of gut reaction, you know, and it would be something I'd want to consider and look at the data. This is a guy that had a huge secret.
He murdered someone and he's holding it secret. Yeah. So he's not telling people, but he might be having these symptoms. And so people then attribute it to other things. Who knows what happened? As we have this level of information, we are using conjecture. You keep getting little pieces. And eventually we're going to have this story. Eventually have a very satisfying, and I think a sense that we have the truth is going to be there. So you...
By wondering about the trauma, the truth is in the details, and we know what else is in the details sometimes. Right.
So as far as PTSD goes, are nightmares and night terrors, are they sort of symptoms of PTSD as well? I mean, how does it manifest itself? Very often. Yeah. Especially in the months and even years following the trauma, they're more common, but they can go on for a lifetime. And it's one of the first symptoms I ask about because, again, it nails everything.
at least a moderate severity to the PTSD. Other things are avoiding the associated stimuli of the trauma. So he might have avoided her street. He might have avoided the pecan orchard. He may have stopped hanging out with his buddy. If he was traumatized,
Then being reminded of anything that reminds him of it creates a state of great anxiety and overwhelm. And it brings up the images, the memories, the feelings of the incident. And those become intolerable and overwhelming and a great strain on someone's resources.
And a lot of people that do have trauma, anxiety is one of the characteristics of PTSD. They'll turn to drugs to self-medicate and reduce their anxiety. So while we're focused on this, in PTSD, people avoid associated stimuli. When they're exposed to it, they experience arousal like anxiety and panic and
And they want to get away from it and escape all that. That's another set of symptoms in the PTSD. Nightmares, anxiety, as I already said. Intrusive thoughts. So like you'd just be having, hanging out, maybe fishing. And a thought of it comes into your head and causes that type of disturbance and anxiety in you. So disturbing intrusive thoughts are another symptom. And this is where you get this kind of tortured feeling.
image that might fit the actual photographs that you were describing of his deterioration over the 10 years. He was tormented and tortured by what had happened. What is the fundamental difference in the person that shows these symptoms of deterioration, PTSD, guilt, remorse versus the person who doesn't? Well, what you're hinting at is kind of the spectrum of psychopathy.
And that includes antisocial personality where there's a lack of concern or regard for other people or the impact of their actions. And they tend to be very self-serving and see other people more as like objects to obtain gain and benefit than as kind of the normal valuing of human life that other people will have.
One way to understand that is just a matter of kind of emotion, compassion, and heart in the person that is affected and a lack of those, a lack of compassion, a lack of regard for others in the antisocial and psychopathic spectrum disorders. You know, antisocial and psychopathic individuals...
don't relate in a compassionate, sympathetic manner to other individuals. And so they can perpetrate against them and feel no guilt or remorse or regret. They don't deteriorate. They'll go on to the next victim or just like, you know... Be the same 10 years later. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the way you look for that, you look at criminal history, you look at... If you're a psychologist or...
A person that works with people, you can sometimes sit across from them and just feel a difference. When I was driving here, I was thinking about other things I could ask you. And I was just wondering, do you have like a sense when you sit down next to somebody that this guy might be a murderer? Or can they fool you easily? Is it different every time? Very much. Now, that's not going to mean anything in the courtroom.
And I use it, as I said, like another data point. Well, this doesn't feel right. No, someone could feel really cold because maybe they had a bad day or maybe they're afraid or maybe so.
As a practitioner, you want to use your reactions. And some of us, a lot of us are trying to use ourselves as tools in terms of understanding. I think it's where some of the greatest insights and aspects of being a psychologist come in is that kind of intuitive sense.
That all needs to be backed up, and you can't be biased by that stuff. You really have to look at the data. You really have to look at the information. And psychologists don't go on the stand, particularly in these kinds of cases or pretty much any case in court, and say, well, I just kind of had a gut feeling about it. Yeah, it doesn't work. That's just not going to go over well. In practice, that stuff is used, but it's not relied upon in terms of making conclusions.
I think most of the people listening to this may have had an experience where they may be sitting across from a person or interacting with a person and there just seemed to be a coldness or a sense that something may have been missing.
in terms of an ordinary type of relating and warmth, certainly, but some things even maybe beyond that. And then there's other people you sit across and you feel like they're, you know, they're like your Aunt Mildred, so to speak, or they're just these warm, compassionate, caring persons. I mean, I can see in your eyes that, you know, I think you're a pretty compassionate person. We haven't talked a whole lot. Right. But I think we could see that in each other. Are you ever fooled?
I love that question. And my standard response is, I believe I can be fooled by anyone. And because I believe that, I think I'm fooled less than someone who thinks they cannot be fooled. If you believe you can't be fooled, you're a fool. Yeah, exactly. And by knowing that things that your impression or even the data that you get may not be accurate, and validity is a huge issue in all of this,
And getting enough of a substantial picture of a person in terms of not only the test data that psychologists use, not only our gut feelings that we may have used initially in the case, but in terms of third-party reports, a general consistency across data lends validity. The answer is, yeah, I can be fooled. And I think I'm fooled less because I know that.
Just in general, from what we learned last time we talked, do you feel any different about things now than you did last time with less information? You know, it's still a small amount of information relative to when I evaluate someone. We happen to be in my office right now, and all of this is just one case. Oh, damn. So I have, you know, about a 10-, 12-inch stack of records. Some of those are four or eight.
pages compressed onto one page, front and back. Wow. And you never know when a piece of information is going to come up. So there's really a small amount of information, but there's something that's starting to form here, which is sort of
This emotional crush theory, we'll call it. Or maybe just the crush theory. Again, it's a small amount of information. But, you know, even you reacted saying, like, this kind of seems to fit that. That's how you started this interview. This seems to fit that sort of explanation. I think you have a sense about this case, about who Ryan is. And, you know...
I affirm that he doesn't, in my opinion, with the limited amount of information, doesn't seem like an antisocial guy. Right. So then this is a guy that may be motivated by his emotions. And then this other little Facebook message comes up. Also, his deterioration over time. That's a tricky one because what is a person who would commit a murder like?
I've come to find that there's a surprising range to that answer. I'm sure. That they aren't necessarily completely dysfunctional, deranged people.
I can't say I feel differently. I feel about the same. Now, there's a little data about this teacher and him potentially having crushes on people. I'm getting a little clearer about the chance that he was traumatized perhaps by the murder itself or aggrieved or guilt-stricken to the point of feeling bereaved and showing symptoms of trauma or complex bereavement, which can look a lot like trauma.
So those directions seem more realistic. You know, I think the audience is on edge and I am. I really would love to evaluate this guy for this purpose. I'm just curious about this case. And I think that's when we're going to start really getting some of the meat in this case to affirm some of these stories. It is interesting that we touched on that possibility of the, that he entertained some kind of emotional element.
and passionate fantasy about his teachers. So we brought that up. But then this Facebook post comes up. And I know when you saw that. Oh, man, this doesn't look good. But yeah, I definitely was wowed. Yeah. So to hold that as a hypothesis that now has a little bit of data that may support it.
And there's a lot of dots that have to get filled in. So for example, if that was the only data point and you're sitting on the stand in front of a jury and a whole courtroom and you said, yeah, this was obviously a passionate, emotional thing because look, he made this Facebook message. That wouldn't fly. But it's pointing in that direction now. It's something that needs to be explored and see if that's part of what happened here.
Thanks for listening, guys. Today's episode was mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings. You can check them out at resonaterecordings.com. By the way, if you haven't yet, you can follow Up and Vanished on Twitter and Instagram. The handle is at Up and Vanished. And be sure to tune in next Monday, April 24th, for episode 17. Thanks, guys. I'll see you soon.