S11, Chapter 15: Hidden Motives

0:04 Tapes from the Dark Side contains descriptions of violence and sexuality. Listener discretion is advised. Before we jump into the conclusion of the trial, the verdict, and the sentencing. I first want us to at least try to get down to some causes and conditions. Is there anything we've missed so far that might give us some semblance of an explanation for why Chandler did what he did. We know Chandler's life was a haphazardly constructed lie, a house of cards. But why had he built this house of cards? There are, of course, the obvious answers, reputation, gaining and maintaining the respect of his family and friends, and of course his partners. Many of the lies Chandler told were to playcate Cat, the fake SpaceX job, the fake insurance company job, the fake education, the fake volunteer job as a scuba diver, and the fake head injury.

1:16 There was also Chandler's philandering, which led to him turning on his location settings and Snapchat, which in part led to him being caught. So we have reputation. Then there's the issue of money. It's another obvious one. Chandler lied about school and work, in part to steal from his parents. He took money from them that was likely supposed to be going to tuition, tuition that was never paid. Remember that Chandler had an outstanding balance of money that he owed Madison Area Technical College. And then there was the tuition money that Chandler stole that was never owed the college for the handful of semesters where he wasn't even in rolled ATMATC. There was also one other big payday we haven't really discussed, and that's Bart and Christa's life insurance policy. We have reason to believe that Chandler at least had some working knowledge that his parents had a life insurance policy that would pay out one million dollars in the event of their untimely deaths. So perhaps Chandler thoughts killing his parents would be a way to earn a quick half a million dollar pay day and a free house. So that's the obvious. But I want to propose a theory that hasn't been examined yet by anyone else who has covered this case. I believe Chandler was addicted to video games, specifically the game we discussed in

2:50 an earlier episode, Escape from Tarkoff. In an earlier episode, I said that Smitty and Chaz met in Escape from Time Tarkoff, which was actually a mistake. They met in the game Arma III, which is similar to Tarkov. They're both part of a genre known as hyper realistic military shooters. The Escape from Tarkov game is where Smitty learned of Chandler's affection for the SKS rifle. Remember that's the same rifle Smitty gave to Chandler, the rifle Chandler used to kill his parents. Okay, but let's back up for a second. You might be someone who has little to no experience playing video games, and even if you do have experience playing games, you might be skeptical that a person could become addicted to a video game. And I want to say, I completely understand your doubt. I'd have hard time believing it myself if I hadn't experienced it firsthand. I have a very real addiction to sports video games, particularly online multiplayer.

3:59 I know it sounds silly, maybe even pathetic, and I guess it kind of is. Let's say, for example, I boot up my PS five right now, log into the EA Sports servers. I could easily log the next twenty hours straight playing some type of online competitive MLB or NFL game, And I'm pretty confident that I could do that for the next five to ten consecutive days, or until my brain started to melt. There's nothing that I can think of in my life that I'd like to do for that many hours, except well, maybe drugs. Chandler wasn't playing any kind of sports game that we know of, but he was playing online multiplayer. And the same reason that some people describe these games as boring or repetitive is almost the exact reason why other people get addicted to them. In online multiplayer games, the gameplay never ends.

5:02 Rewards in the form of rare items, supply, a constant dopamine rush, and winning. Man, I think I've always been addicted to winning in one form or another. Make no mistake, these kinds of online massive multiplayer type games are not your grandpa's video game. This is not Pong, this is not Space Invaders, this is not Tetris, although Tetris is pretty fun. These games are built from the ground up specifically to keep you playing. They usually charge some type of monthly subscription, although it should be noted Escape from Tarkov does not have a monthly subscription, so one time fee, but they also sell DLC, which is downloadable content expansion packs. Basically, the longer they keep you playing and the more committed to the game, the more money they make. I want to compare Tarkov to another game, perhaps the most popular online shooter in recent modern history, a game that if you haven't played, you've at least heard of, Fortnite. Now.

6:11 I've actually never played Fortnite. In knowing my tendencies, I'd prefer to keep it that way. On the surface, it looks like quite a different game from the one Chandler was playing. Escape from Tarkov is hyper realistic, and Fortnite, which is also a first person shooter, has a more cartoonish appearance, targeting a younger audience. But they have a lot of crossover elements. They're both Battle Royale online PvP, which means player versus player. They have similar looting mechanics, time pressure, customizable loadouts, and each match is somewhat high stakes. All this keeps the adrenaline rushing, keeps you wanting to play just one more match. That just one more feeling is part of what makes online games notorious for their addictiveness.

7:01 Examples of this potential addictiveness began popping up when Fortnite peaked back in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, and believe it or not, Fortnite, a video game aimed at probably pre teens or teenagers, began affecting grown professional men in the United States in Major League Baseball, which I guess that makes sense. It's a group of young men in their twenties, another prime target for any type of online game. But in twenty eighteen, the Philadelphia Phillies first baseman allegedly took a baseball bat to a television in the Phillies clubhouse because his teammates were playing Fortnite during the baseball games. Quote.

7:48 I see a couple players I don't want to say names. They play video games during the game. We come and lose too many games, and I feel like they weren't worried about it. They weren't respecting their teammates coaches. Also, during the twenty eighteen season, the Boston Red Sox banned Fortnite from their clubhouse, which perhaps that did work because they went on to win a World Series that year. So now let's briefly discuss the addictiveness of Escape from Tarkov, a game in a similar genre which averages half a million active daily players. I found a few entries on various Escape from Tarkov forums that I want to read to you, but first I do want to acknowledge something.

8:33 There's a difference between a real bonafide addiction and perhaps just overdoing it. There's that habit to indulge in something and describe it as crack, like, oh, these are crack cookies or crack lasagna. But in a true addiction, the addict loses the power to say no. They want to stop, but literally can't. This can show up as setting down time limits or spending limits for themselves. Say I will spend thirty minutes tonight and zero dollars playing XYZ video game, and then four to six hours later and perhaps a number of DLC content down the drain, you're wondering, how the hell did this happen? Again, the mind does this particular mental twist to convince the addict that they made the decision to overindulge, which is the insidious part that's unmanageability.

9:31 Most true addicts, whether it's alcohol, drugs, video games, whatever the behavior is, find they have to give it up for good, because once they start, they truly cannot stop. I could talk about addiction for quite a while, but I won't bore you with that. We should move on with the story. But I hope you can appreciate a little bit better at the difference between a true addiction and a small habit. The habit I can stop or moderate if the behavior gets out of control. I might be from time to time, but it doesn't take over my life. Now here's an example of what I think true addiction sounds like. To the Tarkoff forums.

10:11 No joke. I'm scared by the amount of time I've been spending on this game. Lately, all my free time is playing Tarkoff. I haven't even tried to play anything else in six months. I just don't feel like it seems like it would be boring, although if you think about it, Tarkov is pretty boring and monotonous in its gameplay basically most of the time. I'm frustrated with this game, but I still want to spend all my free time on it. It scares me. And when I've tried to play something new, I haven't lasted for more than an hour. So I've owned Tarkov for twenty three days now and have clocked in two hundred hours. I might have a problem. It's been a long long time since I played a game this fun. Even with all the errors and all things the game has going on, I can't stop playing.

10:55 Can anyone else relate? I've done cocaine constantly, trying to kick the nicotine addiction in nothing, I mean nothing has been disaddicting or worse for my mental health. Does it ever get better? Does the constant red and excitement ever fade? I want to go back to my conversation with Andrew Smith now, when I talked to Andrew Smitty about Chandler's potential Tarkoff addiction, To my surprise, my little theory was not shared by him. And being Chandler's best friend, someone who knew him better than most, certainly better than me, I do think it's important we take his perspective into account.

11:38 It's kind of like a friend of a friend's situation and we just got really close. Okay, gotcha? Did when did you guys start playing Tarkov together? Was it just you go back and forth between the two a lot. Yeah, so I've got it like a genuine question for you. Is there like a is there a real hang up on Tarkoff? Or is there like is there something I'm not picking up? Well, okay, so here's my angle is. We're gonna play Smitty's reaction to my theory that Chandler was a video game addict right after a quick break. This time, we're not going to play programmatic ads for the first time on the show. I'm gonna do a host red ad for an app called Moomo, just like the sound the cow makes, moo moo. The reason I'm comfortable promoting this app is because I use it myself.

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13:25 Thank you guys so much. You help the show by doing this, and now let's get back to the show. Well, okay, so here's my angle is I'm just wondering, I mean, like everybody else, right, like, why the fuck you did it? Right? Just in fucking sense, like sure you are dead, Like I have debt. I'm like, it's so much debt, and I don't fucking go out murdering people. Like that's not the fucking proper answer. God, damn it, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly, And well, actually I just learned this. I thought maybe there was some kind of abusive thing, but apparently people who kill their parents, Uh, what's it called paracide?

14:11 It's actually pretty rare that there's physical abuse going on. It's like it happens, it's like ten percent of cases, but usually it's about finances or control. The one thing I came back to I might have sent it to you was that his search history. In between hiding the bodies, he was searching how to complete quests in. Tarco like so fucking bizar. I'm just like, yeah, do you go from oh, let's go do this shit? Hey? How do I saw this question? Right? Quickly? Bro? You can't even do whatever you're trying to do right now correctly? Right? So I don't know that that was like the one thing that stood out to me. And I was reading more about how some people say Tarkoff can be really addictive as far as just compulsively playing it for like twenty or thirty hours straight sometimes.

15:08 See, that's something I've never heard before. But then again, I'm not a hardcore tarkaof player. I don't get into games like that where it's Tarkov's a game where you're supposed to go out, you kill people, you steal all of their shit, you xpell, and then you drop all of their shit off in your crib, and then you go back and repeat it again. Just keep trying to your best over and over again, killing people in vice versas. That's all Tarkov is, right, right. Like an extraction shooter or something. So yeah, something other like that gotcha. So you never got that vibe though. You never were like, man, Chaz is addicted to this game. You never got that No, Okay, we would play like all sorts of shit. Well shit, I want to all right now that I have like memories come in. Yeah, I like sitting here thinking about it, like, yeah, I did play the fuck out of Tarkov, but not super aggressively, you know, like I still had a job, like I have a son in well my ex wife, now you know what I mean?

16:07 Right right, I gotcham So he might have been playing more. But but even so, you never really got that suspicion or nothing really made you think, right, I. Didn't have that idea that he was just sitting here fucking off all day playing video games. He seemed like he was actually like had a genuine job. Right right, So is that possible in retrospect though since he didn't he wasn't in school and he wasn't working, that he was just. Playing video games? Yeah? Probably. Did you have any suspicions that he was on drugs or besides just like smoking weed or drinking or I.

16:50 Don't know if I told you, but my friend had a different friend of ours had told me that Chaz had been potentially drugged with ketamine at one point. Another college, and you did mention that, Yeah, tell me about what you heard about that, just. That it fucked him up. And I didn't talk to him for like a couple of weeks, and then he magically popped back up. I was like, oh, hey, how you doing, buddy? Like so, I wonder if he was doing okay and he was just dealing with human shit the way normal humans deal with shit, to deal with shit. And I wonder if when someone fucking drugged in with ketamine, assuming that's not a fucking lie, you know what I mean, right, Like, what the hell did that do to a psyche? Yeah, that's the only reason why I fuck with mushrooms and like weed, because at least the mushrooms will fucking help my TBI a little bit.

17:41 Did he smoke a lot of weed that you know of? I actually don't know. Did you guys ever smoke together when you saw him? Or no? That was something I had planned to do with him if he was actually innocent on all this shit. Oh yeah, damn. So, Like when it first went down, you probably had that thought this can't be true for a while. Or all right, I just kind of sat there. I was just thinking, h and a sense of proven guilty, trying to keep positive by on it. Please s fuck with people all the time for no reason. This shit could be another one of those, you know. I believe that Chandler has proven to be such an unreliable narrator that it's impossible for us to know whether he was actually ever drugged with ketamine or like his fall, is it just another fabrication? To put it simply, anything that comes out of Chandler's mouth has to be assumed to be a potential lie, and unless it's verified by a third party, I think it's best to set it aside.

18:43 Is it possible that Chandler was drugged with ketamine and that this somehow affected his mental state? Sure that is a possibility, But is there any way to prove that this is true currently? No? So how do we take the rest of this conversation with Smitty and his reaction to the idea that Chandler could have possibly been addicted to video games? First, I want to say the whole reason that we're giving so much weight to the conversation is because I do respect Smitty's opinion. I might still disagree with him, though, and I'll explain why first. I think Smitty's judgment can be a little bit off sometimes. I experienced this when he told me he thinks Kat was somehow involved in the crime.

19:27 He didn't just tell me this, but he shared this view in depth on another podcast he was on. Now, it's not just my opinion that I think Smitty is wrong about Kat, but it's just what the evidence shows. We already reviewed that in depth, so I'm not going to rehash at all, but I'll add if you're even still a little bit skeptical. During the trial, the prosecution screened doorbell camera footage from a neighbor that showed every time Catherine Melender's car entered or left the neighborhood, and this footage matt her statement to police to a te she never snuck back into the Holderson neighborhood to help Chandler murder his parents. She never transported them to any of the dumb sites. We just know this to be fact.

20:13 One more note about Smitty. I took the decision to air his words on the podcast pretty seriously, but it seems to be an opinion he holds strongly as He's repeated it now multiple times, and so I think I have to give people the right to be wrong, and I have to admit maybe I don't know everything, maybe there's something I'm missing. I think it's a borderline irresponsible to have that opinion. But Smitty is an adult. He is allowed to have his opinions, and it's clear he's made his mind up that somehow Kat was involved. Still, i'd ask you not to judge Smitty too harshly. Remember, Chandler Holderson was his best friend. I imagine it might be hard for me to think rationally about this situation, and I can't say for sure what I would do or say if I was in his shoes. For Andrew Smith's interview, I'm going to release that in full on Patreon.

21:11 There's not too much that we haven't covered yet, but we did talk for a good part of an hour. If you're not interested in Patreon, it's not like you're missing anything crucial to the story. Okay, So here's why I would like to propose that Chandler not only had an obsession with first person military shooters, but an actual addiction. First, let's count the number of times Chandler mentions gaming or playing video games in his interviews with Police. Would you do for editor in the day? I kind of shipped the day play video games. It was a little hard to hear, but Chandler said Friday, he shipped the day away playing video games. Wednesday back to Wednesday. Yes, I got all the glass out of the dog's hair. I went back to doing like a job search, kind of just sh my day away is okay? Games YouTube? Maybe, so there we are. Thursday, went to my computer, played a video game called Tarkoff until midnight, well after midnight, maybe even kind of lose.

22:14 Track of time. So one night I gamed alone all night or all day and night pretty much, and I just kind of game. I couldn't tell you when I went to bed. I think I might have even stayed up till two. Yeah, it's just the same game, Escape from Tarkoff. I couldn't get a hold of any of my friends to play with, unfortunately, and I'm going to stick around for that late in the night. Then it's Monday morning. Cat goes to work. I go back and forth through some video games. Then we're on Tuesday, Cats working up and I'm gaming. And now for a piece of evidence that I've been waiting to show you a series of Google searches made by Chandler Holdersonly eighth, twenty twenty one on his phone.

23:03 Does it surprise you to learn Chandler didn't attempt to use an anonymous browser. If it does, then you haven't been paying attention. At nine twenty am, he watches a YouTube video about escape from Tarkoff. Nine minutes later, at nine to twenty nine am, he watches another video about escape from Tarkoff. Fifteen minutes later, he makes a number of Google searches, starting with a three word search body found Wisconsin. Then he searches woman's body found in Wisconsin, then Wisconsin dismembered body found. Then he clicks a couple links to a court case State versus Peterkopusa.

23:48 I'm gonna draw your attention to one of the searches or one of the links, which is the State versus Peter Capusa. Did you, in fact go and find what that was that link that was clicked on? I did. It was the court key involving a man who was accused of murdering and dismembering a female relative of his and the way he dealt with the remains. Okay, This is legal decisions many pages long. However, I would ask the witness, if it's okay with you, judge, to read simply the first paragraphs, starting with the description of the judge who wrote the decision. Peter Capusa was convicted of first degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse with intent to conceal a crime. The prosecutor presented evidence that Capusa killed his cousin, cut up her body, and disposed of the parts in the Wisconsin River.

24:44 It appears that Chandler then takes a break from googling, perhaps to play a little more Tarkov. A few hours later, at twelve forty one pm, he searches something about an item in Tarkov, and he searches the Tarkov Wikipedia, and then a few hours later, a little after three pm, he searches Bart and Christa. This evidence was discussed at length in court, the part about his searching for his parents, not the part about escape from Tarkov. Consider for a moment, the state has really no reason to bring up that Chandler possibly had a video game addiction. It does nothing for their purpose of proving whether or not Chandler murdered his parents. But on this podcast, we're interested in the why, and I think these searches are very telling. Let's go for a moment to that video that Chandler watched right before he made the mistake of searching on an unanonymous browser, before police knew his parents were dead. Body found Wisconsin.

25:54 Hey, everybody, one pig here, and we did it. We got Max's rep fence. But I'm going to do in this video it's a twenty minute basetimer now becomes some like one and a half hours. Now. Of course, you can go have the ability to ask another SCAV to come with you. That is done by pressing why why to open up. The Max rep fence. Scavs base timers, emote menus. This dude might as well have been speaking another language, because I have no idea what he's talking about. I watched numerous times all the YouTube videos that were in Chandler's search history, and because I know almost nothing about the game Escape from Tarkov, there was really nothing I gained from this. Now there was someone who did have one of these moments of realization, and that's another documentarian who covered this case. And I've actually chattered with them. They wanted to know what I gleaned from talking with Andrew Smith.

26:54 Now this person runs a YouTube channel called Veritas. Their documentary on the Chandler Holeson's story is one of the better ones I've watched. It's called The Escape from Tarkoff Murders. I'm not sure that myself and Veritas share the same theory about the video game addiction, but we both believe that this game played a crucial part in the murders. And what Veritas realized is that in the video that Chandler was watching right before he decided to make those Google searches, the person in the video was playing with a character who was using an SKAS rifle, the same rifle Chandler had used to kill his parents, and Veritas proposes that perhaps seeing the sks rifle triggered the memory of killing his parents.

27:44 Immediately after watching that video, a video made by one Peg, one of my great content creator friends from the Tarkoff community, Chandler stopped playing video games, he stopped googling EFT tutorials, he stopped watching YouTube videos, and decided to google. Body found was constant, along with the rest of the disturbing grizzly searches we covered in the intro of this video. But why what was it about this video that changed Chandler's focus that morning. I have a hunch that when he watched this video, the video where the character in his favorite game was carrying his favorite gun, the SKS, the same gun that weeks earlier he had been gifted in real life by his best friend, the very same gun that just days earlier he used to kill both of his parents. That now he couldn't take his mind off of his situation anymore, and he let his paranoia get the best of him.

28:35 I want to run you through the rest of that day. July eighth, twenty twenty one, That fateful day that Chandler was making these non anonymous browser searches, turns out to be the same day that Chandler has taken into custody. In between playing video games and researching video games and searching for news stories about his parents, Chandler was in eternally panicking, and that's when he began going door to door to his neighbors. He realized that they had doorbell footage, and he was very nervous that perhaps they had caught something on this doorbell footage. Right.

29:16 My name is Chandler Holderson. I lived just down the road. Oh yeah, thought of the police the fancy security system. I was wondering if you were able to capture the road or. The police actually came in and downloaded everything they have. But it's actually my sister's house over. Yeah, so they. Were here thanks for like nine o'clock last night and downloaded all the videos she got. So we're hoping that they didn't capture anything. We don't know. We don't know. They just took a copy of everything, and I was so unhoping. Runs yeah, and it's ALHD And then I think there's one.

30:01 Before with dark has a little bit of night vision. Yeah, and there's one on the h this corner of. The garage too. I thought that was quite those that direction. But I want to revisit a part of an episode that I promised we'd come back to. I like to think I don't break my promises, and I'm not going to break this one, because we're going to hear this conversation that this neighbor secretly recorded. Remember this neighbor was a former cop, and when Chandler wanted to talk to him, he just had a gut feeling that this should be something he should record. You'll hear that conversation on the next episode of Tapes from the Dark Side. I'm not going to read any credits this week, just going to put a quick reminder that if you want to support the show, you can do so by downloading the financial app mumu las to invest in ETFs and other stocks. I've used this app for almost a full year now and can confirm that it's a legitimate app and that you do get the rewards. If you sign up using my promo code or the link in the show notes, you'll get up to fifteen free stocks and you'll be supporting Tapes from the Dark Side. Thank you to all of our Patreon members. Appreciate you, guys, and on the next episode, I'll be reading out the names of our new members and our producers. Until next time, try to enjoy the

31:33 daylight a dark side. I don't know whoever dreamed this up or decide to put this concept out, but they're a sick individual.