Every piece of it, obtained lawfully, and delivered to authorities who could use it.

Chapter 15 — The Case Builds

Over the days that followed, federal investigators did what the local detective had refused to do, and they did it with the recovered footage and the documented cover-up laid out in front of them.

The obstruction alone was a serious federal matter — three families had conspired to destroy evidence and pressure officials to bury a violent felony, and every act of that cover-up was itself a crime, on top of the original one.

And once federal investigators began pulling honestly on the threads we had identified for them, the families’ larger sins began to surface on their own, the way they always do once someone with a badge and a subpoena finally decides to look.