Episode 354

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

**Adam Nicholson** (0:12)
We got a call to go check on her welfare and I'm at her home, and she's passed away.

**Adam Nicholson** (0:20)
What?

**Adam Nicholson** (0:21)
She's passed away.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:34)
It's mid-September, 2023 52-year-old widow Marsha Allen is away from her home in Freetown, Indiana. She's on a trip to Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, with her parents. She leaves on Saturday, planning to return a week later on the following Saturday. Before the trip, she does something she's been wanting to do for a while. She installs cameras.
She buys the system herself from Walmart and keeps it quiet. She wants to watch the house while she's away, mostly to keep an eye on her cats, and because she feels unsafe since her husband died about a year ago.
She gets them because she's never left her cats alone that long, and she has a bad feeling in the gut of her stomach. So she wants to be able to check in on her pets wherever she is.

**Marsha Allen** (1:31)
I've never left my cats alone for that long before, and I had a bad feeling. I thought maybe one of them would have died or something, and I'd have felt bad if I didn't know about it.

**Marsha Allen** (1:40)
I got on the key and an eye on my cats.

**Marsha Allen** (1:43)
I'm still scared.

**Marsha Allen** (1:44)
That's why I got the security surveillance cameras, because every time I hear a noise, I jump.
I look at all outside cameras, try to go outside of their work, because I don't want anybody to come up and jump at me. Right.

**Adam Nicholson** (1:58)
Okay. And you even watch it on your phone, and you were actually out of town.

**Marsha Allen** (2:04)
We went to Tennessee, Fidget Forge, Fidget's mom and dad's anniversary, and they wanted to go, and I knew I was going to start going to work, and they couldn't take me back home again, because dad's getting adventurous, so I took home.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:21)
Marsha has already lost her husband, and she was in that phase of life where you're not sure how much longer your parents are going to be around. Starting to get there myself, it's not a good feeling. She notes that her dad has dementia, and it was their anniversary. She's a good daughter. On her parents' couch, she scrolls through the camera app. Suddenly there's a ping, then another. The AI in the app is able to determine that there is a person in view, but no one should be inside her house. She nervously taps the first click, and the view of the camera pops up on her phone. A shape slides across the frame. She pinches to zoom, then another alert lands. Another clip cues. Her thumb keeps moving. Save, save, save. She starts counting, and she'll end up with 22 videos by the time this is over. One of them is nearly five minutes long. Obviously, she's in a state of panic. As she stares at her phone, there are two adult males wearing hoodies and moving towards her safe. And in that longer clip, a face suddenly turns towards the camera. She watches more. The time stamps move towards six o'clock. A door that should be shut swings open and a view shifts down a hall she knows by heart.
She studies the intruder's hands and clothing. The face flashes again, making her stomach drop.
She recognizes it this time and says the name out loud. Her eyes fixed on what she's seeing.
She calls the sheriff's office and says where she is and what the app is sending, along with how many clips she has of the break-in. She texts and emails what she can and then keeps the live view open to keep watching.
Inside the house, drawers open and shut. In one camera angle, she sees the safe and catches her breath. She knows the sound that the safe makes when it opens. The live feed hiccups, then streams again. A second figure passes through a doorway. She listens for anything, footsteps, a scrape, anything she can tell deputies later.
Then, around 6 p.m., everything suddenly stops. The stream freezes up and drops. No more alerts, no more clips. She refreshes, nothing. She switches to another camera, nothing.
She knows this means someone must have unplugged the router.
She stares at the blank screen. The safe is massive and she thinks about what's inside. Family rings, collectibles and dozens of firearms kept for years.
She starts a list in her head. She writes it down. She tells herself she can pull serial numbers when she gets home. And then she calls the sheriff's office again to make sure they got the videos. She tells her parents she needs to go back early.