A Conversation with Scot Thomasson About eSleuth AI and How Artificial Intelligence Could Help Solve Cold Cases

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Content Warning. This episode contains discussion of murder and sexual assault.

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_02]: In yesterday's episode, we heard from Scott Thomasson, a decorated law enforcement official.

[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Scott worked for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives for over two decades.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Starting as a special agent at the Colorado Springs field office, he worked his way up to becoming chief of the Firearms Operations Division.

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, he's looking to leverage technology to help other law enforcement agencies increase their solve rates.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_00]: He is working with a company called eSleuth AI that offers a suite of new tools crafted to help eliminate backlogs and get cold cases solved using artificial intelligence.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_02]: We wanted to know more. What's the current status of the national solve rate for major crimes? How does eSleuth AI work?

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Does this type of artificial intelligence come with a risk of bias or errors that could harm the innocent?

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Is it just for detectives, or are there other uses?

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, Scott addressed all of that and more.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_00]: This is an exclusive report to The Murder Sheet, but we imagine you may be hearing a lot more about eSleuth AI in the future.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_02]: My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_00]: We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00]: We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is a conversation with Scott Thomason about eSleuth AI and how artificial intelligence could help solve cold cases.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Scott, thank you so much for joining us again on The Murder Sheet.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_02]: We really appreciate you being part of this show.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to touch upon some things we covered in our last episode with you.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_02]: But if you could describe the crime solve rate in America as a whole, are things getting better or worse in terms of solving serious crimes like murder, sexual assault, other forms of violence?

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's kind of set the basis here.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Crime is actually measured by population of 100,000.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_01]: When the crime rate is spoken about, it's spoken in numbers per 100,000.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's kind of the standard.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: For a long time now, the national average for solving homicides, and these are crime clearance rates, for clearing homicides, has been about 62%.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And then what happened was about 10 years ago, it started to drop.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And currently, the solve rate is at 52%.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, that is brought about because of lack of experience, lack of manpower, lack of funding, lack of training, which has occurred in the past 10 years.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So you have homicide investigators, which are the cream of the crop.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_01]: They're the best investigators in your department or homicide investigators, are actually coming to those roles with not the same level of experience that they had in the past.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01]: They actually have guys who are working patrol three or four years, and they're great patrolmen, and all of a sudden, they're homicide detectives.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And they don't get this subsequent training.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_01]: On top of that is there's this phenomenon that technology has created in which they have a monster amount of technology that they're having to deal with.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So, for instance, 20, 30 years ago, you'd show up.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say 30 years ago, there'd be a body.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: You have the body.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_01]: You have the background of the victim.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_01]: You have the scene, the evidence, and then you have what witnesses may be able to tell you.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And you had to solve a homicide based on that.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_01]: What evidence was on the body or in the body?

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: What evidence was in and around the body or the totality of the scene?

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_01]: What is the victim's background?

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Did he have a beef with somebody?

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: What was their relationship, affiliation with, association with?

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And then what did any witnesses see?

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's all a detective had to go on.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, a detective has all those things, plus he's got cell phone footage that he has to pour over.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_01]: He has cell phone tower data.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_01]: He has vehicle location data.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_01]: He has red light cameras.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_01]: He has a department of transportation cameras.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_01]: He has ring doorbell.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_01]: He has Arlo doorbell.

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_01]: He has simply safe doorbell.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: He has bank teller machines.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So he's got a tremendous amount of technology that he has to try to sort through, but he doesn't have enough time.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't have the training nor the experience to do so.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And so what we've actually seen is a result of the homicide clearance rate has dropped to by 16%.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_01]: It's down.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_01]: The aggravated assault rate has dropped by 25%.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: The sexual assault clearance rate is down 34%.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And those solve rates being down mean that out of 10 homicides, five are going to go unsolved.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, what happens then is out of the five that are going to go unsolved, it depends on how often that you get another homicide.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you get one?

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it one a month?

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, then you have a whole month to work on that homicide.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Or are you getting one every two hours?

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they get up in Chicago and some of these inner cities.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you have to really kind of get some leads to keep a homicide going because if you run out of leads, it goes cold.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And if it goes cold, it gets put in the file.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And then when the next chief of police comes in, he doesn't want the other person's cold cases because he doesn't want to get saddled with that.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So they march on.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So then cold cases start to back up.

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[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I was wondering, I know you described this in our previous episode with you, but can you recap a little bit?

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_02]: You had an experience in Hammond, Indiana, where I think you can kind of saw firsthand how quickly homicides can roll atop one another and what that can do to a department.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell us that a little bit?

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Hammond, Indiana is northwest Indiana.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: It sits among Gary Whiting, East Chicago, Crown Point.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: It sits next to Calumet City.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Very violent area.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_01]: At the time, Gary was the murder capital with about 126 homicides per 100,000, which made it the top city in the nation with the most homicides.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't just a one-off.

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It was year after year after year.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Hammond, which was experiencing about three homicides per year, had jumped to 11 homicides per year.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And then by mid-February, I think it was a 23 homicides by mid-February with pretty much 10 more months to go.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And what we were able to do was team up with the homicide detectives, and they ran a robbery homicide unit out of the Hammond Police Department and worked shoulder to shoulder with them in an effort to investigate all homicides involving a firearm in which the doer was unknown.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was non-domestic related in any way, shape or form.

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_01]: We were able to raise their homicide solve rate from in the mid-20s up to 76%, because not so much because if we did anything that great.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just that we found that one person commits a homicide, they probably committed three or four others or are linked to three or four others.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you can put them in jail for that one homicide, then you have witnesses willing to come forth on the others.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you're able to leverage that arrest to increase your solve rate.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_01]: One of the things to keep in mind is when we're talking about national averages for clearance rates for homicides, ag assaults, and for sexual assaults.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, the clearance rate for sexual assaults right now is at 26%.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So out of 10 sexual assaults, only 2.6 or 3, about 30% are getting solved.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_01]: That means seven are going unsolved and going cold.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And on aggravated assaults, they're at 41% right now.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And those are using 2022 statistics, which are the latest statistics we have.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But what happens is, is those cold cases start to stack up and they continually stack up.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, where I was going a second ago was that while those are national averages, what you have to keep in mind is, is that's taking into consideration Winchester, Virginia, which maybe had three homicides and 100% of those were solved because they were easy.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of these major metropolitan areas, their solve rate is well below the national average.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It's well below 50%.

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And that has to do with number of crimes they're having when paired with the resources they have to address that issue of what we spoke about earlier, being inexperienced, being training, and being overrun with the number of cases.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And one issue that I know you and I sort of talked about before this episode that I thought was really interesting, that unfortunately there's not really necessarily equity in terms of resources that are put into different cases.

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_02]: There are some cases that seem to attract a lot of attention from the media and therefore a lot of attention from law enforcement and then others that don't.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And that I think we've heard can make some victims' families feel like their cases are being overlooked or law enforcement doesn't care about those cases.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I'm wondering if you could kind of speak to those issues about sometimes how those resources can be a bit disparate.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So what tends to happen is they are desperate.

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And your major metropolitan areas will have a lot of homicides.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And so they're set for it, right?

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_01]: They have a lot of homicide detectives.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_01]: They have multiple squads.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is what they do day in and day out.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's almost like an apprenticeship where the more homicides you work, the better off you get at them.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_01]: The places that actually get some of the most notoriety for the homicides are your more rural communities or your communities which aren't dealing with that many homicides.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And they get that because it's abnormal behavior.

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So, for instance, you have a Moscow, Idaho, where you have people stabbed in the middle of the night in a college town.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, if that were downtown Chicago, it wouldn't have even made the news.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: You have a Boulder, Colorado, where you have a little girl murdered.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Boulder, Colorado doesn't have that many.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Another college town.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: You have Delphi, where you have a small community that's rocked by a horrific double murder of children.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, unfortunately, what happens in those areas, they don't have many homicides.

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't have the experience level.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It rocks the community to its core because it's abnormal behavior.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Really, the inner cities, which are dealing with this on a regular basis, the communities that are strapped social and economically, it's a nightly deal.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And those are getting overlooked.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_01]: The deaths that occur in minority communities, the deaths that occur in the inner city, the deaths that occur on Indian reservations,

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_01]: the ones that occur up in with native populations up in Alaska, are completely overlooked.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And because they're overlooked, they go cold faster.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_01]: In other words, they're not being worked.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_01]: There's less resolution for the family members, for the victim's family members.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And the murder goes free.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It isn't the police don't care.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It isn't the police don't work it.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_01]: It isn't the police don't want to solve it because they do.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just that the level of violence and the amount of violence that's occurring is such that they can't resolve them with the resources they currently have.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're sitting here talking about all of the problems with investigations and resources and why there's more and more cold cases.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_00]: It reminds me a bit of the old Mark Twain quote, you know, everybody complains about the weather.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_00]: No one does anything about it.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But yet you are working with a company that is offering a possible solution to these problems that we've been articulating.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell us about this company, how you got involved in it and what exactly it does?

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And I love that quote, by the way.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I spent most of my career looking at violent crime, working violent crime,

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_01]: infiltrating violent criminal organizations that were killing people and dealing drugs and committing sexual assault and aggravated robbers and whatnot.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I was able to develop some strategies that are being used by ATF, by the Department of Justice, FBI, DEA, to combat violent crime with some basic premise.

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_01]: When I retired, I started working with a company and an Ivy Leaf technologist who understood things.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And he had created a product that was probably the most revolutionary thing I'd ever seen and was being utilized by well over 5,000 departments around the country.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And we just called it Google for crime.

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_01]: It was forensic logic leap.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And what happened was as he and I were having dinner, I started talking about how it just wasn't going far enough.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And we needed to try to resolve some of these issues that we were speaking about.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Right now, right now, there is approximately 21,000 homicides occurring in the United States.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_01]: At 52%, there's about 10,000 homicides per year that go cold.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Right now, there's a backlog of 350,000 homicides.

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Every year that climbs by 10,000.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Right now, the resources to work cold cases are non-existent.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, most of your resources that are working these cold cases are being put together by guys like Joe Kennedy out of the Mid-Atlantic Cold Case Consortium.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And they're donating their services.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Seasoned homicide detectives come in and work cold cases for departments.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01]: They just don't want to put the resources.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_01]: They can't put the resources.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't have the resources to put towards them.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But you have these retired seasoned homicide detectives going out and doing yeoman's work.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And what Joe's doing is extremely admirable and beneficial and bring a lot of solace to victims.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_01]: But the question then still remains of, despite those efforts, how do we get a handle on this?

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_01]: The level of violence is not decreasing.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It's increasing.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_01]: The number of guns that are out there.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, what is the cause?

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm not going to get into what the cause is.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll leave that up to academics to try to send a hypothesis on what their true level of the increase in violence is.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But we started looking at ways that we could leverage technology to bridge the gap between resources and mission.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And we developed a system or program back in 2018 that could actually do that.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, the problem was is the technology didn't exist to actually do what I wanted to do.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_01]: It did not exist in any way, shape, or form.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So we've been working with various law enforcement groups and various technology groups and continually monitoring, consulting, and whatnot.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01]: But about a year ago, AI came into the field.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And now AI has been around for a long time, artificial intelligence.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But what really happened was this whole field of generative AI came in.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And so what we have done is we have built a program, a system that will load police best practices into a generative AI engine.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And it actually has the result of like putting a thousand seasoned detectives on every case at the beginning to develop timely actionable leads.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So this product called eSleuth is a product that can leverage technology for the benefit of the investigators in the field on a mobile device.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Historically, law enforcement has focused this technology on analysts and trying to do charts and graphs.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_01]: This product is for investigators and police officers.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_01]: It's to be used in the field.

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And the whole purpose is to take police best practices, munch and grind through all that data, all the cell phone data, all the camera data, all the car data, all everything there is to do munch through all that in a matter of seconds and provide timely actual leads to detectives.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And by doing so, it's like loading up a force of seasoned detectives ready to do their bidding very quickly and kind of do the same thing we did in Hammond.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I just provided additional resources to the police officers who could do their job when they weren't overrun.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_00]: How has the past non-investigator-centric AI case-related law enforcement apps fallen short in your judgment?

[00:20:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So, the industry, here's the difference.

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_01]: The industry that is supplying technology to law enforcement has done a few things.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_01]: First off, it's focused predominantly on analysts.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And usually most departments have two or three or four analysts at the most.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's ignored the investigators in the field.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Two is they've hung their head on link charts.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And a link chart is something that shows a connection between an individual location or house, but it has no meaning behind it and it has no value behind it.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And link charts are not timely, nor are they actionable.

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_01]: They're nice and pretty and they take six weeks to do, but it can link you to the guy who you buy your groceries from to a gun that he bought 20 years ago and ended up in a crime and it links you to it.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And you're no more connected to that than anybody else.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_01]: What we are doing is we have applied this generative AI and loading up police best practices.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And then what we're doing is we're starting with cold cases.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And we want to go through cold cases and start to resolve those cold cases through a systematic approach that we believe is going to benefit everybody in the country and be absolutely as revolutionary as DNA was and as fingerprints were back at the turn of the 19th century.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm interested about the suite of products that are kind of available in sleuth AI.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a police future methods, AI, E subject, E location, and something called the E sleuth solvability matrix.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell us a little about each of those?

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So E sleuth dot AI is the company and the, the, the premium product is PFM AI police future methods, artificial intelligence.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And what that actually does is that is to be used at a crime scene.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And it is to take all the historical data with all the data that occurred just now and all of the information that is being gathered by police and, and provide timely actionable leads from the lab, from the ME, from everything.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And then be able to supply the investigator with a list of suspects, witnesses, vehicle residences, and have that list provided to the investigator that he can go off and then continue his investigation.

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Before we get to PFM AI, there's E subject and E location.

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_01]: E subject is based on an individual and that's to be used by police officers.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And it, and it combines all information around an individual.

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_01]: They can actually access it via mobile, plug it in and, and see everything there is about that individual.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_01]: E location is about locations.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It's about vehicles and residences.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Residences.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But what's really interesting and where we're starting is with cold cases because of the 350,000 outstanding cold cases, because now, by the way, that's just homicides.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't count sexual assaults and it doesn't count aggravating assaults.

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So what we're going to do is go into a department and say, give us all your cold cases, homicides.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Give us all your cold case, sexual assaults.

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Give us all your cold case, aggravated robberies.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And the first thing we do is we're going to index them and we're going to go through each case and find out what's been done and what hasn't been done and what should be done.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It may be something as simple as a fingerprint was taken, but was never submitted to the lab.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Submit that to the lab.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It may be something as well, the fingerprint that was submitted to the lab, you never got a result on.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Get that result.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_01]: There was blood and semen taken.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_01]: You never went, you never submitted that for DNA or it was submitted for DNA, but you never got a result.

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's going to provide a list of what needs to be accomplished investigative lead wise.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_01]: You recovered a gun, but you never checked who never traced the gun.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_01]: You never ran the gun through Niva.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_01]: You recovered shell cases, never run those.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Provides a list for every case.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Then it combines all cold case homicides with cold case sexual assaults with cold case aggravated robberies.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And it creates clusters.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_01]: These stand individually.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_01]: These are clustered together.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_01]: There are links between this cold case homicide and these other four cold case homicides.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And oh yeah, these six aggravated assaults and these two sexual assaults.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a link between all those.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And it'll provide the investigator what that link is.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_01]: A person, a vehicle, a residence, a timely actionable lead.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Then it looks at all the historical data that sits at a police department.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_01]: It looks at their CAD and RMS systems, combines that, and creates what's called a solvability matrix.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_01]: The eSleuth solvability matrix.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Right now, an investigator who works a cold case goes to the file room, pulls a case, and he starts working it.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_01]: He could work it for the next 10 years and never come up with anything.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Because of the limited resources of your cold case investigators, because the massive amount of cold cases to work, what we're going to do is create a solvability matrix that says, see these cases right here?

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Work these first.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_01]: You can solve these.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Work, see these cases.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, we're going to show them how they can solve them, what they need to do.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_01]: See these cases right here?

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_01]: These are the next in line.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's going to prioritize.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_01]: We may have a list of cases that say, don't even give up.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't even work on these yet because they need more evidence.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it needs to be out there.

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So by prioritizing the work of the cold case investigators, the homicide investigators, it's going to be able to help resolve a whole bunch of these crimes that otherwise wouldn't be resolved.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's say that I'm a homicide investigator.

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm really curious in getting to learn more about how I would go about sitting down and using this in my day.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, is it an app I have on my phone?

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Am I sitting at a computer?

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_02]: What does it look like for me to implement this eSleuth in a case that I've just been assigned?

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's a great question.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So let me back up and then go forward with that.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_01]: There's several things that I think need to be pointed out.

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_01]: eSleuth and its suite of products do two things.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_01]: They, one, eliminate confirmation bias.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_01]: 100%.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_01]: They eliminate confirmation bias.

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And remember, confirmation bias is a focus on one thing to the exclusion of all other things.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Two is it's 100% nonpolitical.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of times an investigation will take on a political atmosphere to it.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It'll be politically driven.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And we're seeing a lot of that now.

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of this tribalism is trickling down to different types of investigations and whatnot.

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't apply any of that.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a fact-based, evidence-based driven system.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a benefit to prosecutors.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a benefit to police officers.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a benefit to defense attorneys.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a benefit to it for cold case investigators.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a benefit for innocence projects, people.

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's 100% focused on finding who committed the crime and putting the right person in jail and getting that person off the street so they don't commit any more crime.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, there's a different user interface for what your application is.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And so what does it look like?

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_01]: It quite simply looks like a detective picking up the phone and calling and saying, hey, I want to learn more about this.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Can we set up a demonstration?

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Can we please talk about this?

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And then if they decide to do it, we load up their information, their cold cases in our database.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And then we start giving them the results.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Laundry list of things that need to be done.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Actionable leads that need to be followed up on.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_01]: We compare them to each other.

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So we show where the clusters and comparisons are.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_01]: We give them the solvability matrix.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And then we also provide a chief with the whole kind of report card on each of these cases and where they are.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Our goal is to eliminate all the cold cases and then with PFMAI to make sure that there are no more cold cases anymore.

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Additionally, what we want to do is we want to provide some solace to a lot of those families whose deaths of loved ones have been overlooked or have gone cold.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So Native American reservations, Native up in Alaska, minority locations where deaths in inner cities have occurred and just they're overwhelmed.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of democratizes the resources that can be expended.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, one thing I was curious about, you mentioned defense attorneys, innocence projects.

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, defense attorneys and innocence projects can face some of the same issues in terms of not having enough resources.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking especially like public defenders not having enough resources to really go all in in investigating a case.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_02]: What can the case use look like for, say, a defense attorney?

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Quite simply, we have a tool that actually has the ability to look at all the video analytics, which they're faced with.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's just say you're a defense attorney and you've got 100 hours of body-worn camera.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You've got 200 hours of vehicle camera.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_01]: You've got 400 hours of ring doorbell camera.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have enough time in the year to look at this.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have the, there's no way you can review it.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, that's the same thing for police officers.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't have time to review all that.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Guess what?

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Prosecutors don't have time to review all that.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_01]: We actually have the ability to do a video search as part of that.

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_01]: One of the big things it's going to also do is it's going to make prosecutions a lot more solid because what it addresses is a lot of Brady issues, exculpatory information, or the lack of police passing on that information to prosecutors or it being overlooked and not going into defense attorneys.

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't get me wrong.

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_01]: This is all about putting bad guys in jail.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what this is about.

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's putting the right bad guys in jail, which I don't think anybody has a problem with.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And it may even prevent wrong guys from going to jail.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_01]: That's why it's going to be so impactful.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_01]: But the ability to look at all the video, do searches in a second, to be able to look at a thousand hours of video and have it search and come back with results in a matter of minutes is significant and can be used by everyone.

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Gender-driven AI is obviously controversial.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we're looking at the internet now.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Social media seems to be awash in terrible artwork.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And writing that is essentially plagiarized from other creators.

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_02]: We're using key energy resources to fuel some of this.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think a lot of people have become somewhat skeptical of this type of AI as a result.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And in your mind, why is this implementation of this type of AI different and possibly more helpful and more useful to society?

[00:32:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I love the question.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's the way you got to think of generative AI.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_01]: What generative AI is, it's like taking a human brain and then training it.

[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And you train it.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Just like if I was going to make, Anya, I was going to make you a criminal investigator.

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I would put you through hours of criminal investigation class.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_01]: We would go through interviewing class.

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I would show you how to write search warrants.

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And you would go through weeks and months of training and training.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And then before you could even go to be a homicide detective, you'd actually have to go through probably 10 years of police work to even get to that level.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_01]: With generative AI, we can train those engines, that generative AI model through multiple sources to take the best police methods that are approved and considered around the world on how to conduct criminal investigations and program it with that.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, where people get scared and where the controversy comes is they think that generative AI will then be able to go in and say, Kevin Greenlee, go arrest him.

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_01]: He did it.

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's not the case.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_01]: We have a legal system with a significant amount of checks and balances in it.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_01]: What this product does is provide timely, actionable leads.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_01]: An investigator still has to look at it.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_01]: He still has to review it.

[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_01]: He then has to go out and do interviews.

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And he has to take it that last step of developing probable cause to make an arrest.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And then a judge, an attorney will review his probable cause and say, yes, you have it or don't.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_01]: A judge will review the attorney's probable cause finding.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And then it goes to a magistrate who will do another probable cause hearing.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And the, and, and, and the attorney has to determine whether there's reasonable doubt or not.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_01]: If there is reasonable doubt that this person committed the crime, he won't prosecute it.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Cause that's, that's the standard.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So all those things are still in place.

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's being arrested.

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just saying that this individual who drives a red Honda with Indiana plate, ABC one, two, three,

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_01]: who was seen on a doorbell camera and seconds before.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And seconds after this shooting, who was then seen speeding away.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And witnesses said they saw the shooter jump in, do the red Honda with Indiana plates one, two, three, ABC.

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And then six blocks later on the road, they catch him in a red light camera with this picture there.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_01]: He's a suspect.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_01]: The investigator goes cool.

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Now would the investigator have gotten to that area?

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_01]: But he's one guy and he's got a million things to look at and he may or may not get there in a minute or two minutes or two weeks or two months.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_01]: What this does is that takes all of that consideration and puts it in front of him within seconds.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_02]: That, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, in terms of like, it sounds like there's human guardrails to the AI making a mistake or getting the wrong person or, you know, doing the wrong thing.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Cause everyone would have to sign off on that.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And if they sign off on it, the buck stops with them as opposed to the AI.

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_01]: It is, it is nothing more than a tool to automate police best practices during an investigation to create timely actionable leads for the investigator to consider and choose whether to take action on.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Simple as that.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_02]: When it comes to AI, one other thing that, you know, critics have raised or concerns people have raised as around, you know, baking in biases.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So AI is created by humans.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_02]: We have all our internal biases and, and, and issues that come with being human.

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and what sort of work have you have, has, has been done at East Luth to ensure that like, it's, it's truly the best practices of policing rather than like, you know, something that could turn out to be wrong down the road or any sort of internal biases.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Around that.

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the, that's, that's a good question also.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So one, one of, one of the things that several of the things that we've been doing is, uh, we have been utilizing, uh, uh, textbooks on just about every subject known to man, whether they'd be firearms, medical examination, cause of death.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and, and those textbooks, which are a hundred percent fact and evidence based non-biased.

[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_01]: If you stab somebody in the neck and you catch the carotid artery, they will die unless, unless, unless that bleeding is stopped.

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, things like that.

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, we then have a proprietary way of checking and balancing the system to ensure that that doesn't happen.

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And that is done through the way that we've established the system.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_01]: We actually have six separate patents that surround this, this, this application.

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And to be quite frank with you, I would not be surprised if there were not another six that should be filed here very quickly.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, we are very conscious of, and we actually have a method of determining and flushing out whether that bias exists or not.

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's not a bias from programming by any shape or shape or form.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, some of the bias could come from the way reports are written and to sit there and say that that wouldn't occur is just not, not true, but through the right level of volume, I think that we can help, help eliminate that.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And by staying on the fact basis of it.

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_00]: You, you spoke about some of the human guardrails on this, but, uh, I, I just, I just have a question.

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_00]: We, we also talked about some of the checks and balances in the legal system.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you think East loose would be vulnerable to any sort of, uh, attacks from defense attorneys?

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Not at all.

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Not at all.

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you why I say that is because ultimately the timely actionable leads that are being referred are actually events that have already been occurred and reported on.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_01]: There's no way.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_01]: There's no way.

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, the same events that are being reported on through East sleuth are being correlated, correlated, I should say, and aggregated by East sleuth and compare are in existence.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So here's, here's, here's the, here's the difference.

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_01]: If we took a thousand seasoned Dick Tracy, uh, Sherlock Holmes guys, and we said, okay, here's this homicide.

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Here we go.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Here we go.

[00:40:07] [SPEAKER_01]: If we took a thousand and you thousand are going to work it, they will arrive at the exact same place that we will and do.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_01]: The only difference is we're going to take seconds to do it.

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And we don't have to feed a thousand guys and we don't have to pay those thousand guys, but the end result is going to be the same.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So whatever defense attorneys were going to attack, whether these thousand investigators came up with evidence, it's the same stuff that they would have attacked Eastluth with.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, all we are is aggregating correlating.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_02]: One thing it kind of reminded me of a little bit was just not apples to apples, but maybe a little bit similar is that investigative genetic genealogy has been challenged in some cases by defense attorneys.

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And what seems to be sort of winning with judges is the observation that the investigative genetic genealogy gets the investigator to a place where they can examine a possible suspect's DNA and then they can rule it in or out.

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_02]: It just gets them there.

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it doesn't make so their DNA matches the crime scene.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's very similar.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we're going to do is.

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So let me kind of address that this way.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_01]: If the three of us were going to work a cold case, okay?

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_01]: What we would do is we'd pull the cold case out.

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And the first thing we would do is I'd read the file with a yellow pad and I'd write down all the things that I think should be done that haven't been done.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And I might do that two or three times, read the file two or three times to make sure I don't miss it.

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Then I'm going to give you the file and you're going to do the same thing.

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I'll give Kevin the file and he's going to do the same thing.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And then we're going to compare our three notes.

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And we're probably going to be about 85%, 90% are going to have the same thing.

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to find some things.

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to find some things.

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Kevin's going to find some things that the other two didn't find.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to add those to the list.

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And then we're going to go off and we're going to try to do that and kind of close those loops.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, how long do you think it's going to take for us to do that?

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_01]: That piece right there.

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_02]: A long time.

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_01]: A day, day and a half, two days maybe, depending on the file, maybe three or four days, depending on how many rings binders.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, we're going to look at the ME report.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to look at every interview.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to read every interview.

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to look at all the evidence.

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to look at the crime scene.

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to look at the coroner's report, which is different than the ME report.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to have about 400 hours worth of body cam footage and all that other stuff that we should look at, but we just can't because we don't have time.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to sit down and try to listen to the Crimestoppers data.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And guess what?

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_01]: We're not going to be able to get all that.

[00:43:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But imagine if you could do that piece alone in a matter of seconds and capture 100% of what's out there.

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And look at all the crime scene photo.

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And because Genitive AI can look at those photos and say, wait, there's a gun in here or there's a shell casing here.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Why wasn't that tagged?

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Or they can look at the photo.

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It can look at all the video.

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_01]: It can listen to all the Crimestopper data.

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_01]: It can look at all that.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And it can do it in a second.

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, the next step is, are the three of us going to compare that cold case to every other cold case in existence?

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_01]: No.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Who has time for that?

[00:43:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But we're going to do that like that.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a huge benefit there.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Then we're going to provide a solvability matrix that basically says, take that cold case we pulled, shove it back in the pile because there isn't any way we're going to solve this one.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But there's one right here that we have to do a couple of interviews and it's done.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Or we have to submit DNA that was collected that was never submitted.

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_01]: By applying this system, we're creating efficiencies.

[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's no different than what we would have done manually.

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just we don't have the time, the money, the experience to make that happen.

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_01]: There was a very famous situation in San Francisco, California, where they had thousands of DNA kits, rape kits that were never submitted for DNA.

[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Nancy O'Malley was the district attorney for Alameda County.

[00:44:51] [SPEAKER_01]: She went out, got money.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And when she got the money, she said, I want all these thousand rape kits.

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_01]: However it was, something like a thousand.

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I want them submitted for DNA.

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And guess what they found?

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01]: A whole bunch of serial rapists.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were able to make a whole bunch of arrests because they could link them and identify them.

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_01]: When ATF goes to a major city and we run every gun in their custody through an Ivan and compared to every crime scene bullet, which takes months on end, every time homicide arrests are able to be made.

[00:45:22] [SPEAKER_01]: The technology is there.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_01]: The leads are there.

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_01]: They're just being overlooked.

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious for eSleuth AI, what's next?

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_02]: How do you go from having this product to actually getting law enforcement to try it out and perhaps adopt it?

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Are there any early adopters or trials going on right now?

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_02]: How do you do that?

[00:45:51] [SPEAKER_01]: We're in discussion with a couple of states.

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_01]: We're looking at several cities.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_01]: We actually have a charter member type of program that we're saying, if you want to be an early adopter and come on in, you'll get discounts on the back end.

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And we're looking for district attorneys.

[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_01]: We've met with the National District Attorneys Association.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_01]: We're looking for whoever wants to be part of this as we roll this thing out.

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_01]: We're actually going to be rolling it out at the International Association of Chiefs of Police in a soft, soft rollout later this month in about three weeks.

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're a district attorney, you're a prosecutor, you're a police chief, you're a detective, and you're saying, hey, I think we could be a charter member and let's have that discussion and let's talk about this.

[00:46:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I encourage them to go to the website, contact us, fill that form out, and submit it.

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Or anybody can get a hold of me through my email address, stomason at esleuth.ai, not com.ai.

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you go to the website at www.esleuth.ai, there's actually a contact us form on there.

[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And they can reach out and contact us on that.

[00:47:14] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll definitely include a link to all of that and to your email in our show notes.

[00:47:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I'm curious, have there been any early tests or early users who've been able to give feedback on how it benefited them or anything like that so far?

[00:47:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Not that I can talk about at this time, but we believe that we'll be able to come out with some statistics and be able to do this.

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I think this is one of those things right now where if we went into a jurisdiction, let's use a round number.

[00:47:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say Indianapolis has 1,000 cold case homicides.

[00:47:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Just say, I don't know what they have, but let's just say.

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say they have probably 5,000 cold case sexual assaults.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say their aggravated assaults are probably at 10,000, right?

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_01]: That's 16,000 cold cases.

[00:48:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And if we came in and ran the system and were able to solve 40% of those, were able to link 30% of them together.

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Holy cow, Batman.

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's something that will, I'm telling you, it will change the way of policing, the way DNA did in the 70s and 80s, and the way fingerprints did in the 1890s and 1900s.

[00:48:41] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a very bold prediction.

[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It is.

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It is, but it's one that I am 100% standing behind because I've seen it work.

[00:48:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I've seen what we're able to do, and I know that what we're doing is just basic police work.

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_01]: We're just automating it.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Instead of detectives trying to solve crimes with a shovel, I'm bringing in a giant backhoe, and we're going to be able to solve crimes instead of shovel by shovel, bucket by bucket.

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It's pretty exciting.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's something that excites me the most about this technology and about what this is going to be able to do is the ability to bring closure and justice to a lot of families who would never otherwise have it because the death of their loved one has been overlooked or forgotten.

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And I will tell you that a majority of those are in the minority community.

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_01]: They're in the inner cities.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a statistic.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_01]: The statistics, I don't have them at the top of my head, but the statistics of young black girls and women who go missing every year, of native women who go missing every year.

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And like I said, the police want to solve it.

[00:50:23] [SPEAKER_01]: They work hard to solve it, but they just don't have the resources or the time to make that happen.

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's where the biggest benefit is going to be.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, absolutely.

[00:50:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's been something for us as people in true crime.

[00:50:40] [SPEAKER_02]: We've noticed, you know, they just don't get the same attention.

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's it's just it's very unfortunate some of those systemic inequalities that occur.

[00:50:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But by having the resources be more evenly distributed, you know, I think a lot of those cases are solved.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I think also it'll it'll help justice, too.

[00:51:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it will make a big difference because you're not going to have exculpatory information, you know, information that would otherwise create doubt.

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to be out in somebody's mind being hidden from defense attorneys and being hidden from juries.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's going to push all that stuff out there.

[00:51:18] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what?

[00:51:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It's also going to be capturing and reviewing a lot of tech technological data, electronic data that otherwise isn't getting reviewed just because of the mass volume of it.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So so the efficiencies that are going to be created are significant.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And to be quite frank with you, law enforcement has to try to do and leverage technology.

[00:51:40] [SPEAKER_01]: The big difference here is this.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And you asked this question earlier.

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Most of the technology being developed for law enforcement is being developed by technologists without the input of law enforcement, without the insights of law enforcement.

[00:51:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And they're kind of saying this is what you guys need.

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And they don't understand.

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_01]: What's needed is this.

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:52:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Is there anything else, Scott, that we didn't ask you about, about eSleuth AI or anything around that?

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so.

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's it.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_02]: That's great.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you so much for coming on.

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_02]: We so appreciate it.

[00:52:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, we'll definitely be including a link to all that in our show notes so people can check it out.

[00:52:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you for having me.

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate your interest in this.

[00:52:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I think this is significant for the world in which you live in.

[00:52:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it'd be great to be able to come back very shortly with some results and maybe highlight some other cases and be able to say this is what we're able to do.

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Because statistics are going to prove this thing out.

[00:52:42] [SPEAKER_01]: But we'll get there through early adopters who want to jump on board right now.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I look forward to being able to come back and talk to you about it.

[00:52:50] [SPEAKER_02]: We would love to go back.

[00:52:52] [SPEAKER_02]: We would love that.

[00:52:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, great.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And if anybody has any interest, please contact us at esleuth.ai.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm looking at the contact page right now.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's up and ready to go.

[00:53:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks very much to Scott for taking the time to speak with us.

[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll link to esleuth.ai's website, Safe Gun Lock, and Scott's novels in our show notes.

[00:53:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet.

[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_00]: If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_00]: If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[00:53:34] [SPEAKER_02]: If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet.

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_02]: We very much appreciate any support.

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_02]: If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook.

[00:54:16] [SPEAKER_02]: We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_02]: We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks again for listening.

[00:54:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of this Murder Sheet episode.

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Just as a quick post-roll ad, we wanted to tell you again about our friend Jason Blair's wonderful Silver Linings Handbook.

[00:54:44] [SPEAKER_02]: This show is phenomenal.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Whether you are interested in true crime, the criminal justice system, law, mental health, stories of marginalized people, overcoming tragedy, well-being, like he does it all.

[00:54:58] [SPEAKER_02]: This is a show for you.

[00:54:59] [SPEAKER_02]: He has so many different conversations with interesting people, people whose loved ones have gone missing, other podcasters in the true crime space, just interesting people with interesting life experiences.

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And Jason's gift, I think, is just being an incredibly empathetic and compassionate interviewer where he's really letting his guests tell their stories and asking really interesting questions along the way, guiding those conversations forward.

[00:55:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I would liken it to like you're kind of almost sitting down with friends and sort of just hearing these fascinating tales that you wouldn't get otherwise.

[00:55:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Because he just has that ability as an interviewer to tease it out and really make it interesting for his audience.

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_00]: On a personal level, Jason is frankly a great guy.

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:55:46] [SPEAKER_00]: He's been a really good friend to us.

[00:55:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's fun to be able to hit a button on my phone and get a little dose of Jason talking to people whenever I want.

[00:55:56] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a really terrific show.

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_00]: We really recommend it highly.

[00:56:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think our audience will like it.

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And you've already met Jason if you listen consistently to our show.

[00:56:05] [SPEAKER_02]: He's been on our show a couple times.

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_02]: We've been on his show.

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_02]: He's a terrific guest.

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I say this in one of our ads about him, but I literally always – I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember when Jason said this.

[00:56:14] [SPEAKER_02]: That really resonated.

[00:56:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I do quote him in conversations sometimes because he really has a good grasp of different complicated issues.

[00:56:21] [SPEAKER_00]: She quotes him to me all the time.

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I do – I'm like, remember when Jason said this?

[00:56:24] [SPEAKER_02]: That was so right.

[00:56:24] [SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, I think if we're doing that, I think – and you like us, I think you should give it a shot.

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Give it a try.

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I think you'll really enjoy it.

[00:56:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, he does a range of different topics, but they all kind of have the similar theme of compassion, of overcoming suffering, of dealing with suffering, of mental health, wellness, things like that.

[00:56:42] [SPEAKER_02]: There's kind of a common through line of compassion and empathy there that I think we find very nice.

[00:56:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And we work on a lot of stories that can be very tough, and we try to bring compassion and empathy to it.

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_02]: But this is something that almost can be like if you're kind of feeling a little burned out by true crime, I think this is kind of the life-affirming stuff that can be nice to listen to in a podcast.

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It's compassionate.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_00]: It's affirming.

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_00]: But I also want to emphasize it's smart.

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_00]: People – Jason is a very intelligent, articulate person.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a smart show, but it's an accessible show.

[00:57:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I think you'll all really enjoy it.

[00:57:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and he's got a great community that he's building.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're really excited to be a part of that.

[00:57:25] [SPEAKER_02]: We're fans of the show.

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_02]: We love it.

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And we would strongly encourage you all to check it out.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Download some episodes.

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Listen.

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I think you'll understand what we're talking about once you do.

[00:57:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyways, you can listen to The Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Very easy to find.

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[00:57:42] Absolutely.