The opinions expressed in the following episode do not necessarily reflect those of the minds of Madness podcast.

Listener discretion is advised.

No one can predict exactly how they may respond to seeing something truly horrific, like discovering a deceased body.

The human brain's response to something like this varies dramatically from person to person, encompassing a wide range of natural reactions and responses, fear, shock, numbness, hysterics or detachment among many others.

Some people even experience something called unconscious denial, where the brain quite literally blocks out painful realities as a defense mechanism.

Copying mechanisms like these are one of the reasons it's surprisingly common for an untrained person's initial reaction to believe they're looking at a mannequin before realizing the terrible truth.

But in 1982, in Brighton, New York, there was a crime scene so gristly that even the officer who responded had his doubts about what he was seeing.

Forty years later he would claim that it was the strangest thing he'd ever seen in reality.

He said he wasn't sure if it was real and thought it was a possible prank or something out of a bizarre science fiction movie.

Join me now as we take a closer look at the Brighton-Hacks murder case.

You'll hear a strange twisting narrative that left police in the suburb of Brighton puzzled for decades.

And you'll learn how after all these years, a new analysis of this horrific crime scene got this very cold case moving yet again toward justice.

February 19, 1982 was a cold day in the affluent Rochester, New York's suburb of Brighton.

It was a Friday and the temperature was just above freezing, a blanket of snow covering the ground.

Brighton police officer Marcus Baker was out in his cruiser doing his rounds, went around five o'clock in the afternoon and an alarming call came into 911.

Brighton police officer, please come to 38 Del Rio Drive. There's been, I think, murder us across the street.

The woman of the phone's neighbor, 30-year-old James Crossnick, had just run over to her house clutching his three-year-old daughter in his arms.

He was beyond distressed with a look of terror on his face, barely able to communicate.

Okay, Brighton down, what happened?

I don't know. Her husband's here and he can't even talk. She's in her garden.

She's, please, um, great.

Okay, let's put the number across the street.

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