Episode 377: Taken Back

The First Degree

Alexis Linkletter and Jac Vanek

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.5 • 10K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On October 12, 2023, a 25-year-old nursing student goes missing while on her lunch break in Macomb Township, Michigan. Her co-workers then receive a series of strange text messages from her cell phone. Less than 12 hours after the abduction, she’s found at a gas station in Illinois, shot to death. The following day, law enforcement receives a tip from a couple. Their 26-year-old son admits to the shocking murder before telling his parents he intends to commit one final act of violence. Authorities locate the killer and close in, hoping to take him into custody before anyone else is hurt. In episode 377, Jac and Alexis detail the tragic murder of Gina N. Bryant at the hands of her ex-boyfriend Justin Wendling, and try to make sense of the out of control freight train that is the epidemic of women losing their lives to intimate partner violence. Please visit the foundation her family established in her memory here: https://www.journey4gina.com 🎟 Catch up to FOUR bonus episodes per month plus full video episodes over on Patreon: patreon.com/thefirstdegree 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/thefirstdegree 🕺 TikTok: tiktok.com/@thefirstdegreee 👤 Facebook: facebook.com/thefirstdegree Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.
0:04.8	Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable
0:10.3	themes that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your products out there.
0:14.7	Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time. From startups to scaleups, online,
0:20.1	in person and on the go. Shopify is made for
0:22.8	entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
0:30.7	The first degree.
0:32.8	First degree. First degree. First degree. First degree. First degree. First degree. The first degree.
0:38.3	You see it on the news.
0:39.3	You get on the paper.
0:40.3	You see it on Facebook.
0:42.3	These things are supposed to happen in movies, not in real life.
0:50.3	And so he was just always really pleasant, very peppy.
0:55.0	I would have singled him out as someone who was just like very kind and like very similar to the two boys that I dated.
1:02.0	But I had looked at his Instagram and just seen his like progression through schooling and I was like, wow, that's awesome.
1:10.0	I'm proud of him she seems like she was
1:12.2	an amazing individual a girl with a lot of promise and she just seems like she was a great person
1:18.6	and so I was reading one of his friends or one of his relatives Facebook pages like a tribute post
1:26.3	she got help and so she did everything right. But just
1:31.7	having women and girls be aware that like it's not always going to look like what you think
1:38.0	it's going to look like. No one that I still follow or express anything to me that they would have
1:43.5	ever expected this kind of thing from him.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 11 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Alexis Linkletter and Jac Vanek, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Alexis Linkletter and Jac Vanek and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.