[SPEAKER_00]: The timekeepers dilemma, true crime tales, workplace crime, passion, and running out of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The night shift has a different kind of silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: During the day, offices are filled with voices, phones ring, printers run, people walk through hallways, but after midnight, everything changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every sound seems to come from somewhere you can't see.
[SPEAKER_00]: At 136 AM, security guard Thomas Reed heard a door slam.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was working on a loan inside a distribution warehouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: He checked the cameras, nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He checked the loading dock, nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then his radio crackled, a voice whispered, don't come upstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas Frost, he knew the voice, it belonged to another employee, someone who wasn't supposed to be in the building.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ten minutes later, Thomas was dead, and the company discovered that someone had spent months using the night shift to hide a crime worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beginning, Thomas Reed had worked security for almost 11 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: because it was predictable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas liked schedules.
[SPEAKER_00]: He liked routine.
[SPEAKER_00]: He liked knowing exactly when doors open and close.
[SPEAKER_00]: His coworkers joke that Thomas could tell you to time without looking at a clock.
[SPEAKER_00]: He called himself the human timekeeper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every night he walked the same route.
[SPEAKER_00]: 1215 loading dock.
[SPEAKER_00]: 1240.
[SPEAKER_00]: warehouse floor, one o'clock, employee entrance, one thirty, upper storage, two o'clock, control room.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had done it hundreds of times.
[SPEAKER_00]: The end-time is noticed something unusual, inventory was disappearing, small quantities at first, then larger shipments.
[SPEAKER_00]: The company blamed accounting errors, Thomas wasn't convinced, he started recording licensed
[SPEAKER_00]: He compared them with shipping manifests.
[SPEAKER_00]: One truck appeared repeatedly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't scheduled, and it always arrived between one 30 and two A.M., Thomas reported it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Management told him not to interfere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your security, his supervisor said, not inventory, Thomas nodded, but he kept watching.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night, Thomas saw the truck again.
[SPEAKER_00]: he wrote down the license plate, then he saw something that made his stomach titan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And employee opened the warehouse door.
[SPEAKER_00]: The employee was wearing a company uniform, but he wasn't scheduled to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas checked the employee roster.
[SPEAKER_00]: The name belonged to a warehouse supervisor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas immediately called his manager, no answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He called again, nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: before he could finish explaining the lights went out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The warehouse went completely dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas grabbed his flashlight, his radio crackle.
[SPEAKER_00]: A voice whispered, don't come upstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas recognized the voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the warehouse supervisor.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same man he just seen opening the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas knew he should leave, but he had spent months tracking the missing inventory.
[SPEAKER_00]: his passion for solving the mystery overwrote his fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: He went upstairs the discovery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas found the supervisor standing beside several pallets.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pallets were supposed to contain electronic equipment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, they were empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: The supervisor turned around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas, what are you doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: The supervisor didn't answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas raised his radio.
[SPEAKER_00]: the supervisor stepped toward him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas backed away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then another person appeared, a second employee, the supervisor wasn't alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas realized the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stolen merchandise wasn't disappearing because of an accounting error.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was being removed during the night shift.
[SPEAKER_00]: The criminals had been using company trucks and employee access cars to move inventory
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas had discovered them, and now he was the only witness.
[SPEAKER_00]: The final minutes Thomas ran.
[SPEAKER_00]: He made it halfway down the stairs before someone caught him.
[SPEAKER_00]: His radio fell.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last transmission was recorded at 151 AM.
[SPEAKER_00]: The recording contained only breathing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then three words, there behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Security footage show two employees leaving the building at 203.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither appeared injured.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas was found later that morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The case immediately became a homicide investigation.
[SPEAKER_00]: But investigators had won advantage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas had kept records.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every truck, every plate, every unusual delivery, every strange timestamp.
[SPEAKER_00]: His notebook became the roadmap that eventually exposed the entire operation.
[SPEAKER_00]: The supervisor and his accomplice were arrested.
[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators recovered stolen merchandise and uncovered months of theft.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas had been right.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had been watching the correct people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had collected the correct evidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had followed the trail.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he had made one fatal mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas' notebooks were eventually returned to his family on the final page, Investigators found one sentence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas had written it earlier that evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something is wrong tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Underneath it was a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: 130 AM, he was right.
[SPEAKER_00]: For years, Thomas had had watched the clock to keep everyone else safe.