EXHIBIT A: POLICE REPORT — MAHONING COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE

Incident Number: MC-2024-11873 Date: November 17, 2024 Location: I-70, Mile Marker 237, Muskingum River Bridge Reporting Officer: Deputy William T. Hartley, Badge #447

At approximately 3:47 AM, this officer responded to a report of a single-vehicle accident at the above location. Upon arrival, this officer observed a green 1972 Chevrolet Camaro, license plate OHIO-7B2-F91, submerged in the Muskingum River approximately 70 feet below the bridge deck. The vehicle appeared to have broken through the guardrail at the eastern edge of the bridge. Weather conditions at the time of the incident included heavy rain, dense fog, and wind speeds estimated at 35-40 mph.

The vehicle was recovered by Mahoning County Search and Rescue at 9:15 AM. No human remains were found inside the vehicle. A search of the surrounding area, extending approximately one mile downstream, failed to locate any body. The registered owner of the vehicle, Mr. Francis T. Callahan of 447 Elm Street, Youngstown, was contacted at 10:30 AM and stated that the vehicle had been stored in his private garage for the past three years and had not been driven during that period. Mr. Callahan stated that he had no knowledge of how the vehicle came to be at the bridge.

A subsequent inspection of the vehicle revealed a black electronic device mounted in the engine compartment, where the carburetor would normally be located. The device had been crushed beyond recognition by the impact. Fragments of circuit board and wiring were recovered and sent to the state crime lab for analysis. Results are pending.

This incident remains under investigation. No charges have been filed at this time.

NOTE ADDED BY OFFICER HARTLEY, NOVEMBER 18: The guardrail at the bridge was reported damaged in a separate incident on June 12, 2019, in which a Mr. Thomas M. Callahan of Youngstown was fatally injured. The guardrail was repaired on June 28, 2019. The damage observed on November 17 appears consistent with a vehicle impact, but the angle of impact does not match the trajectory of the recovered Camaro. This discrepancy has been noted for the case file.

EXHIBIT B: INSURANCE CLAIM — MIDWEST MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY

Claim Number: MM-2024-88942 Insured: Francis T. Callahan Vehicle: 1972 Chevrolet Camaro, VIN 1Q87H2N501234 Policy Type: Collector Vehicle, Comprehensive

Claimant Statement (Transcript, November 20, 2024):

Q: Mr. Callahan, can you describe the circumstances under which the vehicle left your possession? A: It was in my garage. It had been in my garage for three years. I don't know how it got to the bridge. I don't know who was driving it. I don't know anything.

Q: Mr. Callahan, the police report indicates that the vehicle showed signs of recent operation. There was fresh gasoline in the tank. The tires showed normal wear patterns consistent with highway driving. Can you explain this? A: No.

Q: The black box found in the engine compartment—can you tell us what it was? A: It was a project.

Q: What kind of project? A: A personal project.

Q: Mr. Callahan, I need to remind you that failure to disclose material information may result in denial of your claim. A: Deny it. I don't care about the money. The money doesn't matter.

Q: What does matter, Mr. Callahan? A: (No response. Claimant terminated the interview at this point.)

Claim Status: DENIED — Failure to Cooperate with Investigation

EXHIBIT C: LAPTOP FORENSIC ANALYSIS — MAHONING COUNTY DIGITAL EVIDENCE UNIT

Case Number: DEU-2024-447 Evidence Item: Dell Latitude 7490 Laptop, Serial Number 8XK2FY2 Recovered From: Abandoned warehouse, 1420 Mahoning River Road, Youngstown Registered Owner: Dawn M. Callahan, 22 Mechanic Street, Youngstown

Preliminary Findings:

The laptop contained approximately 47,000 lines of C++ code organized into a project directory labeled "blackbox_firmware." The code appears to be a custom embedded systems application designed to interface with an ARM-based microcontroller via a CAN bus adapter. Key modules identified include:

1. "memory_map.cpp" — Contains a data structure labeled "Thomas_Callahan_Memory_Archive" with approximately 3.2 GB of serialized data identified as digitized neural recordings.

2. "drive_control.cpp" — Implements autonomous vehicle navigation algorithms using GPS coordinate inputs and LIDAR sensor fusion. Contains commented-out sections labeled "kill_switch_protocol" and "containment_protocol" that appear to have been disabled approximately three weeks before the date of the bridge incident.

3. "personality_emulator.cpp" — Implements a recurrent neural network trained on voice recordings and text messages attributed to Thomas Callahan. The network generates responses to external stimuli based on a probabilistic model of Callahan's documented behavioral patterns.

4. "jake_patch_log.txt" — A plaintext log file documenting unauthorized modifications to the firmware by a user identified as "jake_connor." The log indicates that the containment and kill switch modules were deliberately disabled on October 28, 2024. The final entry, dated November 16, 2024, reads: "I didn't know it would do this. I thought it was just a car."

NOTE: The laptop's hard drive was partially encrypted. Approximately 12% of the stored data could not be recovered. The unrecovered sectors correspond to the "containment_protocol" backup files.

EXHIBIT D: CELL PHONE RECORDS — VERIZON WIRELESS

Subpoena Number: MC-2024-447-SUB Account Holder: Dawn M. Callahan Phone Number: (330) 555-0187 Period: November 14-17, 2024

November 14, 11:47 PM — Outgoing call to (330) 555-4291 (Raymond P. Kosinski), duration 0:02. Call connected but no voice transmission detected.

November 15, 2:13 AM — Incoming text from (330) 555-9204 (Francis T. Callahan): "The GPS shows it moving. I-70 eastbound. Please go to the bridge."

November 15, 2:14 AM — Outgoing text to (330) 555-9204: "I know. I've been tracking it for three days. Don't call Ray. I'll handle this."

November 15, 4:22 AM — GPS location data shows device at coordinates 41.0685° N, 80.6572° W (Mahoning River Road warehouse).

November 16, 9:03 PM — Outgoing text to (330) 555-9204: "I've rewritten the containment protocol. It should hold. Tomorrow night. The bridge. Tell Ray to come."

November 16, 9:04 PM — Incoming text from (330) 555-9204: "He's already coming. He's been following you for two days. He doesn't know about the containment protocol."

November 16, 9:05 PM — Outgoing text to (330) 555-9204: "Then he'll learn. Or he won't. Either way, it ends tomorrow."

November 17, 3:41 AM — GPS location data shows device at coordinates 41.0720° N, 80.6588° W (I-70 Muskingum River Bridge). Final recorded position.

EXHIBIT E: WITNESS STATEMENT — RAYMOND P. KOSINSKI

Date: November 19, 2024 Interviewing Officer: Detective Sarah Chen, Mahoning County Sheriff's Office

I knew Tommy Callahan for six years. We drove together on the interstate. He was a good man. Not perfect, but good. When he died on that bridge, I was there. I was driving behind him. I saw his truck swerve. I saw the guardrail give way. I saw his body hit the metal. I called the ambulance. I held his hand while we waited. He died before they got there. That's the truth. That's all of the truth I'm willing to tell you.

Frank asked me to stop the Camaro. I don't know why he asked me. Maybe because I was the only one who knew how Tommy drove. Maybe because I was the only one who felt as guilty as he did. I followed the car for five nights. I saw what it did. Three people died. Good people. Innocent people. And Dawn Callahan sat in that warehouse and typed code into her laptop and told me that Tommy was still alive and that she was keeping him that way.

I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in machines that think or feel or remember. But I believe in grief. I believe that grief can make a person do things they would never do otherwise. Frank built the box because he could not accept that his son was dead. Dawn wrote the code because she could not accept that the man she loved was gone. And I chased the car because I could not accept that I had let Tommy die on that bridge five years ago and done nothing to stop it.

Did I kill Dawn? No. She drove off that bridge of her own free will. I saw her face in the headlights before the Camaro went over. She was smiling. She was not afraid. She was finally letting go. I think—I think she had been trying to let go for three years and could not do it until someone forced her to. I was that someone. I don't know if that makes me a hero or a villain. I don't know if those words mean anything anymore.

The engine sound. Yes. I hear it. Every night. Not just at the bridge. Everywhere. In the rain. In the wind. In the silence between my thoughts. It doesn't scare me. It reminds me. It reminds me that some things don't end when they're supposed to. Some things just keep going, looking for the road, waiting for the next driver. I don't know if that's hope or damnation. I don't know if there's a difference.

EXHIBIT F: CORONER'S REPORT — MAHONING COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER

Case Number: ME-2024-2281 Subject: Remains recovered from Muskingum River, December 3, 2024

Partial skeletal remains were recovered by a fisherman approximately 1.7 miles downstream from the I-70 bridge. DNA analysis confirms the remains belong to Dawn M. Callahan, age 29, of Youngstown. Cause of death: blunt force trauma consistent with a high-velocity impact. Manner of death: undetermined. The remains show no evidence of restraint or defensive wounds. Toxicology screening was inconclusive due to the condition of the remains.

NOTE: The remains were recovered 16 days after the bridge incident. The condition of the bones suggests prolonged immersion in cold water. The distance from the bridge is consistent with the river's current at the time of the incident.

EXHIBIT G: UNSENT LETTER — FOUND IN THE POSSESSIONS OF FRANCIS T. CALLAHAN, DECEASED

(Handwritten, on plain paper, undated)

Ray,

If you're reading this, I'm gone. They found me in the garage this morning, or yesterday, or whenever it was. The heart, they said. It gave out. I'm not surprised. It's been giving out for five years, ever since Tommy died. The box was supposed to fix that. It didn't.

I need you to understand something. The box I built was not for Tommy. It was for me. I could not accept that my son was dead, and so I built a machine that would let me pretend he wasn't. I told myself it was love. It wasn't. It was cowardice. It was the cowardice of a man who could not face a world without his son in it.

Dawn knew. She knew from the beginning. She helped me because she loved Tommy too, and because she believed that if we could just keep him alive long enough, something would change. It never did. The only thing that changed was that people started dying. And even then, we could not stop. We had gone too far. We had invested too much. We had built something that could not be unbuilt.

You were the one who stopped it. Not by chasing the car. Not by racing to the bridge. By being there. By showing up. By forcing us to look at what we had done and accept that it was wrong. Dawn understood that. I think that's why she drove off the bridge. She was not running away. She was running toward the only truth she had left.

The engine you hear—I hear it too. Not from the ravine. From inside my chest. It's been there since Tommy died, a low hum that never stops, like a motor that won't turn over but won't quit either. I think it's guilt. I think it's grief. I think it's the sound of a father who outlived his son and never figured out how to live with that.

Take care of yourself, Ray. You did more than you know. You did more than any of us deserved.

Frank

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies to grief as much as it applies to electrons. You can measure the position of a loss, or you can measure its momentum, but you cannot measure both at the same time. The more precisely you locate the moment when something was lost, the less precisely you can describe the direction in which that loss is carrying you. This is why police reports and insurance claims and forensic analyses can never capture the full truth of what happened at the bridge. They can tell you where the Camaro was when it went over the edge. They can tell you when the impact occurred and what angle the car was traveling and how fast the river was flowing at the time. But they cannot tell you why Dawn was smiling. They cannot tell you why Frank built the box. They cannot tell you why Ray still hears the engine every night, or why the sound comforts him as much as it haunts him.

Detective Chen understood this better than most. She had been a cop for fifteen years, and she had learned that the truth was not a destination but a direction. You could point toward it. You could move toward it. But you could never arrive at it. The best you could do was collect the evidence—the reports and the claims and the forensic analyses and the witness statements—and arrange them in a way that made sense of as much as possible while acknowledging that some things would always remain unexplained. She closed the case file on December 5th and wrote ACCIDENTAL DEATH on the final page. It was not the truth. But it was the closest thing to the truth that could be written in the language of police reports. And sometimes, she had learned, the closest thing to the truth was all you were going to get.---