A Flat Tire at the Bonefish Grill: The Savannah Gold Murder

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The text from Savannah Gold's phone had misspelled words and not one period in it.

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And she'd said in the text message that she met a great guy, they're running away together.

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Her dad got that message, so did her brother.

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Her mom took one look at it and knew her daughter did not write it.

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Though she then got in her car and drove straight to the restaurant where Savannah worked.

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[Music]

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[Music]

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Savannah Gold's mom said that she was fearless from the time she was a little kid.

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She didn't mind taking a risk when it was something that she thought was worth it.

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And you can see it in what she liked to do because Savannah Water's Skied played La Crosse

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in high school for Jersey Number by the way was 21.

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She was an artist too.

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She went to La Villa School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida and she got really into fiber

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arts and she got accepted to the Savannah College of Arts and Design, which is a big deal.

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And then her mom got cancer.

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She decided that she would put her art school on hold and stayed home through the chemo.

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She took a full time job waiting tables at Bonefish Grill in Mandarin.

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Every shift she'd text her mom or dad saying that she was at work and she loved them.

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In full sentences by the way with actual punctuation.

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Lee Rodarte Jr. ran the kitchen at that Bonefish Grill and he'd been there almost five years.

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He was 28.

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At some point they got together and how serious it was depends on who you ask.

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Her parents said they dated.

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Her friends said they were on and off.

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Lee told detectives they hung out a couple of times and figured they shouldn't, with him

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being the manager and all, and Bonefish did have a rule against managers dating employees,

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which somebody from the company confirmed.

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Co-workers said Lee was trying to get Savannah back and Savannah was done with it, done with

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him.

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Lee also told detectives that he was trying to work things out with another woman.

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It was a Wednesday in August of 2017.

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Savannah pulled into the Bonefish parking lot at about 5.31 pm.

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Her older brother Chris worked there too and when he pulled in for his shift he noticed

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Lee sitting in his car back into his spot.

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On a day that Lee wasn't even scheduled to be working.

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Savannah that day never clocked in.

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About half an hour later her dad and Chris both got a text message from her phone saying

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that she'd met a great guy and that they were running away together.

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The spelling in this text message was a mess and you won't find a single period in the

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whole message.

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Her mom told CBS that she knew the second that she saw that message that Savannah did not

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write it.

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She drove straight to the restaurant and found Savannah's car in the lot with a flat tire

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and her purse in the back seat.

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Nobody inside had seen her.

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The detective who got this one was Ray Reeves.

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Ray says about 9.15 that night his spidey senses were going off and when he sat down with a family

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they told him Savannah did not use drugs and she had never run away and that's when Chris

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finally mentioned seeing Lee sitting out in his car.

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The bank next door had an ATM camera aimed at that part of the parking lot and Ray says

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what it recorded was a phenomenal picture of a bush.

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Ray interviewed the staff one at a time on August 4 and Lee told him that he wasn't even

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in the parking lot that Wednesday and that was a bad idea because people had seen him.

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Lee also brought up on his own that Savannah used heroin and Ray says that Lee was the only

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one who had ever said that.

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While she was missing you'd find Lee checking in with their family and helping them pass

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out flyers.

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Back in the office Ray Sargent called him over.

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Jacksonville was pulling out every red light camera in the city because its own numbers

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said they weren't helping to cut down on crashes and by December they'd all be gone.

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One of them however was still up at the intersection by the Bonefish Grill.

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It's a long way off but you can still make out the lot on it.

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Ray watched a car matching Lee's sitting back in by the bank and then Savannah pulled in

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right beside it and she walked over and talked with Lee for a period of a few seconds before

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they both climbed into his back seat.

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Less than 15 minutes later the back passenger door flew open and then slammed shut.

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It did that three times and the car rocked.

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Ray says that Lee then got out and slashed Savannah's tire and a little after six he drove

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off.

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Savannah never got out.

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Ray went out and got a warrant for Lee's arrest but it was a bench warrant for driving on

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a suspended license.

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Anything to get him in custody.

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Ray walked into the kitchen and you've got Lee behind the grill with a knife in his hand.

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So Ray put his hand on Lee's hand and told him to put it down.

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Downtown Lee admitted that he had lied.

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He said Savannah had been telling the servers that they were still sleeping together and he

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was afraid that it would get him fired and he drove in on his day off to tell her to stop.

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He admitted he poked a hole in her tire with a little paring knife and then he threw in

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that it was a knife he'd use as a Phillips head screwdriver one time.

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A weird little thing to remember.

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He said Savannah then got on her phone and about five minutes later an old green Ford pickup

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with tented windows pulled up and she got into that Ford.

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The driver had a baseball cap on and Lee couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.

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Then a detective laid it all out.

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She never got out of your back seat Lee.

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Video cameras don't lie.

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This partner in that room was a detective named Michelle whose daughter was Savannah's age

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and played lacrosse with her in high school.

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Michelle begged him to tell them because Savannah's mom had stage 4 cancer and just wanted

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to know where her daughter was.

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Ray says that he bit his tongue and he let the room get agonizingly silent.

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Lee started talking.

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He said Savannah slapped him and he slapped her back.

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He said he grabbed her when she was trying to get out and he thought he had her by the

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shoulders when he pushed her down onto the seat.

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He heard a pop.

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He said that he took her to his house where he had a fire pit out back.

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When they asked where Savannah was he said club duckly wrote just down the street from where

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he used to live.

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There's a pond out back that's so grown over and so covered in algae that you'd have to

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already know it was there in order to find it.

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And the sheriff's dive team went in wearing full suits.

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They found Savannah wrapped in blankets and a shower curtain and taped shut.

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She was just 21 years old.

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The medical examiner found damage to the cartilage in her neck.

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The burns covered about 75% of her body which made it impossible to pin down exactly how

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she died and the examiner ruled it a violent homicide.

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More than 100 people showed up for a vigil at Losco Regional Park and they made art for

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her.

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Grandmother had started painting her portrait before she died and she finished it after

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Savannah was buried.

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Right before jury selection in 2019, Lee filed what's called a "Stan Your Ground" petition

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which in Florida let you ask a judge to throw the case out because it was self-defense.

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This time he said Savannah slapped him and grabbed him around his neck and he grabbed

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hers to break her grip and felt it pop.

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Florida had changed that law less than two months before Savannah died and now prosecutors

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had to disprove his claim.

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Lee was just under six feet tall.

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Savannah weighed 90-something pounds.

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I don't buy it.

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At the end of that first interrogation, one of the detectives walked back in and asked

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Lee if Savannah had put her hands on him before he went out and did that to her tire.

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You can hear him say clearly no that happened after.

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He came in on his day off and he was sitting there back into the spot before she pulled in.

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Why back then?

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Nobody knows.

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A judge denied this crazy petition and the appeals court upheld it in January 2021.

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A few weeks later, Lee pleaded guilty to second degree murder.

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He took a 40-year deal.

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If you were in the courtroom during that synancing, you watched Lee keep his back to Savannah's

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family the whole time.

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Why his eyes when they read their statements?

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Her dad said that she had a lion's heart.

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Her mom talked about the number 21.

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It was Savannah's jersey number and she had a tattooed on her arm.

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She was 21 when she died and 2021 was the year the man who killed her went to prison.

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Lee's at Wacala Correctional Institution now and the state has his release date down

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as December 2055.

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People gave more than $28,000 to a memorial fund and the family said that whatever's left

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after the funeral would go to cause Savannah cared about, like Hubbard House, a domestic

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violent center in Jacksonville, and her old art school at La Villa.

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Her family uses purple butterflies to remember her.

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To them, a purple butterfly means her spirit is at peace.

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Thanks for listening to Ten Minute Murder.

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Vengeable True Crime Stories.

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Hello, I'm Joe, I'm the host and here's an email.

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Subject, my wife got me into this.

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Joe, I made fun of her for a solid year, called it Her Murder Shows, refused to listen on roadtrips.

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Then she put on yours somewhere around Nashville on a roadtrip and I didn't complain because

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I was too tired and she noticed and has not let it go since.

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So now we listen together and she brings in up whenever she needs leverage in an argument.

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Worth it.

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She wanted me to email you and tell you that I was wrong.

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So there it is, I was wrong.

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Kurt and Evansville, Indiana.

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Listen, I don't care how you get here as long as you are here.

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If you have to be coerced by your wife, then so be it.

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And hats off to you because a lot of people can't admit when they're wrong about something.

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Personally, I like to think I'm the opposite of that.

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I'll admit to being wrong about something I'm not even sure if I'm wrong about.

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Just so someone can never ever say, well Joe never admits when he's wrong.

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It's the opposite of the truth.

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I'll admit to being wrong about something I'm actually right about.

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But enough about me.

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Kurt, I really do appreciate you listening.

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I appreciate you giving it a chance and thank you to your wife for turning the show on and

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not giving up on you.

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Hey, if you're a brand new listener to this podcast, like Kurt is, make sure you subscribe,

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first of all, subscribe to the podcast and then go to 10minuteMurder.com.

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There you'll find links to all the places you can listen to the podcast.

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You can find links to where you can follow the show on social media and email me, jo@10minuteMurder.com.

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And that's going to do it.

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That's your episode for today.

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Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute Murder.

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See you next time.