Amelia Dyer: The Baby Farmer

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Discretion is advised. This is Tendredd
murdered in eighteen thirty seven. Amelia Dyer

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was born in Bristol, UK.
She was an intelligent child who loved to

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read and write, but her childhood, as you're going to hear, was

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not an easy one. Her older
sister, sarah Anne, died at the

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age of six, and when her
mother gave birth to another child, the

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little girl was named sarah Anne and
her memory. Unfortunately, the second sarah

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Anne also passed away after catching typhus
fever. Amelia's mother was not in a

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very good position to be caring for
her children. Her diagnosis caused her to

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suffer from violent outbursts of rage,
as well as uncontrolled symptoms of mental illness.

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From a young age, Amelia was
forced to act as her mother's caregiver,

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and then, when she was a
preteen, her mother passed away.

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Amelia was then sent to live with
one of her aunts and become the apprentice

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to a local corset maker. When
Amelia was twenty four years old, she

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met a much older man, fifty
nine year old George Thomas. They decided

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to get married and both lied about
their age when filling in their details on

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their marriage certificate, Amelia pretended to
be six years older and George pretended to

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be eleven years younger. On paper, their age gap didn't look very alarming,

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but in reality, George was old
enough to be her grandfather. Amelia

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originally trained to work as a nurse, but after George passed away in eighteen

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sixty nine, she needed better money, and she needed it quickly. On

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the advice of a friend, she
turned to a different career, baby farming.

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At the time, baby farming was
the term used after the incredibly unethical

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process of taking babies who had been
orphaned or birthed by single mothers in exchange

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for a cash payment. The problem
with baby farming was obvious. Even though

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some baby farmers took regular payments from
the child's birth parents, many of them

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chose to only accept large upfront payments
before the baby was permanently transferred into their

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care. In this case, there
was no financial reason for the farmers to

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treat the child well. Many baby
farmers would neglect the adopted infants, starving

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them to save money. When the
infants died, the corners would report that

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the cause of death had been due
to birth defect or lack of breast milk

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instead of starvation due to neglect.
It was pretty easy for baby farmers to

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silence the cries of a neglected baby. Over the counter syrups containing opium or

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alcohol were marketed towards frustrated mothers.
These cough syrups were strong enough to kill

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an infant by overdose, and the
ones that contained opium also acted as a

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hunger suppressant. When single mothers who
had given their babies up for adoption came

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in to check on them, they
often saw signs of neglect, but because

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the stigma surrounding single motherhood, there
were too ashamed press charges or report the

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baby farm to the police. At
first, it's possible Amelia grew genuinely tired

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of trying to care for the babies
that she adopted as well as her two

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own children, but it's equally possible
that she was neglecting them from the start,

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and multiple of the babies Amelia adopted
passed away. Investigation into the deaths

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of the babies led to Amelia being
charged with child neglect and sentenced to six

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months of hard labor, but after
her labor was completed, Amelia was free

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to go back to baby farming.
The second time around, Amelia's attitude was

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completely different. She felt that she
had tried her best to care for the

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babies and had been punished for it. Now she saw no reason to care

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for them at all. She gained
the trust of young single mothers, treating

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them kindly and promising to love and
take care of their newborns as if they

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were her own children. She painted
a picture of herself as a maternal woman

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who loved children and wanted to help
them. After accepting their payments, she'd

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neglected the babies, depriving them of
food on purpose until they were starved to

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death, but this method took too
much time. She knew that if babies

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died quicker, she'd be able to
replace them with new ones and accumulate even

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more money. She also realized the
error of her ways in the past,

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and not in a good way.
When she'd asked before the local doctor to

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certify the deaths of the infants,
he'd become suspicious of the sheer amount of

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deaths that were occurring under her care. This is likely where she started to

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brutally murder each child that was entrusted
in her care, strangling them to death

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and then dumping their corpses to avoid
detection. Somehow, she was allowed to

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continue adopting hundreds of children, despite
her previous conviction for neglect and multiple episodes

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of mental instability that led to her
spending time in numerous asylums throughout her adult

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life. It was the thirtieth of
March eighteen ninety six when a baby's remains

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were found in a bag floating down
London's River Thames. It was a little

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girl identified as Helena Fry. The
paper that had been used to wrap the

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body contained a barely legible address,
the home of Amelia Dyer, who had

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been making a living as a baby
farmer for almost three decades while repeatedly moving

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locations and going in and out of
psychiatric care. The police raided Amelia's home.

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As soon as they walked through the
door, they smelled an overpowering odor

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of decomposition, but the search didn't
uncover any human remains. What they did

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find was evidence of how many children
had passed through Amelia's care over the years,

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advertisements, unanswered letters from single mothers
who had given their children, and

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telegrams about the adoption of infants.
From this evidence alone, investigators guests that

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around twenty babies had been given to
amel in the past few months. They

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also uncovered something that would become more
significant later in the investigation, large quantities

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of edging tape. On the fourth
of April, Amelia Dyer was placed under

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arrest for murder. Initially, her
son in law, Arthur, was arrested

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as an accessory to murder, but
those charges were later dropped. Allegedly,

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at least one of Amelia's adult daughters
was also aware of her mother's activities,

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but Amelia insisted that this was not
the case. Amelia might have been a

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lot of things, but she definitely
was not a snitche Investigators dredged the Thames

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and uncovered the remains of six more
infants. They were all called in the

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same way by strangulation with the same
type of white measuring tape. Later on,

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Amelia admitted to the police that the
measuring tape quote was how you could

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tell it was one of mine.
One of the babies was identified as Doris

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Marmon, whose mother had given her
to Amelia less than two weeks before her

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body was found. In the advertisement
that Doris's mother had responded to, Amelia

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had written quote I don't want a
child for money's sake, but for the

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company and home comfort. I and
my husband are dearly fond of children.

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I have no child of my own. A child with me will have a

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good home and a mother's love.
Despite Doris's mother wanting to pay in regular

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installments, hoping that she would one
day be reunited with her baby when the

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circumstances were better, Amelia had insisted
on a one off payment. She had

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killed Doris shortly after being paid,
then dumped her in the Thames. Amelia's

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crimes had generated a huge amount of
public outrage. The trial was sensational,

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and crowds gathered to hear the verdict. It took the jury less than five

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minutes to make up their decision.
So many babies had been given to Amelia

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and then seemingly vanished altogether. It
was estimated that she might have killed as

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many as four hundred babies during her
thirty year career. Impossibly even more than

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that. This number, if it
had been proven, would make her one

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of the most prolific serial killers in
the history of the world. After the

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public uproar that Amelia's trial had caused, it was clear that something needed to

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change. It had been way too
easy for Amelia to get away with not

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just one murder, but hundreds.
The laws regarding child protection and adoption were

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made stricter, and the recently formed
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of

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Children became well known across the country. On the tenth of June, Amelia's

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execution date arrived. She stepped up
to the scaffold. Her executioner, James

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Billington, asked her if she had
any last words. Quote, I have

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nothing to say, Amelia responded,
before she was hanged to death. After

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her conviction, the public gave Amelia
the nickname the Ogress of Reading. Over

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the next few years, she became
the subject of a ballad by the same

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name, The Old Baby Farmer,
the wretched dire at the Old Bailey.

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Her wages is paid in times long
ago. We'd make a big friar and

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roasted so nicely that wicked old jade. That is ten minute murder for today,

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brief and binge able true crime.
I'm Joe, I'm the host,

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and thank you for listening today,
and thank you to the person that submitted

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that story idea to ten minute murder. By the way if you have one,

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Joe at ten minute Murder dot com, that's where you can send it.

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I don't get to talk about these
historic cases very often, and I

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will. I know what you're thinking. Have you talked about H. H.

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Holmes or Jack the Ripper? No, haven't done those stories. I

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will do them. I promise I
will do them. Those have been emailed

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to me multiple times. They're on
the list, but I don't want to

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do them the way that everyone else
would do them. But I'm trying to

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make it more interesting than just the
plain ol. Here are the facts of

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everything you've ever heard a million times. I don't want to do that,

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all right, So our question for
today is actually multiple. It's kind of

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a novel. Laurie from Ocala,
Florida. You wrote me a novel,

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Laurie, So I'm going to do
my best. I'm going to edit it,

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by the way, because there's a
lot here and the podcast is only

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so long. Here it is,
Hi, Joe, I have some questions

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for you to answer the podcast.
I hate the sound of my own voice,

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and most people seem to not like
to hear their voices on a recording.

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Do you like the sound of your
voice or does it make you cringe

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as well? And the answer is
it's all right. I guess it could

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be worse, it could be better. I don't think very many people like

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to hear their own voice on a
recording, but I've been doing it for

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so long that at this point it
doesn't bother me anymore. I sound how

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I sound, and I can't do
anything about it. Okay, Part two,

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I'm running out of true crime shows
and movies. What are your recommendations?

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Very recently, as in today,
I watched Killers Caught on Camera,

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but I'm only like two episodes into
that. It's on TV and it's not

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bad. And another one that I
watched I think I posted on social media

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about it, The Curious Case of
Natalia Grace. Now one's not a murder

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case, but it's guess true crime, and it's very weird, very strange.

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I'm not going to spoil it for
you in case you're gonna watch it,

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but there is one person in there. He's a guy that makes the

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show nearly unwatchable. I don't know
if it's an act or that's who he

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really is, but if you've seen
this, you know exactly who I'm talking

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about. But it's so weird and
strange, all right. And the last

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question, I love what you do, and I've always loved anything crime.

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I used to work at a domestic
violent shelter for women and children because I

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wanted to help people. Have you
ever worked in any humanitarian type jobs or

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crime related jobs? And that answer
is no. I guess you can't really

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call it a job if you're just
volunteering your time. But I've done that.

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I've volunteered at multiple charities, and
I've set on boards for a couple

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of different charities where we're doing humanitarian
type things. But I'm not getting paid

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to do that, so that's not
what I would consider a job, But

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I do volunteer for charities and crime
related jobs. No, I've worked in

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the news world before. I've done
news reporting on the radio, and I've

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done behind the scenes things at news
TV stations, but I've never worked in

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crime. We reported crime, but
I didn't work with like law enforcement or

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anything like that. But if it
counts, I wanted to be Foxmolder when

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I was a kid, and that
probably doesn't count, all right. Thank

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you Laurie from Ocala, Florida.
By the way, if this is your

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first time listening to ten Minute Murder. Please subscribe now so that you can

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Connect with me on social media links
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