Bart Whitaker: The Son Who Staged a Hit on His Own Family

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Bart Whitaker had the kind of life people fake on Instagram.

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Private school, luxury cars, lakeside townhouse, all paid for by parents who thought he was

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finishing college.

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Then, after a family dinner celebrating his graduation, everything exploded.

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A masked intruder, gunshots, two dead, one clinging to life.

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And Bart, gone.

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What happened inside that house wasn't random.

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It was planned.

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And the truth?

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It's worse than anyone expected.

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Before we dive in, if you like your true crime brief and bingeable, you're in the right

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place.

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Hit follow now for at least two new episodes every week.

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This is 10 Minute Murder.

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Let's get into it.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, or Bart, was born into comfort.

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He grew up in a wealthy Houston suburb, surrounded by everything a kid could want.

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His dad Kent ran a successful construction business.

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His mom Patricia, who went by Trish, was a former teacher turned full-time mom who still

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volunteered at the school out of habit, or maybe hope.

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Both parents poured their energy into raising Bart and his younger brother Kevin.

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They wanted their boys to be happy, healthy, and set up for success, and it mostly worked

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for Kevin.

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Bart, on the other hand, was a different story.

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Years later, Bart would be diagnosed with a delusional paranoid disorder.

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But before anyone had a name for it, the signs were already there.

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As a teenager, Bart organized a string of burglaries at his own high school.

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He was more than involved.

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He was calling the shots.

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When the truth came out, Bart was expelled.

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Parents and Trish were worried, but ironically that expulsion looked like a kid had flipped

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a switch.

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Bart straightened up, got into bailer, then transferred to Sam Houston State in Willis.

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It seemed like he had turned a corner.

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His parents were thrilled.

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They paid for everything.

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Two-ish in books, and even a lakeside townhouse near campus, so Bart could stay focused and

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comfortable.

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From the outside, it looked like things were finally falling into place.

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But they were not.

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Three years into Bart's supposed college career, it looked like he was finally about to cross

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the finish line.

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It was December 2003, and graduation was right around the corner.

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To celebrate, the Whitaker family went out to dinner in Houston.

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Over the years, Kent and Trish had already gifted Bart more than most kids could dream of,

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including a collection of luxury cars.

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But this time, they wanted to mark the milestone with something special.

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They gave him a Rolex, a $4,000 watch, a moment to pride and congratulations.

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Smiles all around.

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Graduation was that weekend, and everything seemed to be going right.

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After dinner, they pulled into the driveway at home.

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Bart went to grab his phone from his car and said he was going to call his girlfriend.

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The rest of the family went inside.

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Kevin was the first through the door.

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He walked straight into a masked man holding his own gun.

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The shooter fired.

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Kevin took a bullet to the chest.

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Trish was next.

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Shot in the chest as well.

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Kent was hit in the shoulder.

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Bart ran in, wrestled with the intruder and got shot in the arm.

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The man took off.

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He jumped the fence into the neighbor's yard and escaped in a waiting car.

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Next door, Cliff Stanley and his family heard the gunfire.

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They rushed outside.

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Cliff saw Kent on the ground yelling, "I'm bleeding."

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Cliff grabbed his own shirt and tried to stop the bleeding while his son called for help.

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Trish was kneeling on the front steps, her head resting on the porch.

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Her position looked painful and unnatural, but Cliff didn't want to move her.

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The bleeding had started to clot.

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She was moaning, still conscious and told Cliff to get away, to save himself.

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But Cliff stayed.

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He tried to find the boys.

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He had never met Bart, but he knew Kevin.

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He could see Kevin's body inside the house.

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It was too dark to tell how bad it was.

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He didn't need to see it.

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He could hear it.

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Cliff Stanley would later describe the sound he heard coming from inside the house as a

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death rattle.

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Kevin Whitaker was 19 years old and Cliff could tell from his breathing and faint moaning

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that he was dying.

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But Cliff couldn't reach him.

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Trish had collapsed in front of the door and moving her might have made her condition worse.

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Cliff stayed with her, listening as Kevin's life slipped away just beyond his reach.

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First responders arrived and Trish was airlifted to the hospital.

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She died in the helicopter.

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Kevin had already passed.

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Kent survived, so did Bart.

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Bart's injuries were minor and he was discharged shortly after.

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Kent, still recovering in the hospital, said Bart told him he needed to get out for a bit,

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tried to shake the trauma.

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Go to a club, take his mind off of what had just happened.

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But Bart never came back.

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For more than a year, he disappeared.

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No one knew if he was hiding or if something had happened to him too.

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Then someone came forward with information that changed everything.

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It was one of Bart's old high school friends.

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The same one who had helped him rob the school years earlier.

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He told investigators that Bart had paid him $3,000 to help him get to the Mexican border.

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And that's when everything started to fall apart.

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So why did Bart vanish?

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Because the entire college story he had sold his family was a lie.

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He dropped out after his first year and spent the next three pretending to be a student

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while living in a lakeside townhouse his parents paid for.

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His graduation got closer, the truth started closing in.

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Bart knew he was about to be exposed.

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Instead of admitting it, he came up with a plan.

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He decided to have his whole family killed.

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He hired Chris Brashear as a hitman and gave him everything he needed.

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Bart explained how to get into the house, where to find Kevin's gun, and even arrange to

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get away driver.

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Chris was told to stage a robbery and wait inside.

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Kevin walked in first.

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Chris shot him, then shot Trish and Kent.

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As planned, he embarked, faked a struggle.

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Chris shot Bart in the arm to make it look real.

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Even the phone call Bart made outside the house was part of it.

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He wanted the rest of the family to walk in first.

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That way he could arrive after the attack started and play the victim.

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What he did not expect was Kent surviving.

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His lie was about to unravel anyway.

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And now his mother and brother were dead.

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So he ran.

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After Bart's old friend came forward, investigators tracked him to Caravvo, Mexico.

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Bart was using the name Rudy Rios, working in a furniture shop and living with a new girlfriend.

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He had built himself a second life, but that life was over.

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In Mexico, Bart Whitaker had done what a lot of fugitives only dream about.

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He disappeared, changed his name, got a job, and started a whole new relationship.

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He blended in, no college scandal, no murder investigation, no past.

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But the illusion cracked the moment his former friend came forward.

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With his location confirmed, Bart was arrested by Mexican authorities and extradited back

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to the United States.

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What followed was not a quiet return.

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This was National News, a privileged young man from an upper-class family accused of staging

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his own murder and orchestrating the execution of his mother and younger brother.

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The motive?

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To avoid being exposed as a fraud and collect the family's life insurance.

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The state of Texas wasted no time.

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Bart was charged with capital murder.

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Prosecutors refused to offer a plea deal.

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They made it clear they were pursuing the death penalty, not because Bart pulled the trigger,

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but because he planned it all.

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The law in Texas holds the mastermind equally accountable.

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The trial lasted six days and the evidence painted a very clear picture.

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The fake graduation, the staged robbery, the calculated timing of Bart's phone call outside

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the house, the setup with the hitman.

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It was all laid out for the jury.

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Bart sat quietly through most of it, emotionless.

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His defense team argued that he had shown remorse and had to diagnose mental disorder, but

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the facts were too damning.

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The jury took only two hours to reach a decision.

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The penalty.

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Bart was sentenced to death, but the story did not end there.

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Years later, during the lengthy appeals process, Kent Whitaker, who had lost his wife and son

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and nearly his own life, stood in court and asked that his remaining son be spared.

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He told the judge that taking Bart's life would only deepen the pain, not bring any closure.

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It was an extraordinary act of forgiveness and won the court took seriously.

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Bart's sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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He remains behind bars in Texas, serving time for a crime he spent years planning and pretending

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to survive.

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Thanks for listening to Ten Minute Murder.

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Vengeable True Crime Stories.

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I'm Joe, the host, and thank you so much for listening today.

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If you want to get in touch with me, it's pretty simple.

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You can go to Ten Minute Murder.com.

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You'll find my contact info there.

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And also there on my website, you'll find the Murder blog.

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Photos from the stories you hear me talking about here, including some blog entries, some

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blog posts, I don't know if they're called, blog posts, I guess, that you don't hear on

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the podcast.

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Some stuff that I kind of do on the side.

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I'm a free time.

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I talk about different cases, different things, and it doesn't always make it to the podcast.

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I just stick it over there in the blog.

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So Ten Minute Murder.com.

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But I do like getting your emails, and here's one that I've gotten recently.

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Hey Joe, big fan of Ten Minute Murder.

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I usually listen during my lunch break or on the drive home, perfect length, and I love

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how you get right to the story without dragging it out.

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Quick question that's been on my mind.

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Do you ever find it hard to cover certain cases because they hit too close to home?

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Not necessarily personally, just like emotionally.

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Like are there certain types of crimes that mess with your head more than others?

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Appreciate what you do.

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Just for telling the stories in a way that doesn't glorify the people who did these things.

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Emily G from Ohio.

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And first of all, Emily, thank you so much for listening and taking the time to send me

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a message.

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And the answer, heck yes, it does.

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It does bother me.

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And I've talked about it quite a bit on the podcast about how I get nightmares from time

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to time.

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If I've done a lot of research that day and it kind of sticks with me a little bit, I can't

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stop it from happening.

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It's just the thing that's going to happen because I do this podcast.

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And I know that that's a thing that's going to happen and I don't try to stop it at this

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point.

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Well that's a lie.

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I do listen to stand-up comedy sometimes when I'm going to sleep.

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If I think that's going to happen, I'll listen to stand-up comedy.

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Like I'll fire up Spotify and listen to, you know, just the hodgepodge of different

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comedians that I like.

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And that helps, but it's not always perfect.

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But the certain types of cases that really get to me, it's kind of the school shooters.

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Just really affect me because I have a son and he's been through high school and he and I've

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had these in-depth conversations about school shootings.

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With his generation that, man, they just, it's like normalized for them.

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They go through these school shooter drills and it's like, yeah, well, I mean, it might

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happen.

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And you know, if that would, that devastates me to just to hear the non-chalance almost

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that he has to go through those shooter drills at school.

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And then when I do cases where I research that these things are happening and they're happening

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so much in these kids, and so those, yes, the school shooter ones get to me the most.

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But I'm not going to stop talking about them because I think it's important to talk about

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it.

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Okay, that's going to do it.

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If you found this episode interesting, disturbing, or somewhere in between, go ahead and subscribe

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now wherever you're listening so that you don't miss the next one.

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You can also follow along on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, I post updates, case

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extras, and a whole lot of stuff.

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Thanks again for being here.

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I'll talk to you next time.

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Have a good night.