Blood in the Rocket City: The 1998 Franklin Family Massacre

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In 1998, in a subdivision called Kamalot, and maybe the safest part of Huntsville, Alabama,

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a 17-year-old boy from an aerospace family came home from school and quietly gathered a

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sledgehammer, a hatchet, a butcher knife, and another tool that nobody could explain.

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By the time the street lights came on, two of his family members were dead.

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Three more were fighting for their lives, and the neighborhood that thought it had escaped

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the rest of America was about to learn it had not.

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If you've never been to Huntsville, here's the deal.

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They call it the Rocket City, and the nickname is earned.

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NASA set up shop in North Alabama after World War II, and the whole region rearranged itself

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around aerospace and defense.

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By the late 90s, Huntsville was full of engineers and scientists raising kids and clean little

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subdivisions with hopeful names.

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The one at the center of this story was called Kamalot.

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That was the actual name on the street sign, which in retrospect feels like a novelist

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trying way too hard, except it was just the real neighborhood.

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South Huntsville in 1998 was a place where lawns stayed well manicured, and people left

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bicycles on front lawns without worrying about them getting stolen.

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The local industry was space and defense and cotton, roughly in that order.

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The Franklin's lived at 1305 Kamalot Drive.

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Dad was Gerald, an engineer at a tech firm called V-Mick.

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Mom was Cynthia.

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They had five kids together.

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Jeffrey was the oldest at 17.

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Then 14-year-old Sarah and Stacey, the eight-year-old Timothy, and the baby was Christopher

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who was six.

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To the neighbors, the Franklin's looked exactly like the family the whole subdivision

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had been built for.

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Inside the house, things were a lot more complicated, and most of the complication

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had to do with Jeffrey.

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Jeffrey had been diagnosed with ADHD, which isn't unusual, but he also had major depressive

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disorder, and his doctors had him on a daily combination of pro-Zach and ridlin.

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Before anybody comes after me, I'm not anti-medication, not even remotely.

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I'm telling you what was happening in 1998.

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Pediatric psychiatry in the late 90s was its own little Wild West.

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Long-term safety data on SSRIs in a developing teenage brain was thin, and data on stacking

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SSRIs with stimulates and teenagers was even thinner.

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The Franklin's trusted their doctors, and most parents in 1998 did the same.

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That afternoon, Jeffrey walked through his own house, gathering, and arsenal.

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He grabbed a two-pound sledgehammer from the garage, a hatchet, a butcher knife from

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the kitchen, and also a rat-tailed file, which is a long-tapered metal tool that mechanics

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use for shaping holes and metal.

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That last item is kind of one that haunts the forensic psychologist.

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It's not a tool that you grab to do anything rational with.

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It has a specific need, and it's definitely not what Jeffrey used it for.

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According to retired Hunsville police investigator Mack McCutchen, who handled the case of the

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time and later became an Alabama State representative, Cynthia Franklin was killed first.

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Jeffrey stabbed his mother with the rat-tailed file.

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He then attacked 14-year-old Sarah, slashing her neck.

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His father Gerald arrived home, and Jeffrey bludgeoned him to death with that two-pound

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sledgehammer.

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He then went after his two youngest brothers, eight-year-old Timothy and six-year-old Christopher

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with the hatchet.

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By every medical expectation, Sarah, Timothy, and Christopher should not have survived.

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By something close to a miracle, all three did.

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Their sister Stacy was not physically harmed.

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By the end of the afternoon, the Franklin family had gone from seven people to four traumatized

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children, no parents, and a teenager fleeing the scene in his parents' car.

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A neighbor saw Jeffrey leave the house, covered in blood, and called the police.

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Another neighbor spotted one of the children outside in a puddle of blood, and also dialed

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911, thinking they were calling about one injured child.

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The first responders had no idea what they were walking into.

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By the time the officers got there, Jeffrey was already gone.

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The chase started down at Ditto Landing on the Tennessee River, and ended in a yard

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not far from the Franklin home.

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Officers finally got him into handcuffs.

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He was shirtless and spitting, cursing, and making obscene gestures at officers and news crews.

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Carved into his chest was the outline of an upside-down cross.

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He'd done that to himself.

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A quick second on the survivors, because most people telling this story, they focus on the

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rockets and then straight to Jeffrey in the legal circus, and the kids almost vanish

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from this.

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Laura, Timothy, and Christopher are alive today because of an extraordinary medical response

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that afternoon.

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They spent years afterward in surgeries and therapy and rehabilitation.

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Whatever those four did with their lives later, they did it without the spotlight, because

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the spotlight stayed on their brother.

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After the arrest, investigators went through Jeffrey's bedroom and found the journals,

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the drawings, and the satanic writings.

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They brought in a now retired Huntsville detective named Jeff Bennett, who was the department's

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longtime expert on cults and occultism, and was also an active Baptist pastor at a church

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in Tennessee.

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Bennett interpreted Jeffrey's writings as evidence of real occult involvement, and he

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told a local news investigation years later that Jeffrey had intended to ritually sacrifice

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members of his own family.

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To a religious Southern community in 1998, this was the cleanest possible story.

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The satanic panic of the '80s was still alive and well in Middle America and the South,

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and people wanted to believe that violence like this came from outside the family.

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Most modern forensic psychologists read the case differently.

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They see a very sick 17-year-old who had not slept in days who was already in a deep

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psychotic spiral.

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The satanic content was the language his disintegrating brain reached for when nothing

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else really made sense.

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The breakdown came first, and the imagery came after.

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And then there's the medication question, which has never really gone away.

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Treatment activation syndrome is a condition where certain medications, especially SSRIs,

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paired with stimulants, can push patients into manic agitation and a break from reality.

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The late '90s produced a string of devastating juvenile crimes that all had one strange thing

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in common.

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Kip Kinkle, an organ, on Prozac and Ridland killed his parents and opened fire at his school.

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Luke Woodham and Mississippi, on Prozac, killed his mother and opened fire at his school.

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Other medication played a role on March 10th for Jeffrey Franklin has never been fully resolved.

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By 1999, Alabama had ruled Jeffrey mentally incompetent to stand trial.

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He was sent to a secure psychiatric hospital where a clinician spent over a year stabilizing

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him until he could understand the charges, the case when back to court in Madison County

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in late 2000.

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Prozacuteers announced they were going after the death penalty.

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Jeffrey had been 17 at the time of the murders, and Alabama law in 1998 allowed execution

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for crimes committed as a minor.

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That decision turned the case into an international story, an Amnesty International launched a global

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campaign focused specifically on that case.

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Jury selection started October 2, 2000.

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Three days in, the judge declared a mistrial because several prospective jurors had been

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openly talking about the case during selection.

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Next with the change of in you, both sides settled.

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In 2001, Jeffrey Franklin pled guilty to two counts of murder and three counts of attempted

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murder.

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The state dropped the death penalty, and he was sentenced to five consecutive life prison

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terms.

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Four years later, in 2005, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Roe per Versus Simmons

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that executing people for crimes they committed under the age of 18 violated the eighth amendment.

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The court cited international human rights pressure as evidence of evolving standards of

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decency, and the Amnesty campaign around Jeffrey Franklin was part of that pressure.

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Jeffrey Franklin is being held today at Bullock Correctional Facility near Union Springs,

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Alabama.

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He came up for parole in 2016, and the board denied him.

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He came up again in August 2022, and Madison County, DA Robert Brusar drove down to Montgomery

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personally to argue against his release.

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Some advocates filled the room.

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The board voted unanimously to deny parole and gave him the maximum five-year reset.

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His next hearing is in August of 2027.

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The Camelot subdivision is still there, and the house at 1305 Camelot Drive is still standing.

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The four kids who lived through that afternoon grew up and built private lives that they have

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every right to keep private.

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Their parents are still gone, and their brother is still in prison.

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People want stories like this to have a clean explanation, and the satanic theory of 1998

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was certainly clean.

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The medication theory and the mental illness theory are far messier, and the honest answer

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is probably that all three were tangled together inside the sick head of a 17-year-old on a quiet

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street in Huntsville, Alabama.

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Thanks for listening to 10-minute murder, bingeable true crime stories.

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Hello, I'm Joe, I am the host, and here's an email, subject my brother finally listened.

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I, Joe, I've been telling my brother to check out your show for at least a year.

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Using our recent drive from Denver to Moab, he finally gave in.

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Now he's asking me which episode he should go back and listen to after we got home.

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I feel slightly vindicated.

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Thank you for giving me an easy recommendation.

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Lauren and Lakewood, Colorado.

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And Lauren, first of all, thank you for being a loyal listener.

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Thank you for sharing the podcast with your brother, and here's the thing, I'm a brother.

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I've got two sisters and my older sister, she's told me things throughout my life that

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I've now, later in my adulthood, have realized, oh, she was right.

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Older sisters are usually right about things, and I hope she never, ever hears me say those

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words.

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She'll never let me forget that I said that.

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She'll probably make what I just said her ringtone or something like that.

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But my point is, older siblings, especially older sisters, usually have your best interests

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at heart, and they know you just as well, if not better than you know yourself.

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So your brother should have known better, is what I'm saying.

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But I'm glad to have him on board now.

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Hey, if you're a brand new listener, like Lauren's brother, make sure you hit subscribe wherever

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to listen to, you can check out my other podcast.

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The episodes are longer, more of a deep dive, into true crime cases.

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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 for listening to 10minuteMurder.

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See you next time.