From Disney to Death Row: The Oba Chandler Case That Shocked Florida

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Joan Rogers and her daughters were supposed to be driving home to Ohio after their Disney vacation

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Instead they got lost and ended up in Tampa where they met a guy named Oba Chandler who offered to show them the most beautiful

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Sunset from his boat

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That was June 1st

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1989 three days later all three of them were found floating in Tampa Bay

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Today we're talking about how a wrong turn a sunset cruise and some handwriting on a billboard

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Solved one of Florida's most brutal family murders

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Some kids grow up with their fathers who are their absolute heroes well

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Oba Chandler had one of those dads too until he was 10 years old and

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1957 and his father Oba senior decided to end his own life in the basement of their Cincinnati home

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Four kids watch their mother Margaret Johnson try to hold the family together after that

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Oba was the second youngest and when they lowered his dad's casket into the ground

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This little boy literally jumped into the grave because he couldn't bear to let his father go

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That moment broke something in Oba Chandler that he never got fixed

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By 14 Oba had figured out he was pretty good at stealing cars the problem was he was

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Absolutely terrible at not getting caught

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20 arrests as a juvenile will tell you everything you need to know about his criminal aptitude

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But here's the thing about people like Oba they don't learn from consequences

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They escalate as an adult his rap sheet read like a crime textbook

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Counterfeit money burglary kidnapping armed robbery

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There was even an incident where he got caught masturbating while peeping into a woman's window

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But one particular crime really shows you what kind of predator he was becoming

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Oba and an accomplice broke into a Florida couples home held them at gunpoint and robbed them

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He told his partner to tie up the husband with speaker wire then dragged the woman into the bedroom

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He forced her to strip into her underwear tied her up and then this is where it gets really twisted

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He took his gun and rubbed the barrel along her stomach

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pure

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sadistic dominance

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Oba tried the Marines for a hot minute, but people like him don't do well with authority

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He deserted pretty quickly after that his life gets murky because he was constantly using fake names and made up backstories

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What we do know is that he worked as an aluminum sighting contractor and somehow managed to father eight children with seven different women

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By 1989 Oba was married and living in Tampa, Florida

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He owned a boat remember that detail because it becomes crucial that same year Joan Rogers

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36 and her daughters Michelle 17 and Christie 14 were vacationing in Florida while howell Rogers

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Jones husband and the girl's father stayed home to tend their dairy farm in Wilshire, Ohio

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The girls had been through something traumatic back home

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Michelle had been sexually assaulted by her uncle and though those charges eventually dropped because she didn't want to testify

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The whole ordeal left their small town talking the Disney vacation was supposed to be an escape a chance for Joan to help her daughters

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Heel and have some fun get their mind off of what was going on back home

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They had a wonderful time at Disney World, but here's where everything went sideways

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When it was time to head home to Ohio, Joan got lost

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Instead of going north from Orlando, she went west and ended up in Tampa

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Look we've all been there before GPS getting lost was a legitimate life experience

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Joan figured they just extend their vacation a bit so she needed to find directions to a hotel

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That's when she met Oba Chandler

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Oba didn't limit himself to giving just directions

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He was a bit of a talker and he started going on about how gorgeous the Tampa Bay sunset was

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And how the only way to really see it was from the water

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Coincidentally he happened to own a boat and would love to show them this breathtaking view

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Oba grew up in Ohio the same state the Rogers family lived

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And he definitely mentioned that during their conversation

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Common ground builds trust especially when you're talking to a nice family from back home

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The Rogers women didn't rush off to meet him at sunset

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They took photographs from their hotel balcony as the sun began to set

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Grab dinner at the hotel restaurant at about 730

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And by 9pm they drove to the dock on the Courtney Chapel Causeway

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Joan left a brochure in the car with Oba's handwritten directions

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That detail becomes absolutely vital later

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The victims died June 1st 1989

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What happened next can only be described as pure evil

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At some point during what was supposed to be a peaceful sunset cruise

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Oba tied all three of the women up

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All topsys later indicated that the cause of death was asphyxiation

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Either from drowning or the ropes around their necks

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The medical examiner determined that sexual assault had likely occurred

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Though the extended time in the water made definitive proof impossible

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Then the most horrific part

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Oba tied concrete blocks to the ropes

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Secured the other end around their necks and threw them overboard

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All three were still alive when they hit the water

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Joan's hands were tied behind her back

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Her ankles were tied together

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And Michelle had somehow managed to free one of her hands before she drowned

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Can you even process that?

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A 17 year old girl fighting for her life underwater

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Managing to get one hand free

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But still unable to save herself or her family

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On June 4th 1989

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The bodies of Joan, Michelle and Kristi Rogers were found floating in Tampa Bay

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The medical examiner determined they'd been in the water between 50 and 60 hours

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Boters discovered them pretty far apart from each other

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All naked from the waist down with duct tape over their mouths

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And ropes still around their necks

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The Rogers family wasn't identified until a week later

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When how Rogers had reported the missing back in Ohio

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On June 8th a housekeeper at the days in said the Rogers family room had not been disturbed

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And the beds had not been slept in

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Their car was found at the boat dock where they met Oba

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For three years investigators were stumped

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They even suspected how Rogers brother at one point

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Thinking he might have orchestrated the murders

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But he was serving time for another rape

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So that theory crumbled

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The 1991 Unsolved Mysteries episode suggested two suspects were involved

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But that theory was wrong too

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The case seemed impossible at the time to solve

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The biggest break came from a Madera Beach police bulletin

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That described a similar rape of a 24-year-old Canadian tourist

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That occurred two weeks before the Rogers murders

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This woman had survived because she had a friend waiting back at the dock

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Her attacker also promised a sunset cruise before raping her

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Police finally had a description of their suspects and details about his method

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They used this information along with the handwriting sample from the brochure

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Found in the Rogers car to create a massive billboard campaign across Florida

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Oba Chandler was arrested for the 1989 murders after one of the contractors' customers

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Recognized his handwriting posted on the Florida billboards

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A former customer provided a work order with similar handwriting that led police directly

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To Oba Chandler

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They also lifted a palm print from the brochure that matched him perfectly

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By this time Chandler had seen those billboards and panicked

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He sold his boat and moved his family to Port Orange near Daytona Beach

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Too little, too late

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On September 24th 1992, Oba Chandler was arrested and charged with the murders

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At trial, he maintained his innocence, claiming he'd only given the Rogers family directions

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And that was the last time he saw them

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When confronted with ship-to-shore phone records, proving he was on his boat that night

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He admitted to being outfishing

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The most damning testimony came from his own daughter

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Who revealed that Oba had talked about killing three women and was afraid to return to Tampa

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During the trial, Chandler would sit in court with a smirk on his face, staring at the jury

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On November 4th 1994, Oba Chandler was found guilty and sentenced to death

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The jury for woman had some choice words

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"They need to do this swiftly

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The man is a mutation of a human being and he needs to be destroyed

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After 22 years on Florida's death row, Oba Chandler was executed by lethal injection on November 15th 2011

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His last meal, two salami and mustard sandwiches

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Half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and coffee

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Remember when I said Oba had killed at least four people?

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On November 27th 1990, Chandler targeted newlywed

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Ivelese Barrios at the Sawgrass Mills Mall in Coral Springs

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where she was employed at a sports store

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In 2014, three years after his execution, investigators revealed that DNA evidence linked Oba Chandler to the rape and murder of Ivelese in Coral Springs

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After stalking her for two days, Chandler slashed her tires and pretended to come across the vandalism by chance

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Offering to help, he then abducted and strangled her

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The case remained unsolved for over 20 years until DNA technology finally connected the dots

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Oba Chandler was already dead by then but Ivelese's family finally had answers

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While on death row, criminal profiling experts theorized that Chandler had likely killed before the family Rogers murders

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His confidence about abducting three people at once suggested this wasn't his first rodeo

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The Barrios case proved them right

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Oba Chandler was exactly what the jury forewoman said he was, a mutation of a human being

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A predator who used charm and fake kindness to lure victims into his web

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The death of his father when he was 10 might explain how his darkness began

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but it doesn't excuse what he became

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Four families were destroyed by one man's evil

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Joan Rogers and her daughters deserve to come home from their Disney vacation

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Ivelese deserved to build a life where their new husband, instead they fell victim to a monster

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who saw other people as nothing more than objects for his twisted pleasure

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Sometimes the only justice is knowing that monster can never hurt anyone again

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories

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My name is Joe I'm the host and I really appreciate you checking out the podcast today

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If it's your first time listening and make sure you hit subscribe if it is your first time

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I'm just fire-hosting them right to you

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Subscribe, go to the website 10minutemurder.com

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Now if you're an OG listener, you do what you want to

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You've already been to the website no doubt

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Keep doing that by the way that helps a lot

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But also there's a third thing you can email me

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Let me know what's on your mind any questions about me or the podcast

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Or just simply request a topic for me to cover here on the podcast

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Let's get to one of those one of those emails right now

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Subject True Crime Books question mark

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Hey Joe thanks for putting together such a bingeable podcast

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Seriously helps the commute fly by

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Question for you

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Do you read many true crime books yourself and if so

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Do you have a favorite or one you'd recommend?

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Thanks again looking forward to hearing the next episode

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Jordan B from Colorado

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And Jordan absolutely I do

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I like to read but I

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I don't read so much now with my eyes as I do my ears

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I listen to a lot of books is what I'm saying

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The one that's my favorite and the one that I would recommend to anyone that is just

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Getting into reading true crime books are the same book

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And it's the one that I think kind of started it all

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Incold blood by Truman Capote

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That book is incredible and if you're into true crime

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You're definitely going to enjoy that book

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So Jordan thank you for the email

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And thank you for listening to 10 Minute Murder

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I'll see you next time