Gacy

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For many of us, watching horror
movies and listening to true crime podcasts is

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the closest we will ever knowingly come
to the killers living among us. But

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that wasn't the case for many young
men in America during the nineteen sixties and

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nineteen seventies, and the killer they
would meet was quite unlike any other.

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He was born in nineteen forty two
Chicago. John Stanley, our serial killer's

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father was a mechanic and oh World
War One veteran who often beat and verbally

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abused and tormented his son, a
son who had become known as the infamous

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John Wayne Gacy. John later recalled
that the beatings from his father started when

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he was only four years old.
His mother, Marian, would often try

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to shield John from her husband,
but that only made the beatings worse.

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John Stanley would often brate and belittle
his son, calling him a sissy and

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a mama's boy for needing Marian's protection. The beatings became so bad and so

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frequent that John was perpetually afraid of
getting into trouble, and that was why

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when a family friend began molesting John
when he was only seven, John kept

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it to himself instead of telling his
father, and John was always at risk

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of saying or doing the wrong thing. He wasn't like the other boys his

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age. He was softer, quieter, and enjoyed spending time with his mother

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and sisters. A congenital heart condition
meant that he couldn't go out and play

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with the other children in the neighborhood
or rough and tumble like the other boys

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liked to do. In his father's
eyes, he was already a failure,

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and that was something that John didn't
believe he would ever be able to fix.

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Things grew worse when John turned eleven
and started experiencing blackouts and seizures.

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Doctors discovered that he also had a
brain clot as well as the heart condition.

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They were able to treat the clot, but between treatments and other hospitalizations

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for a burst appendix, John had
missed too much of school and ended up

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dropping out. Now around eighteen years
old, he found work at a local

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political party office, something that his
father also took issue with. Tensions grew

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between the two over John's work and
ended up reaching the boiling point when a

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dispute over John's car led him to
packing up his bags and moving to Las

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Vegas. There he found work as
a mortuary assistant and slept in a cot

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behind the embalming room. And it
was in Las Vegas that John would experience

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something so shocking it sent him all
the way back to his abusive father.

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John had no questions about his sexuality
from a young age. He'd figured out

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that he was more attracted to men
than he was to women. But times

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being what they were, Openly being
a homosexual wasn't going to win John any

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favors. He kept his orientation to
himself and tried to suppress his desires,

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But when a teenage boy ended up
on the embalming table on the other side

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of John's bedroom wall, John found
the temptation too strong to ignore. In

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the middle of the night, when
everyone else at the morticians had gone home,

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John snuck into the boy's coffin and
laid down beside him. He spent

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the night intertwined with the teenager's remains, hugging and caressing him for as long

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as he could. The emotions that
John experienced that night had him packing his

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bags and heading home the following day, maybe trying to distance himself from the

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memories as much as possible. John
then enrolled into business and quickly struck up

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a new relationship. Her name was
Marilyn Myers, and she provided John Wayne

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Gacy with the fresh start that he
so desperately needed. Once they were married,

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Marylynd's father bought up three KFC restaurants
in Waterloo, Iowa, and made

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John the manager. The cover of
a loving wife, two young children,

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and running a successful business opened many
doors for John and helped him put the

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past behind him. Allegedly, and
according to John's own account, it was

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then that his parents came to visit
and John Stanley had a change of heart.

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John Wayne Gaysey recalled that his father
took him by the hand and said,

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quote, son, I was wrong
about you. If true, John

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Stanley had plenty of reasons for believing
that his son now had it all.

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He had the house, the family, and the business, and those around

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him believed that John was a well
mannered and respectable man. But there was

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something brewing under the surface. It
started with the people that John surrounded himself

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with. He was part of a
local club for businessmen, supposedly to help

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grow and support each other and their
business endeavors, but behind closed doors anything

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was possible. Their parties involved drugs, prostitutes, and even sometimes each other's

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wives, and they stirred up some
feelings in John that he'd been so desperately

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trying to forget. John built a
tiki bar in the basement of his family

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home. He and his wife Marilyn, hosted their own parties together, but

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John often invited the teenage boys he
employed at his restaurants home as well.

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He lured them in with the promise
of alcohol and entertainment, and on at

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least one occasion, things went too
far. You have to have sex with

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a man before you start having sex
with women, John told the fifteen year

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old son of a friend, Donald
Vorhees. Wasn't quite sure if he believed

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him, but by then Donald was
quite drunk and alone with John in the

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basement. Before Donald could fully understand
what was happening, John was forcing him

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to perform oral sex on him.
It took Donald a few months to work

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up the courage to tell his father
what John had made him do that night,

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but when he did, he pulled
back the curtain and revealed what was

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really going on inside John's home.
By then John had quite a few more

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victims, all of them young boys, and most of them his employees.

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Furious and disgusted by the predator living
among them, the Vorhetes took John to

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court. John first tried to deny
the allegations, and then he tried to

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scare Donald off. He paid another
teenager that worked at one of his restaurants

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three hundred dollars to beat up Donald
Vorhees and convince him not to testify.

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Far from being deterred, Donald showed
up in court with even more evidence against

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John, and John was sentenced to
ten years in prison for his crimes.

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Instead of keeping his head low and
flying under the radar, John used his

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time behind bars to become a model
inmate. He organized to pay raise for

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the other inmates working in the prison, and even managed the installment of a

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mini golf course in the wreck yard. But then he was shaken by some

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shocking news. On Christmas Day nineteen
sixty nine, John Stanley Gacy died,

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and when he heard the news,
John Wayne Gacy supposedly hit the floor of

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his prison cell and started uncontrollably sobbing. He was denied compassionately to attend his

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father's funeral, but it didn't matter
much. John served only about eighteen months

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of his tenure prison sentence before he
was released on parole. Part of the

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conditions of his release was that he
would be living with his mother. He

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couldn't return home because Marylyn had already
divorced him and taken full custody of their

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children. John would never see any
of them again. Within months of being

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released, John was accused of molesting
and attempting to rape another teenage boy.

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The charges were dropped when the boy
failed to show up in court, and

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John was then free to move into
the yellow brick ranch in Chicago that he

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and his mother had just bought together. It was in this house that John

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would cement his legacy. He laid
the foundations for what was to come by

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forming his own construction business and bringing
a piece of his imagination into reality.

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During his short incarceration, John used
to draw a character he called Pogo the

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Clown, and now that he was
free to walk the streets again, John

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brought Pogo with him. He would
often dress up and attend children's birthday parties

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and hospitals as Pogo the Clown,
and for many in the neighborhood, John

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and Pogo were one and the same. Pogo provided John with a good sense

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of cover, but he sealed the
deal by marrying again. He and his

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second wife, Carol Hoff, had
once dated in high school, and now

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she and her two daughters from a
previous marriage made John look like the perfectly

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harmless family man that he wanted people
to think. He was used this image

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to lure young men into his garage. He promised them alcohol and porn and

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maybe even a summer job at his
construction company, and then he abused them.

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Carol became suspicious of the number of
young boys coming in and out of

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their home, and when John confessed
to her that he was actually bisexual,

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it didn't come as much of a
surprise. But what happened shortly after that,

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however, did. On Mother's Day
nineteen seventy five, John climbed off

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of Carol and told her that that
was the last time they were ever going

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to have sex. This startling proclamation
and the constant stream of young men was

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enough for Carol to realize that something
was deeply wrong with their marriage. Carol

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divorced John and got out just in
time before things would take a turn that

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they would never come back from.
The first and second had allegedly already occurred.

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John had supposedly mistakenly believed that one
of the fifteen year old boys he

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had lured back to his yellow brick
homeb had wanted to kill him. John

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acted quickly and without thinking. He
killed the boy and stashed his body in

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the cross space of his home before
anyone discovered what he had done. He

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allegedly did the same with one more
victim before Carol divorced him and moved out.

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Carol leaving gave John a freedom he
had never experienced before, and young

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men began disappearing from the neighborhood at
an alarming rate. Most of these young

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men ended up murdered and hidden underneath
John's home. He liked to torture and

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torment his victims. He sometimes pretended
that he was about to perform a magic

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trick and handcuff their hands behind their
backs. John wouldin dangled the keys in

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front of their faces and enjoy watching
them struggle as they realized they were actually

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in grave danger. He also used
to enjoy sitting on their chests and forcing

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them to perform oral sex on him. John was still a big man because

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his heart condition kept him from being
very active, so these boys often could

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and breathe and suffocated underneath him.
John would strangle and then revive them,

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sometimes even drown them in his bathtub
before bringing them back and doing it all

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over again. And when they were
gone, John would sometimes join the search

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parties going on in the neighborhood and
pretend to look for them. But it

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was his thirty third and final official
victim that John would be unable to escape

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from himself. Robert Piste had only
walked into the pharmacy to talk to a

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man about a summer construction job when
he disappeared. His mother, Elizabeth,

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was still sitting outside in the car, and had the police looking for her

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son within hours. John Wayne Gacy's
construction company had recently renovated the pist family

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pharmacy, and the investigators quickly put
the puzzle pieces together. They called John

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in for questioning, and though they
didn't find any traces of Robert and John's

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home, they did find the receipt
from the pharmacy for one of Robert's friends.

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There. One thing led to another, and John's stash of victims were

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pulled out from under his house.
Robert's remains were found at a nearby river

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and cemented John Wayne Gacy's legacy as
the killer Clown. He was sentenced to

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death for his crimes and his last
meal was supposedly a bucket of Kentucky fried

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chicken. So that's ten minute Murder
for today, brief and bingeable true crime.

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My name is Joe, I'm the
host, and thank you for taking

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the time to listen to ten minute
Murder and this story today. I don't

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know how we got it in the
amount of time we got it done,

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and he's like eleven minutes or something
like that. That's crazy. I did

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an episode on John Wayne Gacy probably
two years ago. I don't remember exactly,

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but if you scroll back, there's
going to be another episode of John

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Wayne Gacy and it's beefy. There's
a lot to it. It's much much

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longer than the one today is.
So if you like longer episodisodes, that's

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cool because there are several of them
scattered in the in the you know,

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if you go back and search ten
Minute Murders episode list, you'll find several

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of them there, including stories about
Charles Manson, the Green River Killer,

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also Ted Bundy. There are several
that I took time I used to do

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longer episodes every now and then.
I don't do that so much anymore,

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but there was a time when I
did longer episodes. So if you like

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those, there are some back there
you can go check out. Anyway,

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Thank you for listening to this one. That's it. That's your episode for

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today. Thank you so much for
listening to ten minute Murder