Kelly Tinyes and the Basement Horror the Courts Almost Missed

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One minute Kelly Tignus was sitting at home watching TV with her little brother.

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The next she was walking out the door because some guy named John called and asked for her.

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Normal stuff, maybe, for 1989.

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Except this time Kelly didn't come back.

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What happened inside that house wasn't just a tragedy.

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It exposed how bad people can hide in plain sight.

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How DNA was still trying to prove itself in courtrooms.

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Now sometimes the official story leaves way too much out.

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

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right 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]

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On the night of March 3rd, 1989, just one day before her 14th birthday, Kelly Tignus

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was holding down the fort at her family's home in Long Island, New York.

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She was the responsible one home that evening.

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Her parents were out and it was up to her to keep an eye on her eight-year-old brother,

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Richard.

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It had been a regular night.

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They ate dinner.

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The TV was on and Richard was happily zoning out, plopped down in front of that TV.

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Nothing weird, nothing dramatic.

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Then the phone rang.

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Richard beat Kelly to the phone and picked it up.

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A man's voice came through, short and to the point.

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It's John, get Kelly.

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This was the late 80s.

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If you wanted to reach someone you called the house phone and rolled the dice on who might

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pick up, you never knew.

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Richard didn't overthink it.

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He didn't know who John was and honestly he didn't care.

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Somebody wanted to talk to Kelly.

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That's all he needed to know.

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He handed the phone over and went right back to his show.

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Kelly's call didn't last very long.

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When she hung up, she told Richard she was heading over to a friend in the Cole's house

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for a bit.

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She was normal.

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Kids in the neighborhood wandered around back then like unpaid interns on their own free

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time.

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With the unspoken rule to be home by the time the street lights buzzed back on.

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But Kelly wasn't just any kid that night.

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She was supposed to be babysitting.

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While it didn't seem like a big deal in the moment, it was the kind of decision that

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looking back feels a lot heavier.

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Kelly hadn't forgotten her responsibility.

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That's why she made sure to tell Richard where she was going.

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That she'd only begun for a little while.

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But a little while stretched longer and longer.

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And when Kelly still wasn't back, Richard started feeling uneasy.

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He knew Nicole's house.

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He knew the way.

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So he did what any worried little brother would do.

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He walked over to go get her.

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Only when Nicole opened the door, she looked confused.

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Kelly had not been there.

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Not all night.

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Richard was just eight years old.

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Old enough to understand that something wasn't right.

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But still young enough that Panic hadn't fully set in.

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Not yet.

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Because almost immediately, a neighborhood friend pointed him in a new direction toward

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a different house.

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They said they'd seen Kelly go inside not long ago.

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This time, Richard's stomach dropped.

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Everyone in the neighborhood knew that house.

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It belonged to the Golems.

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And the Golems had a reputation.

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Not a good one.

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Technically, they had money.

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John Golems seen your own degastation.

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But you wouldn't know it by looking at their place.

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Their house was a wreck.

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Trash piled up outside, a smell that seemed to hang in the air, and the whole family cycling

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through the same dirty clothes like they were in some kind of laundry boycott.

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And unfortunately, the garbage wasn't even the worst part.

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John J. Golems, the Golems' second son, was already infamous in the neighborhood.

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The kind of teenager you crossed the street to avoid.

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He was older, meaner, and had made a full-time hobby out of tormenting younger kids like

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Richard.

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Normally, Richard would have bolted if he saw John coming.

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But that night was different.

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He was alone, and his sister was missing.

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So he did what probably felt like the bravest thing an eight-year-old boy could do.

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He walked up to the Golems front door and knocked.

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No answer.

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He knocked again and again.

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Still nothing.

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It was like the whole house that swallowed itself whole.

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Starting out of options, Richard went back home and waited for his parents.

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When they finally got back, he told them everything.

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The Kelly had gone to the Golems place, and that no one had seen her since.

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They tried knocking too.

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Still no answer.

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At that point, they called the police.

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The first time officers showed up, they asked the Golems family, John Sr., his wife Elizabeth,

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and their two sons, Robert and John, whether they'd seen Kelly.

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Every single one of them said, "No."

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The neighbors had seen Kelly walk into that house.

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No one had seen her come back out.

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When the police returned for a second visit and asked to search the home, they found what

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they were dreading.

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In the basement, tucked among the piles of trash inside a sleeping bag hidden in a small

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storage space, they found Kelly.

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She had been brutalized.

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Her throat was slit.

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Her torso was slashed.

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A knife had been used to mutilate her body in ways that don't make sense to anyone.

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Who still has a soul?

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There was no question Kelly had been murdered, and there was no doubt it had happened inside

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the Golems home.

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The only real question was, who did it?

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At first, suspicion leaned hard toward John.

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After all, someone named John had called asking for Kelly.

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And even though John terrorized the other neighborhood kids, some people said he had a soft spot

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for Kelly.

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She might have been the one person he didn't treat like a target.

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John was the link between Kelly and that house.

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But then investigators found something they couldn't ignore.

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A bloody handprint next to Kelly's body.

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And it wasn't John's.

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The DNA came back a full match for Robert Golub.

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John's 21-year-old brother.

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The bloody handprint sealed it.

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It wasn't John who had left it.

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It was his older brother, Robert.

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Robert was arrested and charged with Kelly's murder.

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A trial, his defense team tried a few different moves.

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First, they argued that the police search of the Golub house had been illegal.

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When that didn't fly, they switched gears and went after the evidence itself.

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DNA science was still the new kid on the block back then.

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If Robert got convicted, it would be the first time DNA evidence had ever secured a murder

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conviction in New York State.

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An expert explained to the court that there was a one in 707 million chance that someone

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other than Robert had left the bloody handprint.

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The jury didn't need much convincing after that.

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DNA won its first big case.

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Robert Golub was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.

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He tried to appeal, but he was shot down.

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After serving his minimum, he applied for parole in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021.

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Each time, he was denied.

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During his trial, and for the first 25 years behind bars, Robert denied killing Kelly.

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But at his 2013 parole hearing, he finally changed his story, or at least part of it.

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He told the board that Kelly's death had been an accident.

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According to him, they were standing at the top of the basement stairs when he accidentally

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knocked her down.

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Would followed, beating her, stabbing her, he really couldn't explain.

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Which honestly doesn't scream accident.

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Even with Robert convicted, some things about Kelly's death still didn't add up, starting

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with why she went to the Golub's house in the first place.

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John, the one who called their house, claimed he hadn't seen Kelly that day.

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Robert said the same.

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According to John, he'd spent the evening in his room with two friends, getting high

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and doing a whole lot of nothing.

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To this day, Kelly's family has never been sure if that's the truth, or if John had called

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Kelly over for something else entirely.

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Quote, "We won't stop until we get answers."

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Kelly's father told reporters at the time, and John's two friends backed up his story.

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They said that they were with him, hanging out on the grimy mattress in his bedroom, passing

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around a joint.

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But even they admitted John left the room at least three times that night.

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To make a phone call, to lure Kelly over, or to do something much worse.

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No one could say for sure.

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What we do know is that DNA only connected Roberts to Kelly's body.

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And within two days of Kelly's murder, John packed up and left town.

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While his parents stayed in that same wreck of a house, John disappeared.

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Over the years, he picked up a handful of minor charges, things like harassment and accusations

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of sexual misconduct.

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But nothing tied him back to Kelly.

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Kelly's family still believes John had a hand in what happened.

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They've spent over 30 years pushing for the investigation into him to be reopened.

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But the law is slow to move when it thinks they already have its guy.

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Roberts is still behind bars.

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As far as the state is concerned, case closed.

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Unless a new witness steps forward, some hidden piece of evidence, surfaces, or John himself

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confesses, the full truth about what happened to Kelly Tignus may never come out.

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Unfortunately, none of those things have been easy to come by.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder.

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Brief and bingeable true crime.

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My name is Joe, I'm the host, and I really appreciate you taking the time to listen.

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Wherever you're listening right now, make sure you hit the subscribe button.

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over to 10minutemurder.com and catch up on past episodes.

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Grab some merch, or just poke around.

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And I do have to say, there's been a slight uptick in people that are displeased, I'll say,

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with certain elements of the show.

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And thank God it's not me personally.

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I don't know what I would do if people say, "The show's great, you suck, but the show's

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great."

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I don't know what I would do if that happened.

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I just ignore you.

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But, there are people that say, "I used to play a lot more music in the show."

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Can you bring that back?

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Play more music.

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And then there are people that say, "Don't play any music whatsoever.

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I hate the music that you play.

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Why are you playing music?"

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And I'm saying this now to you because everyone's tastes are different.

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No matter what I do with the podcast and the production of it, someone is not going to

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be happy about it.

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So, and I know that.

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So what I do instead is I do what I want to do.

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And that makes me happy.

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So I do, let me be clear, I do what I think the majority of you would want to hear.

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And that's what I try to do.

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Now, there I understand there are going to be some back and forth.

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People with the extremes, no music, all the music.

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And I get that.

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I'm not going to make everyone happy.

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I'm just trying to make the most of the people happy.

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So if you're one of those, find yourself in the category where you're kind of pissed off

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that I don't play the music the way you want it to.

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I'm sorry.

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But I can't change it.

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And but I'm not.

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Hope that helps.

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Alright, end of my rambling.

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Hope you have a great day, a great night, awesome morning or afternoon, whatever it is that

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you're doing.

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Hope it's great for you.

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Thank you again for listening.

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See you next time.

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