Love Turned Lethal

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In nineteen forty eight. Richard Wade
Farley, like many children in military families,

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was born into a family of constant
change. He was the oldest of

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six children and found himself trudging from
home to home as he and his siblings

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followed their parents from city to city
and state to state. Eventually, after

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years of nearly constant traveling, the
Farleys settled in California, where Richard finished

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his high school and went to get
his college education. At school, Richard

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found it difficult to get along with
others and didn't have very many close friends.

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He was often bullied and ostracized,
and that seemed to go for his

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home life as well. Despite being
one of six siblings, the children later

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claimed that no one in the family
was particularly close, and one of his

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brothers had even gone ten years without
speaking to Richard at all. Despite that,

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Richard did like so many children born
into military families do, and signed

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up for the service himself. Richard
joined the Navy and served for a total

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of ten years before moving back to
California, maybe the first place that Richard

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could think of as his home.
It was there in California that Richard began

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his new career as a software technician
at Electromatics Systems Labs, Inc. A

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company that develops reconnaissance software and technology, but it was far from the place

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where Richard began to flourish. It
was during his ten years at ESL that

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Richard Farley met Laura Black, a
young and talented twenty two year old electrical

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engineer. In his own words,
the then thirty five year old Richard fell

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in love with Laura at first sight, and he was determined to do everything

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he could to win her over.
He began by leaving Laura handwritten letters and

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homemade gifts on her desk. He
kept telling Laura how he felt about her,

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and asked her out on several occasions, but every time he did,

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Laura politely refused. The feelings that
Richard was feeling weren't mutual, and Laura

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later said that when dealing with Richard
and his constant advances, she tried really

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to ignore him, but to be
cordial, but it looked like Richard was

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not getting the message. The more
she tries to push me away, the

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more I tried not to have her
push me away. Richard later said when

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his letters and home baked goods didn't
seem to be doing the trick, Richard

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dialed things up a notch. He
tried calling her work phone to talk to

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her every few hours. He talked
to the janitors and tried to get a

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copy of her desk keys, and
then he found ways to invade Laura's personal

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life too. Richard talked to the
HR department and talked them into handing over

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Laura's personal phone number and her address. After that, it was like the

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floodgates truly opened. Richard began sending
letters to Laura at her home address multiple

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times a week. He constantly called
her, He loitered outside of her house.

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He showed up at her aerobics class. He photoshopped pictures of the two

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of them together and then sent those
to her as well. In the four

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years that they knew each other,
Richard sent Laura over two hundred letters to

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her home addresses and yes, I
said addresses, because Laura ended up moving

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several times in an attempt to get
away from Richard, and every time he

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managed to track her down again.
Finally, in nineteen eighty five, after

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enduring years of this, Laura asked
the HR department at ESL for help with

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dealing with Richard. Realizing that Richard
had gone way overboard, HR ordered him

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to attend psychological counseling, counseling that
did not seem to work in the slightest.

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Instead of calming down and trying to
go unnoticed. Now that he was

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on management's radar, Richard doubled down
on his harassment of Laura and even spread

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his campaign further. When his colleagues
began trying to defend and protect Laura from

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Richard, Richard started threatening them as
well. A male colleague and friend confronted

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Richard and warned him that he would
end up in jail if he didn't stop

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what he was doing to Laura.
Richard responded by typing a letter to Laura

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and mailing it to her home address. Quote, it's not in your best

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interest for him to interfere. He
doesn't have any idea what he's getting into.

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You'd better tell him. I'd better
not see any police around me.

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Needless to say, management at ESL
figured out that there was no changing Richard's

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behavior. His constant harassment of Laura
had also begun to affect his own work

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and the hours that he was spending
in the office, So after employing him

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for over nine years, esl fired
Richard. Richard returned the favor by finding

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work at rival companies like Covalent Systems
Corporation. But the truth was that his

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fixation with Laura was far from over. You cost me a job, forty

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thousand dollars in equity, taxes I
can't pay, and foreclosure. Yet I

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still like you, He later wrote
to Laura, why do you want to

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find out how far I'll go?
I absolutely will not be pushed around,

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and I'm beginning to get tired of
being nice. Things escalated even further in

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nineteen eighty eight, when Laura,
now at her wits end after years of

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being stole, filed for a temporary
restraining order against Richard. Her case went

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to court on February seventeenth, just
over two weeks later, to see if

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her restraining order would be made permanent. Richard was fuming at this. In

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his mind, he and Laura had
been in a real relationship all these years,

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and now she was trying to turn
the tables on him. He sent

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a package to her lawyer with documents
and evidence that he believed proved that he

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and Laura were in fact dating.
It included hotel receipts, a written tale

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of the drugs the two of them
had allegedly shared, and pictures of Richard

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and Laura together. Laura's lawyer later
said that they believed everything in that package

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had been fabricated. With the court
date looming, Richard realized that he was

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on the verge of losing Laura for
good, not that he ever really had

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her. To combat that, he
began buying and adding to his collection of

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guns and ammunition. The day before
going to court, Richard drove his motor

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home to a familiar spot. He
parked right outside Esl, California, and

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waited for Laura to come out after
her day at work. In his mind,

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he was either going to convince Laura
to drop the restraining order then in

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there, or he was going to
kill himself. Around three o'clock that afternoon,

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Richard loaded eight different guns with ammunition, packed an extra one thousand rounds,

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a smoke bomb, a foot long
buck knife, and strapped on his

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bulletproof vest to confront the woman he'd
been obsessing over for years. But as

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soon as Richard stepped out of his
motor home, he began firing and shooting

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at anyone in front of him,
He headed to the side entrance, shot

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out the glass so he could walk
in, and started stalking the corridors towards

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Laura's office. He shot and killed
seven of his former co workers and wounded

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another three before he finally arrived at
his intended target. Laura spotted Richard coming

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and slammed the door in his face
in a desperate attempt to get away from

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him, but Richard managed to get
the door open and positioned his gun so

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that he could fire at Laura.
He hit her in the shoulder, completely

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shattering the joint and collapsing her lung
in the process. Laura hit the ground,

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covered in blood and unconscious from her
injuries, and that's maybe what saved

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her life. Thinking that his mission
was complete, Richard then sat tight and

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kept the arriving SWAT team busy for
a further five hours. During that time,

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Laura regained consciousness and managed to escape
with employees who were also hiding from

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Richard. During talks with the police
negotiator, Richard reportedly cried, showed remorse

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for the lives he'd taken and the
damage he'd done that day, and he

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threatened to kill himself. Richard also
confessed that during the years he'd been stalking

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Laura, he'd lost two homes,
his car, and computer, and had

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fallen over twenty thousand dollars behind in
his taxes. He was eventually convinced to

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come out and surrender to the police
once his condition of a turkey sandwich and

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a diet coke were met. The
court dates he'd been dreading so much when

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ahead the following day, where the
judge, maybe to no one's surprise,

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made Law's restraining order permanent. With
tears in her eyes, the judge commented,

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pieces of paper do not stop bullets, a statement that especially hit hard

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at a time when no one was
certain whether Laura would actually recover from her

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injuries or not. At trial for
the seven murders he'd committed that day,

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Richard and his lawyers attempted to argue
that Richard wasn't normally a violent person,

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but he'd been blinded by his obsession
with Laura. The prosecution fired back and

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claimed that Richard's behavior that day and
the weeks leading up to it, where

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he'd bought and stockpiled several new guns
and rounds of ammunition, proved that the

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attack had been premeditated. The courts
agreed and found Richard guilty of seven counts

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of first degree murder. He was
sentenced to death, but due to California's

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lengthy appeals process, he is still
currently behind bars waiting his execution to this

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day. Laura fortunately survived the attack
and the injuries she sustained that day.

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She continued to work at E.
S L for several more years after that,

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but almost unbelievably, she would hear
from Richard one last time. He

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wrote one final letter to Laura from
his prison cell. In it, he

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stated that Laura had finally won.
But it's safe to say that none of

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this was a game for Laura or
for the rest of her co workers,

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who were deeply affected and harmed by
Richard's actions throughout the years of constant harassment

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and stalking. In the wake of
this stalking that led to a mass shooting,

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along with the high profile murder of
actress Rebecca Schaeffer, which I also

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covered in an episode in a book
called Robert the Celebrity Stalker, California passed

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the first anti stalking laws in the
nation. That's ten minute murder for today.

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Brief and binge able true crime I'm
Joe. I'm the host, and

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thank you so much for taking the
time to listen to ten Minute Murder.

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If you're a new listener, hit
subscribe before you go. Also follow on

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social media links from the show notes, or you can go to ten minute

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Murder dot com to find the links. If you want to send me an

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email, you can do that Joe
at ten minute Murder dot com and here

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is one from Byron in South Dakota. Good morning, Joe. We had

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a good chuckle this morning. My
coworker had unloaded some random things from a

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pickup last night and then left them
laying on the floor in my workspace.

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My first glance is just a pile
of random stuff, But as I walked

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over to him to ask him to
move the items, a totally different idea

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came to mind. So when I
approached Ryan, I asked, so,

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whom are we burying today? As
you might guess, he was a little

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confused, and I said, you
know you're a burial kid over there,

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looks like you've been hiding bodies or
getting ready to You've got to shovel some

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chairs and cooler for taking breaks,
a tent to keep the sun off of

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you, and a big bag for
the body. He just looked at me

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and chuckled. He knew exactly why
the idea had come to mind, and

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we both blurted out ten minute murder
and so well, it's official, Joe,

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you finally corrupted us both or maybe
I did it to him when I

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turned him onto the podcast one year
ago. Myself, I've been loyal fans

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since you started. Thanks for the
stories, hard work and dedication to your

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followers. Have a good day,
sir. That's from Byron in South Dakota.

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And let me tell you he attached
photos and me being me. As

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soon as I opened an email and
see photos, that's the first thing I

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look at. I thought I was
going to have to get the police involved

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right away because that does, in
fact look like some burial kit. So

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then I read the email and realized, oh yeah, okay, this isn't

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what that is. But it was
a close call. I thought I was

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going to call the cops on Byron. But all good, and Byron,

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thank you so much for listening to
the podcast and turning coworker slash friend Ryan

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onto listening to it. And that's
going to do it. That's your episode

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