Scott and Laci Peterson

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Dispersion business arts. Scott Peterson entered
the world in nineteen seventy two to an

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industrious and prosperous family. Both of
his parents owned and ran their own businesses

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and provided a stable, affluent life
for their son. Lee and Jackie Peterson

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had six children between them from previous
relationships, but Scott was the only child

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that they'd had together, and he
was the apple of their eye, and

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Scott seemed to be doing all he
could do to live up to his family's

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lofty reputation right from the start.
He grew up on the golf course with

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his father, and by the age
of fourteen, Scott was actually better than

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Lee. This natural talent and passion
paved the way for a bright future for

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Scott, and before long he was
one of the top teenage golfers in the

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whole of San Diego. That dedication
was starting to pay off. He got

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into Arizona State University with a partial
golf scholarship, alongside other future pro golfers

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like Phil Mickelson. But for Scott, it turned out that pro golfing wasn't

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all it was cracked up to be. Chris Couch, another young golfer with

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a potentially bright future was in Arizona
for a recruiting trip when he and Scott

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did what young people at college typically
do and went out for a drink.

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Somehow the cat got out of the
bag, and Chris's father, Chipcouch,

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took things to a higher authority.
He went to the golf coach at Arizona

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State University and complained and pinned the
whole wayward night on Scott Peterson. Scott

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then lost his place on the team, which then led to him losing his

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position in the golf program and his
scholarship. But perhaps more faithfully for Scott's

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story in life, it turned him
away from professional golfing. Scott dropped out

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of Arizona State and enrolled in California
Polytechnic State University instead, where he studied

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agricultural business and his path took a
turn again. The daughter of local dairy

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farmers, Lacey Larocha was no stranger
to hard work. She grew up helping

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her parents and her brother run the
farm, and she had a green thumb.

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She was studying ornamental agriculture at cal
Poly, the same university as Scott

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Peterson, when they met through a
mutual friend. A short while after that,

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Lacey gave Scott her number. A
little while longer, and Lacey was

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calling up her mother to tell her
that she'd met the man she was going

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to marry. Scott seemed to agree. Scott seemed to agree, and he

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put all lingering thoughts of a professional
career playing golf behind him so he could

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focus on getting a business degree and
providing for his future family. Scott and

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Lacey married in nineteen ninety seven,
and by nineteen ninety eight they'd already bought

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and were running their own business together, a local sports bar in San Luis

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Obispo called The Shack. The Shack
did well, and life moved on,

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and before anyone knew it, Scott
and Lacey had sold their restaurants and were

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moving to Lacey's hometown of Modesto,
California, to find their roots and grow

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their family. Lacey pulled away from
a career, choosing instead to work part

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time and to focus on becoming a
housewife and preparation for any children she and

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Scott were be having. It took
a few years, but finally, in

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two thousand and two, the couple
received the news that their first child together

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was on the way. Little Connor
Peterson was due in February two thousand and

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three, and it looked like he
would come into a charmed and picture perfect

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life phil with stability and love.
But wheels had been set into motion that

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would unfortunately derail the whole thing.
On December twenty third, two thousand and

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two, Scott and the very pregnant
Lacey stopped by her sister's salon to get

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Scott's haircut. Christmas was around the
corner. The young couple were full of

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excitement and the holiday spirit, and
they had the perfect Christmas Eve planned out

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in front of them. Scott was
going to go play golf and Lacey was

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staying home to rest up, clean
up, and watch one of her favorite

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programs, Martha Stewart. But by
the following morning, plans had already changed.

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As Lacey sat down to watch her
episode of Martha Stewart, Scott gathered

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up his things and told her that
he was on his way to Berkeley Marina

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to go fishing. The couple said
their goodbyes and that was that. Later

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that day, a neighbor found the
Peterson's dog, Mackenzie, out and on

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the street with a muddy leash still
attached. To his collar. The neighbor

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let the dog back into the Peterson's
yard and didn't think any more about it.

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At around two fifteen, Scott called
Lacey's phone and left a message saying

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that he was just leaving the marina
and would be home soon. He arrived

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shortly after to find his dog still
out in the backyard, Lacey's car in

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the driveway, and his home empty. Scott then hopped in the shower,

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changed his clothes, and when he
found out that his wife still wasn't home

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from whatever it was she must have
been doing, he went out looking for

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her. He knocked on her neighbor's
door and told him that he'd been out

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playing golf all day and hadn't seen
Lacey since he came home. He also

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said that she wasn't answering his calls
and he was starting to get worried.

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After that, Scott called Lacey's family
and asked if they'd seen her. At

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around six pm, pretty much as
soon as Lacey's mother, Sharon got the

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call from Scott, Sharon reported her
daughter as missing. The police immediately took

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a report of a heavily pregnant missing
woman very seriously, and they rushed to

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the Peterson home, where many of
Lacey's family and friends were already gathering ready

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to help with the search. Many
of those same family and friends recounted that

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Scott told them that he'd been out
playing golf that day, despite the message

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that the investigators later recovered saying that
he was leaving the marina at around two

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o'clock that afternoon, and despite what
Scott would say to the investigators himself.

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To everyone else, Scott allegedly said
that he'd gone to play golf that day,

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but to the police, he told
them that he'd gone fishing in Berkeley

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Marina, just like he did in
his message to Lacey. Lacey's family all

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jumped at the opportunity to defend Scott
from many probing questions from the police,

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and rushed to describe Scott and Lacey's
relationship as perfect. A little over a

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month after Lacey first disappeared, and
all of that changed. Seeing the news

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that Lacey was missing on the TV, a woman called in to the police

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and delivered some case breaking news herself. The woman was Amber Fry, and

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she'd been in a relationship with Scott
since November of two thousand and two.

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Amber said Scott first told her that
he was single, and on a following

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date had mentioned that his wife died
and this upcoming Christmas was the first Christmas

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he would be spending without her.
Amber believed him and didn't realize that she

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was actually the mistress until she had
seen Lacey on the TV. It turned

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out that Amber was the latest of
three affairs that Scott had on Lacey over

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the years. One of them even
dated back to around nineteen ninety eight,

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when Scott and Lacey had just opened
the shack together in Saint Louis Obispo and

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hadn't even been married a year yet. When they found all this out,

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the investigators found themselves asking what else
Scott had been hiding from them and everyone

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else around him. But it's what
he'd said to Amber to put the authorities

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on high alert. He told Amber
that Lacey was already dead, and he

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told her that about a month before
Lacey had even gone missing. Had Scott

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just been telling a lie to gain
sympathy from a woman he wanted to have

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an affair with, or had he
already been planning to get rid of Lacey

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When investigators broke the news that Scott
had been having affairs with Lacey's family,

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All of them changed their tunes and
said that he must have killed her,

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but murder is a difficult thing to
prove when there isn't a body to back

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the claim up. In April the
two thousand and three, around two months

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after his due date, a couple
found the body of a baby on the

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shore of San Francisco Bay. The
very next day, about a mile away,

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the remains of a woman washed up
from the water, her head,

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arms, and most of her legs
missing. It was only through DNA testing

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that the pair of them were identified
as Lacey and Connor. No cause of

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death could be determined for either of
them, but Lacey was in a far

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worse condition than her son was in. It looked like Connor had survived longer

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than Lacey had and had been protected
by her body for an indeterminate amount of

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time. Investigators couldn't even say if
he'd been alive when he hit the water,

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as his body shows signs of changes
that only tend to happen after a

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baby is actually born. The discovery
of the bodies led to the almost immediate

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arrest of Scott, who had changed
his hair color, had both his and

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his brother's driver's license on him and
around fifteen thousand dollars in cash in his

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car. He also had camping supplies
and food, but claimed he had been

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living in the car because of all
the media attention and had not been planning

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on running away. What started after
that was a grisly trial. The prosecution

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argued that his long history of affairs, Lacey's tempting life insurance policy, the

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fear of becoming a father and finding
the new love of his life, Amber

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Fry, had pushed Scott into murdering
his wife and his unborn child. The

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defense argued that someone who'd built up
as good of a life for himself Scott

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had wouldn't be throwing it away for
a masseuse and a mistress like Amber Fry.

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The prosecution and the defense went back
and forth, with the prosecution relying

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heavily on circumstantial evidence and witness testimonies, like the witness who claimed to have

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heard Scott saying that he was out
playing golf, not fishing that day.

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Jury members came and went, but
finally they came back with a verdict.

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Scott Peterson was guilty of the murder
of his wife and child, and he

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was sentenced to death. The two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars life insurance policy

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went to Lacey's mother, and Scott
was sent to death row, where he

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continued to claim his innocence and fight
the case. In twenty twenty one,

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the court commuted his death sentence to
life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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In twenty twenty three, his lawyers
filed a suit claiming that new evidence

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has emerged that would prove Scott's innocence. In January of twenty twenty four,

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the Los Angeles Innocence Project, a
non profit organization that provides defense teams for

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the allegedly wrongfully convicted, announced that
they would be taking over Scott's defense.

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And that's where the case of Scott
Peterson rests today. That's ten minute murder

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for today Brief and binge able True
Crime. I'm Joe the host, and

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thank you so much for taking the
time to listen. And by the way,

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speaking of this Scott Peterson episode,
I've mentioned before that this is a

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story that I've kind of avoided a
little bit because of the uncertainty of his

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guilt. Personally, I have my
own beliefs it's slanted toward guilty, but

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obviously I have no way of knowing
that for sure, but it certainly looks

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like with his actions that he is
guilty. Again, I don't know.

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But with the thing that bothers me
the most about this case, other than

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the actual crime of it all,
aside from that, is the treatment.

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At the time of Amber Fry,
I was alive and consuming true crime stories

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at that time in my life and
pretty young person, but still able to

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recognize that they were doing her dirty. Like the media, she was the

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other woman, the mistress. She
always had unflattering photos of herself posted all

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over tabloids and news all the time, and she was just the lady that

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was in a relationship with a single
guy. She thought and did nothing but

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helped the case. They got him
convicted, She turned him in. What

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she did behind the scenes helped to
convict Scott of murder, and she did

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nothing but positive for the case.
And she still gets just absolutely trashed on

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the media. And I don't understand
it. I mean, I get that

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she was hooking up with a married
guy, but she didn't know that.

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It was pretty clear that she didn't
know that. So that's the part of

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the story that gets to me the
most outside of the actual crime of it

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all. Hey, if you're new
to ten Minute Murder, I really appreciate

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you taking the time to listen today, Like I said, and make sure

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you hit subscribe wherever you are listening. If you happen to be checking it

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out on YouTube, that's cool.
Just know that there are many, many

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more episodes available on all of the
podcast listening apps, and coming up on

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the next episode of Ten Minute Murder, we're going to be talking about a

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young black boy that was executed in
nineteen forty four for the murders of two

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white girls in a small southern town. Eighty years later, his guilt is

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still a topic of debate. Not
only is this case still debated, but

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it's as fresh in the minds of
the family members as it was then.

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The emotions are raw and the outcome
is devastating. And we're going to be

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talking about George Stinney Junior. That's
coming up on the next episode of the

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podcast, and that's going to do
it. Thank you for listening to another

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ten ye Murdered podcast episode. I'll
see you in the next one. Bye.