Susan Monica: The Pig Farmer Killer of Oregon

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You've got a woman living alone on 20 acres of Oregon wilderness.

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She builds her own house, runs a construction company, raises pigs, and somewhere along

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the way a handyman disappears.

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And a human leg shows up in her pond.

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Today we're talking about Susan Monica, a farmer with a secret, a few too many pigs,

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and a story that's, well let's just say not what the neighbor is expected.

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

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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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Susan Monica wasn't exactly what you'd call average.

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Born Steven Buchanan in California in 1948, she served in the US Navy during the Vietnam

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War as an engineer before deciding to trade military life for pigs.

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Lots and lots of pigs.

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In the 1990s, she bought 20 acres of raw, undeveloped land in Wimer, Oregon, and set out to build

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a farm from scratch.

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And farm might be generous.

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At first it was just a thick patch of wild Oregon woods that had zero business being

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called anything but a forest.

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But Susan was an afraid of a little hard work.

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She built herself a house, then a barn.

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Bought a herd of pigs.

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I don't know if herd is the right word to use for a bunch of pigs, but we're going to

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go with it.

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She bought a few chickens.

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And because apparently she didn't have enough going on, she also launched white queen construction,

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her own company specializing in raw iron fences and gates.

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With all of that on her plate, it wasn't long before she needed an extra set of hands.

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She hired 59 year old Stephen Delicino, a handyman who quickly became the go-to guy for most

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of the heavy lifting around the place.

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But according to Susan, Stephen didn't stick around for very long.

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At six months in, he packed up and left.

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So back to Craig's list, she went.

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That's where 56 year old Robert Haney answered the ad.

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His son, Jesse, later summed it up.

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My dad and Susan Monica had a deal.

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He'd get part cash and be able to stay on the property.

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My dad agreed to build a house from the bottom up.

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Susan was getting a pretty solid deal, a new handyman and a new house out of it.

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The Robert Haney wasn't exactly getting a raw deal either.

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According to his son, Jesse, Robert had been looking for a quieter life, something far from

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the chaos of cities, crowds and traffic.

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Susan's farm?

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Perfect.

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At least it seemed perfect, until Robert stopped answering calls.

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We hadn't seen or heard from my dad in two months, Jesse said.

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We just all started to panic.

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The holidays passed.

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Still no word.

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So on January 1, 2014, Jesse and his siblings drove out to Susan's farm to check on

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their dad themselves.

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But when they got there, they didn't find Robert.

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They found Susan.

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And according to Susan, Robert had, quote, basically left.

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She told them that he'd taken off and suggested that they come collect his stuff.

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But the moment they saw Robert's trailer, Jesse knew something wasn't right.

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His leather jacket was there.

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He said, his dog was still running around.

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All his tools were there.

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It made the hairs in the back of my neck stand up.

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They left the farm and headed straight to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office to file

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a missing person's report.

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That kicked off a visit from the detectives who went to the farm to question Susan directly.

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This time, Susan had a little more to say.

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She told them that things had been fine at first.

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But sometime, this past fall, Robert changed.

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According to Susan, Robert got a disturbing phone call from a family member claiming she'd

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been assaulted.

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For that, she said, Robert started drinking more, acting erratic.

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Then one day, he told Susan he was leaving for a while and asked her to take care of his

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dog.

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Susan said she agreed.

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But the detectives weren't buying it.

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Not after they uncovered security footage showing Susan using Robert's debit card at the

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local supermarket.

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So they went back to the farm and that's where they found it.

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A severed bone lying in a shallow pond.

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It was clear that it was not an animal bone.

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One detective said, "It appeared to me to be a human leg that had been severed midfemer

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down to the toes."

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The discovery of that severed leg kicked off a full-scale search of Susan Monica's

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farm.

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What investigators found wasn't just one stray bone.

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Buried among piles of garbage, scrap metal, and animal bones were more human remains.

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They appeared to belong to not one, but two men.

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With handymen who had worked on Susan's property, Stephen and Robert.

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For the next three weeks, investigators kept digging.

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Literally, they searched the grounds, digging more than 50 holes.

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Some reports say closer to 100, looking for more evidence, and possibly more victims.

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Because according to Susan herself, there weren't just two bodies buried on her land.

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She claimed there were around 17 more.

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A neighbor later shed some light, or at least a theory, on what might have happened to

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the people Susan claimed had died on her farm.

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The neighbor had often seen Susan tossing animal remains into her pigpins, letting her

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pigs do what pigs do best.

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And Susan, she didn't exactly deny it.

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When it came to explaining how her two handymen died, Susan's stories shifted a lot, but there

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were a few common threads.

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She said that during the time Stephen lived and worked on her property, they got into a

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fight.

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At one point, she claimed Stephen stole her gun and shot himself in the head.

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Which sounds wild enough, except the remains showed that Stephen had been shot multiple times

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in the head.

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So later, Susan's story changed.

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She said that they struggled over the gun, and he was shot while she defended herself.

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And then, according to Susan, her pigs started eating his body.

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She told the investigator she waited until they were done before gathering what was left,

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and burying him.

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Her story about Robert wasn't any less disturbing, or any clearer.

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Susan stuck to her claim that Robert left after getting upset from that phone call from

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a family member.

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But about a month later, she said she found him back on the farm, being eaten by her pigs.

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I put him out of his misery.

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She told detectives, "I do that for my animals."

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And this was the first time I did it for a human being.

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I knew it was wrong, but if it were one of my pigs suffering out there, I would have done

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the same thing.

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Eventually, Susan walked back parts of her already contradictory confession.

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She admitted she wasn't entirely sure Robert had still been alive when she shot him.

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According to her, after she fired the shot, she let the pigs finish what they'd started.

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When they were done, she gathered whatever was left of Robert's body, stuffed into plastic

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bags, and left the bags in her barn.

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Just for how one of Robert's leg bones ended up in the pond, Susan had an answer for that,

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too.

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She believed a wild animal dragged it in there.

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And if you're wondering how someone could talk about this so casually, Susan had thoughts

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about that, too.

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In a taped interrogation, she told detectives, "I do not value human life very much.

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The only thing wrong with this planet is there's people on it."

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If it weren't for us, all the other animals, dodo birds, and whatever else would still be

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here.

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By the time Susan stood trial, she faced two counts of murder, abuse of a corpse, and identity

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theft.

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She pleaded not guilty.

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But if you think the trial was straightforward, it wasn't.

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It wasn't even close.

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For starters, Susan decided to play a defense attorney, sort of.

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At one point, she insisted on directly cross-examining the lead investigator, Detective

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Eric Henderson.

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And while she did exactly pull off a law and order moment, she certainly made an impression.

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Then, there was the testimony from Susan's cellmate, 23-year-old Jordan Ferris.

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Jordan told the court that Susan had sent her a birthday card.

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Sweet, right?

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Well not exactly.

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Susan had signed it from the sweetest murderer in Jackson County.

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"I got chills from the birthday card," Jordan said on the stand.

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Jordan also claimed Susan confessed to what really happened to Robert.

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"Susan told me," she testified, that Robert got drunk, tried to come onto her.

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They fought, and she shot him, and then pushed him into the pigpin.

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Meanwhile, Susan's defense team tried to paint her as eccentric, not dangerous.

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Just because Susan Monica is different and strange and weird, her lawyer told the jury,

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"doesn't make her a murderer."

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But Susan wasn't done making the courtroom a little weirder.

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Just as the judge was giving jury instructions, Susan stood up and interrupted, saying she

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wanted to show them exactly how she'd shot Stephen Delicino.

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"I'd like to demonstrate how I shot him for ten seconds."

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She said, holding her hands out in front of her like she was gripping an invisible gun.

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The judge ignored her.

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The court officers didn't.

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Susan was escorted out.

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The jury didn't take long.

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After just an hour of deliberation, they returned a verdict.

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Guilty.

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Susan Monica was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the murders of her two handymen.

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And with that, Susan's strange, violent chapter closed.

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Though questions about what really happened on the farm will probably linger far longer than

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her sentence.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of 10 Minute Murder.

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Brief and bingeable true crime.

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I'm Joe, the host, and if you've made it this far, congrats.

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You've officially earned a mental break.

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Go Petta Dog or take a nap.

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Or Petta Dog while taking a nap.

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But better yet, check out the latest episode of my other podcast, 10 Minute Mystery.

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There's a pretty crazy one out right now that I think you'll enjoy.

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I'll catch you next time.

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Thanks for listening.