The Babysitter Who Knew Too Much: Kimberly Cargill Capital Murder

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June 18, 2010.

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Kimberly Cargill is driving down a dark Texas road with a body in her car.

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In five days, she has to stand in front of a judge and fight for custody of her kids.

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But the woman who could have walked into that courtroom and destroyed her chances?

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She's already dead.

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This is how a custody battle became a capital murder case, and how coffee creamers from

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Burger King helped solve it.

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Kimberly Cargill, Mississippi native born 1966.

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Three marriages, four sons, worked as an office clerk and an LVN.

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On paper, pretty unremarkable.

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But by June, 2010, when she's 42, the whole facade is crumbling.

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Child protective services has taken two over younger sons, Zach and Luke.

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There are abuse allegations, the serious type where the state removes your children and

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starts building a case.

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And Cargill, she's not accepting this quietly.

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In May, there's a voluntary custody agreement.

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Her own mother gets temporary custody of Luke.

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Cargill signs off on it.

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Then one day, she goes to the daycare, picks Luke up and refuses to give him back to her

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mother.

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Just decides the agreement doesn't apply to her anymore.

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In the days leading up to June 18, Cargill is on the phone constantly.

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Laura Gillespie, who worked with one of Cargill's sons on healthcare stuff, testified about

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these calls.

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She said Cargill was in a rage, an angry rage about appointments, about the custody situation.

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Multiple calls where Cargill is berylling.

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Cherry Walker was 39, mentally challenged, functioning at about the level of a 9 or 10

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year old.

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She needed a caregiver who spent half of every day with her so she could manage her small

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apartment and basic tasks.

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She babysat for one of Cargill's sons.

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And the thing about Cherry, that everyone mentions, she was incapable of lying.

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Literally couldn't do it.

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Sweet, kind and fundamentally honest.

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There's this woman, Pratina Young, who supervised Cherry's caregiver.

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Young had told Cargill at some point she was planning to report her to CPS.

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She didn't think it was safe to keep a young child with Cherry, and it wasn't good for

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Cherry either.

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Cargill responded by mentioning she had friends at the DA's office.

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Young asked if that was a threat.

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Cargill told her just go ahead and do whatever she needed to do.

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June 18, 2010, 10.09 in the morning.

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A process server finds Cherry Walker and hands over a subpoena.

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She's required to appear in Smith County District Court on June 23rd, five days away.

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Cherry calls Cargill and tells her she has to testify.

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Now what gets said in that conversation depends on who you ask.

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Witnesses later testified that Cargill told Cherry that she could hide out at her house,

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so she wouldn't have to show up.

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Cargill said she told Cherry she could hang out at her house.

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Hideout versus hangout.

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Completely different implications.

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But at the end of the day, Cherry Walker is dead.

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Here's Cargill's story.

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She takes Cherry out to dinner.

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Everything's normal.

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Everything's fine.

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They're driving home and Cherry suddenly has a seizure in the passenger seat.

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She stops breathing.

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Cargill panics.

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Okay, so let's think about what panic actually looks like.

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You're driving.

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Someone has a medical emergency.

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They stop breathing.

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What do you do?

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You call 911.

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You drive to the nearest hospital.

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You pull over and try CPR.

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Those are panic responses.

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What does Cargill do?

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She drives to County Road 2191, this remote stretch called Oscar Burkett Road in Whitehouse,

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Texas.

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She drags Cherry's body out of the car.

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She pours lighter fluid on the body and clothes.

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She lights it on fire than she leaves.

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She testified later that she knew how it would look.

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She already had this massive motive.

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If she showed up at the hospital with Cherry's dead body, everyone would think she murdered

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her.

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So she decided to hide it.

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Burn the evidence.

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Get rid of any DNA that could connect her to Cherry's death.

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Your friend dies of a seizure in your car and your response is to set her on fire on

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the side of the road.

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That's the explanation we're supposed to accept.

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Bobby Lewis is driving down Oscar Burkett Road the next morning.

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June 19, around 3.30 pm.

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He sees something on the side of the road, stops to check.

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It's a body, face down, partially burned.

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Takes four days to identify Cherry because of the burn damage.

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But within a month, police arrest Kimberly Cargill and what gets her caught is so ordinary.

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It's almost funny.

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Coffee Creamers from Burger King.

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Investigators find a container near Cherry's body.

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Those little Burger King coffee creamers.

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They test it.

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Kimberly Cargill's DNA is all over it.

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The prosecution's theory makes sense.

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When Cargill drag Cherry out of her car, Cherry's leg caught the creamers and pulled them

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out onto the road.

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This is messy.

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This is someone panicking and screwing up.

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And it ties Cargill directly to that exact spot.

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There's more.

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June 18, Cargill is at work in East Texas Medical Center in Athens.

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She's an LVN, supposed to be caring for patients.

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Her phone record shows 70 calls and texts during her shift.

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A patient complained about not getting pain medication.

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Her supervisor called her into the office that day.

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Then that night, phone goes silent.

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Prosecutors argued she's too busy dealing with Cherry's body to be making phone calls.

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After June 18, Cargill never calls Cherry again.

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Cherry is supposed to testify in five days and Cargill never tries to reach her.

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Your friend died suddenly from a seizure.

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Wouldn't you be calling?

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Checking with someone?

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The silence tells you everything.

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Oh, and on the day that she dumps the body, Cargill goes to the White House Police Department.

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She's checking to see if there's a dead body investigation yet.

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Wants to know if anyone's found Cherry.

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The medical examiner said Cherry died from esphyxiation, particular hemorrhages in her eyes, bleeding

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in the soft tissues over her chest near the sternum, consistent with being held down

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or restrained, and something unusual.

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The tip of Cherry's tongue was hemorrhagic and seared.

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You see tongue injuries sometimes in strangulation cases.

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But the medical examiner also admitted there were no ligature marks on Cherry's neck, no

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obvious bruising around the throat.

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And when pushed, she said in autopsy, might not reveal evidence of death from a seizure.

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That admission became the defense's entire foundation.

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This Cherry did have a documented seizure history going back to 2003.

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Medical records showed where she'd been on well buterin, which can trigger seizures in

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some people.

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Defense attorneys asked the medical experts about sudden, unexpected death in epilepsy

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at trial.

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The doctor said very rare, less than 10% chance but possible.

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Some people die, and there's no clear explanation.

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So the jury had to decide.

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Did Cargill strangle Cherry to keep her from testifying or did Cherry die from a seizure

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and Cargill made a catastrophically terrible decision afterward?

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The jury convicted her of capital murder on May 18, 2012.

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Then came sentencing.

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To get the death penalty in Texas, prosecutors have to prove future dangerousness.

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They have to show that this person will keep being violent.

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Three of Cargill's four sons testified.

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They said she choked them.

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Frequently, also kicked them, hit them.

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They were often afraid for their lives.

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She changed the locks on their bedroom doors so she could lock them inside for hours.

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Her own mother testified that Cargill would choke her when she got upset and angry.

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Her elderly mother choking her.

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Three ex-husbands testified.

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One described watching Cargill beat his young son from a previous marriage.

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So hard, she knocked the boy across the room.

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That's what made him leave.

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David, her oldest son, said she choked him in second grade.

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The pattern matters.

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Choking shows up consistently.

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It's her method of control.

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Her sons, her mother, her partners.

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When confronted during trial, Cargill claimed she was defending herself.

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Always the victim.

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Expert witnesses said Cargill showed traits consistent with psychopathy.

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Superficial emotions, short-lived.

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She knew right from wrong.

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She wasn't legally insane.

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She made choices.

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The violence escalated over time from abuse to murder.

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Her sister April testified that Cargill was clever and manipulative.

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On May 31, 2012, the jury unanimously recommended death.

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Judge Jack Schene made it official June 7.

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Death by lethal injection.

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Kimberly Cargill is on death row at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas.

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She's 58 now.

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No execution has been set and federal appeals are still available.

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Cherry Walker was a vulnerable woman doing what the court required.

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She was subpoenaed.

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She was going to tell the truth.

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Five days before that hearing, she was dead.

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Kimberly Cargill admitted to burning the body and dumping it on a remote road.

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Whether Cherry died from a seizure or strangulation, Cargill made a deliberate choice afterward.

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She chose to hide it.

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She chose to destroy evidence.

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She chose to let Cherry's family spend Father's Day weekend wondering if that burned body

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in Oscar Burkett Road was their daughter.

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The jury looked at the motive to silence a witness, the DNA on those coffee creamers, the

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decades of choking family members as a control tactic, the complete lack of remorse.

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They decided Cherry Walker was murdered to keep her quiet.

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That's retaliation.

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Under Texas law, that's capital murder and that's why Kimberly Cargill is waiting to die.

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[Music]

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories.

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My name is Joe.

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That's me, I'm your host and here's an email subject grocery store situation.

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Hi Joe.

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Listen to your latest episode while grocery shopping and realize halfway through that I'd

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been standing in the front of the pasta for 10 minutes.

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Frozen like an NPC.

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The people around me probably thought I was having a moment.

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Thanks for the unintended drama.

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Lila in Tallahassee, Florida.

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Lila, that's similar to what I do at the grocery store.

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But for me, it's not being too into a podcast.

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It's, I read the labels of everything.

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Even things that I don't intend to buy, I see something that catches my attention and

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like, oh, let me check that out.

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And I pick up the, whatever the product is and I read the label.

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I'll flip it over and read the ingredients and see what's in that thing.

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Then I'll put it right back on the shelf.

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Like I just stand there like an, to the outsider might look like a trance where I'm just

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staring.

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But the big pro that comes along with that is later on, I'm like, I really want this

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thing that goes with this thing and then, oh, I know what?

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That thing I read the label of last week.

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And if it's a product that I'm going to buy, you can bet I'm going to read every word

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that's on that label.

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And I know this makes me, I know this makes me sound kind of weird.

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I get that.

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But let me tell you how it started.

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I think how it started anyway.

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Before I would just buy things all willered nillard wouldn't look at the label.

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And then I bought this padtide chicken.

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I love padtide chicken.

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But this particular padtide chicken had fish sauce in it.

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I hate fish.

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And I don't know how you make that.

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I don't know what goes in it.

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But when I got that one home and I made it and it smelled up my kitchen to make it

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smell like fish and it's supposed to be chicken, I read the label.

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And boom, fish sauce.

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So since that day I read the labels of everything.

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Because fish sauce is gross.

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The end.

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Alright, if you're new to the podcast, make sure you hit subscribe.

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Sorry, you got weird there.

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Make sure you hit subscribe.

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You can go to the website 10minutemerter.com, send me an email like Lila did.

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You can also sign up for the monthly, not the monthly.

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It's a weekly.

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I do it every Monday.

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So that makes it weekly.

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Monday news letter.

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You can sign up for that.

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Also read the murder blog.

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All kinds of things.

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10minutemerter.com.

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OG listeners, I love you with my whole heart.

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Keep sharing this podcast with your friends and family and rating and reviewing the podcast

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as well.

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Means the world to me and it helps this show grow so much.

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And that's going to do it.

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That's your episode for today.

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Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute Murder.

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See you next time.

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[Music]