The Charlottesville Car Attack

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Discretion is advised. This is ten
minted murderer. Between the eleventh and twelfth

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of August twenty seventeen, a white
supremacist rally was scheduled to take place in

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Charlottesville, Virginia. It was called
the Unite the Right Rally, organized by

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a neo Nazi named Jason Kessler to
protest Confederate monuments being removed by the government,

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which Kessler called an effort to attack
white history. The ralli's attendees varied

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sees for right militia, diehard white
supremacists, the alt right, and members

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of the klu Klux Klan. Not
to mention, the former Grand Wizard of

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the klu Klux Klan, David Duke, this represents attorney pointment to take our

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country back. We're gonna We're gonna
fulfill the promises Donald Trump. That's when

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we believed him. That's why we
voted for Donald Trump, because he said

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he's going to take our country back, and that's what we gotta do.

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Local residents were concerned about what the
rally would mean for their community. Just

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over a month before, another rally
had been held in Charlottesville by members of

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the KKK. Groups of local people
joined forces with activists who were planning to

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protest against Unite the Right, and
a counter protest was organized. The counter

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protest united people from across different backgrounds, political alignments, religion, and beliefs,

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and when the Unite the Right rally
was about to begin, the protesters

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gathered to stand up for what they
felt was right. The rally was everything

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that the Charlottesville community feared. People
showed up waving Confederate battle flags and banners

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painted with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. They joined together to yell racist chants,

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waving their weapons and aggressively confronting counter
protesters. On the twelfth of August,

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just before two pm, a group
of counter protesters were struck by car

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driving twenty eight miles per hour.
The Dodge Challenger mowed down several pedestrians and

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then crashed into a sedan, which
crashed into a minivan, which crashed into

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even more people. Witnesses at the
scenes said that pedestrians were thrown into the

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air by the force of the impact. It was chaos, but the driver

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of the Dodge was not done.
The car only paused for a few seconds

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before reversing into even more counter protesters. The man behind the wheel of the

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Dodge reversed away from the crime scene
for a couple of blocks, then turned

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and attempted to make a getaway.
The car was seriously damaged, causing its

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bumper to drag along the ground,
and it was covered with blood as well

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as pieces of the people he had
run over. A police helicopter, which

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had watched the whole attack from above, documented the driver's escape to police units

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on the ground. A deputy caught
up with a Dodge only a mile away

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from the protest and called for backup. Detective Stephen Young arrived at the scene

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and apprehended the driver, a twenty
year old man named James Alex Fields Junior.

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James Fields had been a troubled teenager. According to one of his teachers

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in high school, James suffered from
severe outbursts of anger and had been diagnosed

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with schizophrenia at a young age.
As an adult, he needed treatment for

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a range of other mental disorders,
EH dis depression and bipolar disorder. James

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was raised by a single mother,
and she was the one who suffered the

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most during his fits of rage.
When he was thirteen years old, he

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scared her so much that she locked
herself in the bathroom, convinced that her

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own son was going to kill her. In a call to the police,

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she said that she'd told James that
he needed to take a break from playing

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video games. In response, James
hit her, covered her mouth and had

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taken away her phone. Derrick Weimer, the same high school teacher who knew

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about James's schizophrenia diagnosis, remembered one
other thing about the boy. He had

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a strange, deep love for Adolph
Hitler. His classmates remembered James doodling swastikas

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on his school books while he was
still in middle school, and as James

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got older, he only became more
and more fascinated with Hitler's ideologies. While

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James's classmates and teachers were often disturbed
by his behavior and his doodles, they

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mostly thought that he was just an
odd boy who was a bit of a

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social outcast at school. Nobody ever
officially reported James for his behavior, so

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even though he had a bit of
a reputation for being an extremist, the

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school officials were never made aware.
A spokesperson for Boone County Schools later criticized

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james classmates, saying that if the
stories that they're telling now had any truth

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to them, they should have made
an official report at the time. Quote

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this is something I'm guilty of too, said one of James Field's ex classmates.

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I kind of brushed it off as
just creepy. We thought it was

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all talk. No one ever thought
he would do something so violent, Mister

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Weimer said, quote, once you
talked to James for a while, you

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would start to see that sympathy toward
Nazism, that idolization of Hitler, that

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belief in white supremacy. It would
start to creep out end quote. He

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was concerned about James's interests in these
things, but he also liked the kid,

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who he thought was a student with
a bright future. Mister Wymer had

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attempted to discourage James's interest in Hitler, and for a while he thought he

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had succeeded, until the day that
James decided to drive a dodged challenger through

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a crowd of people. When he
was apprehended by the police, James's response

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surprised Detective Young. Instead of behaving
aggressively, he was incredibly apologetic and repeatedly

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asked if anybody had been hurt in
the attack. The truth is that thirty

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five people had been wounded, and
one woman, thirty two year old named

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Heather Hager, had died from her
injuries shortly afterwards. Heather was a passionate

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advocate for equal rights, and she
and her friends had initially agreed not to

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attend the protest, thinking that it
was too dangerous, but the night before,

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Heather decided that she needed to stand
up for what she believed in,

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even if it was dangerous. When
Detective Young told James about Heather's death,

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he immediately burst into tears. Two
days after the attack, Donald Trump gave

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a statement where he praised Heather Hager, calling her an incredible young woman.

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The next day he gave a follow
up statement, but this one was not

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well received. You're putting what you're
calling the ald Left and white supremacist on

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the same moral plane. I'm not
putting anybody on a moral plane. What

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I'm saying is this. You had
a group on one side, and you

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had a group on the other,
and they came at each other with clubs,

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and it was vicious, and it
was horrible, and it was a

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horrible thing to watch. But there
is another side. There was a group

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on this side. You can call
them the left. You've just called them

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the left that came violently attacking the
other group. So you can say what

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you want, but that's the way
it is. I think there's blame on

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both sides, and I have no
doubt about it, and you don't have

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any doubt about it either. And
you had some in that group, but

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you also had people that were very
fine people on both sides. You had

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people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same

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pictures as you did. You had
people in that group that were there to

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protest the taking down to them a
very very important statue and the renaming of

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a park from Robert E. Lee
to another end. So I only tell

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you this, there are two sides
to a story. I thought what took

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place was a horrible moment for our
country, a horrible moment, But there

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are two sides of the country.
Does anybody Jason Kessler, the man who

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had organized the rally, stated that
he wasn't affiliated with James Fields Junior in

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any way. In fact, he
said that he didn't even know who he

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was. However, less than a
week after Heather died, Kessler posted a

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tweets where he called her a quote
a fat, disgusting communist, adding communists

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have killed ninety four million. Looks
like it was paidback time. After a

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huge amount of backlash, he deleted
the tweets, claiming that his Twitter account

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had been hacked. Later, he
went back on his statements, saying that

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he'd actually posted the tweet while he'd
been under the influence of drugs. From

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the beginning of the investigation, the
Department of Justice announced that the case would

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be charged as a federal hate crime. The director of the FBI stated that

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the attack met the definition of domestic
terrorism. To discourage any similar attacks in

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the future, they needed to make
an example out of James, no matter

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how remorseful and apologetic he had been. When he was arrested in June twenty

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eighteen, James faced charges for several
counts of three different federal hate crimes,

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one count of racially motivated violent interference
with a federally protected activity, one count

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of a hate crime resulting in death, and twenty eight counts of a hate

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crime causing bodily injury and involving an
attempt to kill. At his federal trial,

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he pleaded not guilty to all charges. Against him, but later he

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changed to a guilty plea, hoping
to avoid the death penalty. Instead of

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execution, he received a life sentence. James also faced state charges for malicious

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wounding, a hitden run, and
second degree murder. Later the charges were

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changed to include first degree murder and
felonious assault. After a three week long

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trial in twenty eighteen, James was
found guilty. He was handed a second

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life sentence for Heather Hayer's murder,
as well as four hundred nineteen additional years

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in prison for the other crimes he
committed. Even after James was convicted,

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white supremacist media continued to push the
agenda that Heather Hager hadn't actually died due

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to James running her over. Instead, they said that she passed away because

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of a heart attack due to her
weight. This was the most popular conspiracy

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theory surrounding the attack, but it
wasn't the only one. There were also

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rumours that James had been acting in
self defense after a protester threatened to shoot

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him, and that a different man
had actually been behind the wheel of the

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car. Heather's father insisted that he'd
forgiven James and urged other people to do

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the same quote. My thoughts with
all of this stuff are that people need

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to stop hating and they need to
forgive each other, he said. I

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include myself in that forgiving the guy
that did this. He doesn't know better.

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I just think about what the Lord
said on the cross Lord, forgive

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them. They don't know what they're
doing. That is ten Minute Murder for

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today, brief and vengeable true crime. I'm Joe the host, and thank

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you so much for listening. I
really appreciate it. If you're brand new

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to listening to The Ten Minute Murder, welcome to the podcasts. Hope you

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enjoy it, and please subscribe now
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on all the back episodes and connect
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what we talk about here in the
podcast, not gross and graphic stuff,

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and especially not with what we're talking
about today. I will probably post links

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to some of the news stories surrounding
the Charlottesville car attack. However, it's

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not going to be gruesome crime scene
stuff. I've mentioned this before. I

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don't like seeing that, and I
assume that you don't either. If you

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do, you're more than welcome to
find that stuff on your own. I

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can't control that, so you do
you. I'm just not going to post

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that on the Ten Minute Murder social
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that helps is sharing this podcast with
your friends and family. Quickly, an

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email from one of you listening.
This is from Ellie in Atlanta. Hey,

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Joe, longtime, first time.
Let me ask you something. If

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you didn't do a podcast about true
crime, what else would you do a

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podcast about? Also? Are you
as cute as you sound? And that's

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again Ellie in Atlanta. Let me
address that last thing first. Ellie,

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Yes, obviously I am. My
mom says I'm handsome, so that should

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clear it up unless you're calling my
mom a liar, and then we've got

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00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:18.600
beef. Okay. So, if
I wasn't doing a podcast about true crime,

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I'd probably do one interviewing stand up
comedians. I love stand up comedy

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and it's what I use to kind
of get my brain in a different place.

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After I finish researching and doing episodes
for this podcast, I listened to

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stand up Comedy. Where I watch
stand up comedy, their lives are really

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00:13:35.080 --> 00:13:39.399
interesting and I think that would make
an interesting podcast. Or maybe since my

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work away from this podcast involves directing
and producing video content, I could do

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a podcast about something related to that. But like many of you listening,

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I love my job, but when
I come home from work, I want

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to leave work at work as much
as possible. Again, thank you Ellie

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for the email, and if you
want to get in touch Joe at ten

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minute murder dot com is my email
address. All right, that's going to

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do it. That's your episode for
today. Thank you so much for listening

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to ten Minute Murder.