The Halloween Killer

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Discretion is advised. This is ten
minuted murder. In nineteen seventy three,

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many American families believed it was safe
for their young children to wander the streets

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alone. Neighborhoods were considered to be
a safe space, full of trustworthy people

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who looked out for one another.
It was a year before Ted Bundy and

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BTK started killing, giving the seventies
a reputation of being the start of the

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Golden Age of serial killers, and
still several years before parents would truly begin

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teaching their kids about stranger danger.
All of this meant that during Halloween of

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nineteen seventy three, nine year old
Lisa Ann French's parents didn't have any reservations

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about letting their daughter go trick or
treating alone. The fourth grader had initially

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planned to spend the night with her
friend Anne Parker, but Anne got grounded

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by her parents, leaving Lisa to
make her way to the neighborhood party alone,

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trick or treating as she went along. Just before six pm, Lisa

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left her house. She was proud
of her costume. She dressed up like

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a hobo, wearing a green jacket
and black hat and had painted freckles on

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her face. She stopped by several
houses before she decided to knock on the

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door of another neighbor, a man
named Gerald Miles Turner Junior. Lisa wasn't

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visiting the houses of complete strangers.
She'd knocked on the doors of one of

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her classmates and a teacher from her
school, and had stopped by to chat

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with both people before collecting her candy
and going on her way. Erald Turner

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also wasn't a stranger to Lisa.
He and his girlfriend Arlene had recently had

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a child together, and Lisa loved
to say hello to the baby whenever she

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saw him. That night, she
rang Gerald's doorbell, and after he opened

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the door, she walked into the
doorway to collect her candy. Nobody else

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was home with Gerald that night.
He began talking to Lisa and managed to

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convince her to come inside the house
and into his bedroom. At about seven

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pm, Gerald's girlfriend, Arlene arrived
at the house. She noticed that he

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was acting weird. He was only
dressed in a bathrobe and kept repeatedly visiting

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the bedroom, saying that he needed
to lie down because he was feeling sick.

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Arlene spent about an hour at home
before leaving again to visit her mother.

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Lisa French did not return home that
night. Her curfew was at seven

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pm, and when there was still
no sign of her, her mother alerted

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the neighborhood. Over the next few
hours, a group of concernedness neighbors were

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out searching the streets for any sign
of Lisa. The search grew quickly over

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the next few days, and the
authorities became more and more concerned for Lisa's

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well being, and eventually the entire
county was searching. There were more than

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five thousand volunteers involved in the search, as well as the police and the

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US National Guard. On the third
of November nineteen seventy three, at eleven

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thirty a m. A local farmer
was driving its tractor when he saw two

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plastic bags that had been left in
a field. He looked closer and saw

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that the naked body of a young
girl had been stuffed into one of the

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bags, while the other one contained
a halloween costume. The body was identified

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as Lisa and French. Lisa's automsy
revealed that she had two potential causes of

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death, asphyxiation and shock due to
the brutal sexual assault she had experienced shortly

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before she died. Her funeral was
held three days after her body was found,

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and two days later a ten thousand
dollars reward was announced for the arrest

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of the killer. Early in the
investigation, police already had a key suspect,

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Gerald Turner, but despite repeated questioning, he continued to insist that he

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was innocent. Almost a year after
Lisa's death, Gerald performed a polygraph test

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which came back as having inconclusive results. He refused to repeat the test,

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but finally he did confess to everything. Shortly after luring Lisa into the house,

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Gerald said he attacked her, removed
her clothing, and assaulted her.

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Either during that assault or immediately afterwards, Lisa died, he noticed that she

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was no longer breathing. Gerald listened
to her chest and believed that she still

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had a heartbeat. During the process
of trying to resuscitate Lisa, Arlene arrived

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home and Gerald panicked, knowing that
he had to hide Lisa's body as soon

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as possible. While Gerald had been
pretending that he needed to lie down in

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the bedroom, he had actually been
in the bathroom where he left Lisa's body.

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Immediately after Arlene left the house that
night, Gerald rushed to dispose of

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Lisa. He placed the remains and
clothing into bags and drove into a field

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where he then dumped the bags.
Throughout the disposal process, he wore socks

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on his hands, hoping that he
would not leave any fingerprints behind. Shortly

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after Lisa's death, Gerald wrote a
letter which was found by investigators. In

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the letter, he wrote quote,
I doubt that I could ever fully realize

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the terror you experienced at my hands. I can still see you standing in

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the doorway with that felt hat,
beaming at having recognized me. Then I

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see the delight in your eyes turned
to fear as I closed the door behind

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you. For as long as I
can remember, I've had bouts with keeping

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focus and memory. Recall, I
realized after researching it's pretty common, so

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chances are what I'm about to say
resonates with you as well. I've tried

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to push through it in the past
with copious amounts of caffeine and handful of

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supplements. That works a little bit. But there are some days where I

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can remember the lyrics to every ninetyes
song ever, but I can't remember what's

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on my to do list. That
day, doing this podcast, being a

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dad, and having a regular job. It all takes a toll on me

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mentally and physically. There came a
point when I realized I should stop trying

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to do it myself through trial and
error and lean on a tasty drink I

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found called Magic Mind. If you're
like me and you've never really felt true

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mental clarity before, it's a little
shocking at first. Using Magic Mind,

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I noticed first the bump of energy
that it gives me. That's the macha

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going to work. It also helps
to extend the benefits of caffeine so you

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don't have the typical crash. There
are other ingredients in magic Mind that help

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with anxiety, attention span, memory
inflammation, and just overall immunity. It

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makes me feel dialed in sharp like
I've never been before. And I'm generally

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a skeptical person, So when I
see a claim that says they help with

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focus, energy and creativity, I
wanted to try it for myself. So

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for a month now I have and
does it work. It absolutely does.

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As I mentioned, It's not like
some big lightning bolt of energy that surges

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through you. But one of the
things you'll notice first is your brain fog

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lift, I'm able to focus at
a level I usually can't. If you've

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even had occasional problems with focus and
energy like I have, even anxiety and

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memory recall, I'm telling you to
give Magic Mind a try, and starting

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in January, you'll find it in
all Sprouts Farmers Market stores across the country.

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If you have a Sprout's store nearby, get down there and grab a

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few bottles to try. After you're
hooked like I know you will be,

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you can get a subscription with fifty
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spell out the ten. You can
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minute murder and I'll put this information
in the episode description. But fifty percent

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off is a massive deal on Magic
Mind, and it is not going to

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last forever, so go try it
today. After his confession, Gerald was

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convicted of second degree murder, acts
of sexual perversion, and enticing a child

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for immoral purposes in February of nineteen
seventy five. He received a sentence of

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thirty eight and a half years behind
bars, but after only seventeen years,

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in nineteen ninety two, he was
paroled for good behavior. His release caused

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an uproar in the Milwaukee community where
he was set to live during parole.

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In November of nineteen ninety three,
Gerald's parole ended after the Department of Corrections

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stated that his release for good behavior
had been miscalculated. The protests and outrage

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about his release led to the creation
of Turner's Law, a law that meant

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criminals who had been released from prison
could be legally detained in mental health facilities

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if they were believed to be likely
to continue criminal activity. But despite the

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law being named after the case,
the jury at Gerald's nineteen ninety eight parole

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hearing found that he wasn't eligible for
being detained at a mental health facility.

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In fact, despite Gerald's conviction for
being a violent sexual predator, the jury

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concluded that he was not a violent
sexual offender after all, so there was

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no reason for him to be detained. The ruling meant that Gerald's second parole

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could begin later that year. During
July of that year, the state tried

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to revoke Gerald's parole again after an
incident in his half way house where he

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brandished a butcher knife while yelling at
his caseworker. Despite a psychiatrist assessing Gerald

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and ruling that he was still a
danger to others. The judge ruled that

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Gerald's parole should go ahead. On
parole, Gerald still struggled to get a

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job due to his crimes. When
the waste management company refused to hire him

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after finding out about Lisa's murder,
Gerald filed a complaint where he accused the

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company of discret dominating against him.
In the settlements, the company was forced

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to hire Gerald after all because of
a law in Wisconsin at the time stating

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that businesses should only take criminal convictions
into account if the crime was substantially related

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to the job they were hiring for. Because Gerald wouldn't be working with children

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at the company, there was legally
no reason that they could refuse to hire

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him. That law was eventually repealed, allowing employers to refuse to hire felons

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at their own discretion, but it
didn't matter to Gerald for long. In

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two thousand and three, he violated
his parole by possessing what was described as

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an abundance of pornography and spent another
fifteen years in prison. He was set

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to be released from his sentence in
February of twenty eighteen, but as that

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date grew closer. Lisa's mother created
a petition against his release, which gathered

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more than thirty thousand signatures. On
the twenty third of February twenty twenty two,

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a judge decided that Gerald's release should
be denied, and the decision was

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made to detain him at a high
security psychiatric facility instead. From the early

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days of the case, Gerald was
nicknamed the Halloween Killer because of the night

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when the crime had coincidentally taken place. A holiday where creepy things were used

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in a fun way had become genuinely
scary for Wisconsin residence, leaving a lingering

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shadow that made people look at their
own neighbors in a different light. Gerald

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Turner himself believed that Lisa's murder only
attracted public attention because it had taken place

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on Halloween night. Quote if it
had happened on some other day like Valentine's

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Day, he said, nobody would
have gave a damn. That's ten minute

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murder for today. Brief and bingeable
true crime. I'm Joe the host,

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and I really appreciate you listening.
And Joe, why did you choose December

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to do this episode when and it's
the Halloween killer. You could have done

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this in October. That's an excellent
question, and the answer is I forgot.

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Someone requested that I cover this story
back in October. I totally spaced

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out, thought I had I didn't, so here it is now my bad.

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Hey. If you're new to ten
Minute Murder, welcome, make sure

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you go back and listen to all
of the back episodes that there are available,

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and subscribe to the podcast so that
you can never miss any of the

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new ones when they come out.
If you do subscribe to ten Minute Murder

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and are not following the show on
social media, first of all, quick

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playing. Second, connect with me
on social media. See the pictures of

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what we talk about here on the
podcast. It's never gross and graphic stuff.

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Though. If you liked this episode, leave a rating and review on

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Apple, Spotify, any place that's
possible, because your positive feedback is appreciated

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and helps the show grow. Go
to ten minute Murder dot com for all

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things related to ten minute Murder Now. Quick listener email, Hello, Joe,

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I'm an og listener from way back, and I think I've actually seen

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you in person or I saw someone
that looked just like you. Either way,

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obviously, I didn't say anything at
the time, but I tell my

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friends I met you, so don't
tell on me. My question is it

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has been too long since you mentioned
what's bothering you or your current pet peeve?

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So what is it? I heart
your show, Megan and Florida.

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Hello Meghan in Florida. It is
possible you saw me in Florida because I

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have been there, and just in
case your friends are listening, it was

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very nice meeting you in Florida,
Meghan. So what's bothered me lately?

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People that announce on Facebook that they
are taking a break from Facebook that just

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go have a break. You don't
have to tell anyone. A Facebook break

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honestly, is probably pretty healthy,
it feels like to me, and I

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could be wrong, but it feels
like when I see that, they want

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people to say no, stay stay
here, or they're just trying to on

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the low get someone to message them
and say, hey, since you're taking

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a Facebook break, give me your
numbers so I can still talk to you.

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But again I could be wrong.
Also, people that say espresso that

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bothers me. All Right, that's
it, Thanks for listening to another ten

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minute Murder Podcast episode. I'll see
you on the next one, Bye,