The Weepy Voiced Killer

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Discretion advice. This is ten minute
murder. On New Year's Day nineteen eighty

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one, Minnesota police received a strange
call at three am. A male caller

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with an unsettling, high pitched voice
simply gave them directions to a location,

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telling them that if they went there
they would find a girl who had been

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heard. Sure enough, at the
location in Saint Paul, twenty year old

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Karen Potak was lying naked in the
snow. Her injuries were so severe that

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at first the responding officers thought that
she was dead, and one of them

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later described the moment as the most
devastating scene he'd seen in his career.

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However, even though Karen had been
beaten so violently that parts of her brain

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had been exposed, she was miraculously
still alive. She survived medical treatment,

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but was left with a brain injury
and memory loss from the attack. The

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police had no way of tracking down
the strange, tearful man who had called

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them about Karen's attack. He hadn't
been on the phone long enough to trace

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the call, and there were no
eye witnesses who could provide additional information.

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With no clues as to the attacker's
identity and Karen unable to identify her assailant,

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the case went cold until the caller
contacted police a second time. On

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the third of June nineteen eighty one, eighteen year old Kimberly Compton left her

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home in the state of Wisconsin to
move to Twin Cities, Minnesota. She

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just graduated high school and she wanted
to look for a job in that area,

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but she didn't get a chance.
The same day that she arrived in

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Minnesota, Kimberly was brutally murdered and
her body was discovered lying in a field.

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First responders were astonished by the brutality
of the crime. Kimberly's killer had

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used an ice pick to stab her
more than sixty times. Less than two

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days later, a call came through
to the police station. The male caller

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spoke in a weepy, high pitched
voice and confessed that he was the one

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who had murdered Kimberly. Because of
his strange voice and the fact that the

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crime was all over the news,
the operators originally thought it was a prank

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until the man revealed a detail that
only law enforcement and the killer were aware

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of. Quote please find me,
he begged, I just stabbed somebody with

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an ice pick. I can't stop
myself. I keep killing everybody. I

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don't know why I had to stab
her. I'm so upset about it.

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Although the media knew several other details
about Kimberly's death, the police never mentioned

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the murder weapon, the ice pick, and once the caller mentioned the ice

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pick, the chances that this was
a prank call became much smaller. But

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despite expressing remorse for a crime,
the caller never gave his name or agreed

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to turn himself in. After hanging
up, he called back a second time,

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saying I'll try not to kill anyone
else. During the second call,

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he was on the line long enough
for the police to trace this call,

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but when the officers arrived at the
phone booth that the call was traced to,

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the killer was nowhere to be seen. Now convinced that they had received

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direct contact from Kimberly's killer, the
police decided to compare the caller's unusual voice

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to recordings from other recent nine to
one one calls. That's how they discovered

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a connection to an early anonymous tip
and realized that on New Year's Day that

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same year, Karen Potak had been
lucky enough to survive an attack from the

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same man who had stabbed Kimberly Compton
sixty one times. The breakthrough in the

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case didn't last. Kimberly had died
from her wounds, and Karen didn't remember

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being attacked. There were no clues
as to the killer's identity, and all

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the investigators could do was wait to
see if he called again, and almost

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an entire year later, he did. On the eighth of August nineteen eighty

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two, a call came through from
the man who had now been nicknamed the

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weepy voiced Killer. Please don't talk, he begged the operator. Listen.

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I'm sorry. I killed that girl. I stabbed her forty times. Kimberly

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Compton was the first one over In
Saint Paul, the police were able to

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connect the killer's confession to a body
with more than a hundred stab wounds that

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had been discovered lying by the Mississippi
River only two days before. The victim

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was later identified as Barbara Simmons,
a nurse in her forties. This time,

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there was a key difference in the
investigation. The police had a witness

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who might have seen Barbara's killer the
night before Barbara was killed. She had

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been out drinking at a Minneapolis bar
with some friends. She had decided to

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leave the bar with a man she'd
never met before, saying he's cute.

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I hope he's nice because I just
need a ride home. She was never

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seen alive again, but for the
first time, the weepy voiced killer had

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been seen by an eye witness.
On the twenty first of August nineteen eighty

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two, a teenage sex worker got
into a man's car. As time went

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by, Denise Williams had a terrible
gut feeling. The guy behind the wheel

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had told her that he would drop
her off in the city afterwards, but

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instead he started taking winding roads through
a dimly lit area. Finally he stopped

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the car. He pulled out a
screwdriver, which he used to stab her

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fifteen times. Denise fought back and
was able to grab onto a glass bottle,

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which she used to hit her attacker
in the face and head while screaming.

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The bottle drew blood, and Denise's
screaming attracted the attention of a man

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who lived in the neighborhood. The
man tried to fight off Denise's attacker,

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who then fled back to his apartment. However, the wounds from the glass

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bottle were deep, and the weepy
voiced killer quickly realized that he needed medical

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attention. But he'd forgotten one thing. He had an incredibly distinctive voice that

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police would instantly recognize, and law
enforcement across Minneapolis were looking for a man

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who had recently been hit in the
face with a bottle. By calling for

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help, the killer essentially turned himself
in, revealing that he was a local

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man by the name of Paul Michael
Stefani. Paul had lived in the area

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in the sixties, and he'd been
the youngest of ten siblings raised by Catholic

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parents. When Paul was a toddler, his mother had remarried and her new

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husband physically abused the children, even
occasionally throwing one of them down a flight

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of stairs. From then on,
Paul's life had taken an increasingly dark path.

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In his adult years, Paul continued
to be a practicing Catholic, just

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like his parents, but despite his
devotion, something inside Paul's head just didn't

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align with what he was doing at
church. He later claimed that he heard

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voices in his head telling him,
Paul, it's time to kill. At

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the same time, when he started
killing, he knew that he was betraying

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his religion. During one of his
calls to the police, through his tears,

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he told the operator, I will
never make it to heaven. At

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Paul's trial for Barbara Simmons murder,
several of his loved ones testified against him.

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His sister, a housemate, and
his own ex wife all told the

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court that they had listened to the
recordings of the weepy voiced Killer's phone call

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and they believed that it was Paul. However, because Paul was crying hysterically

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in all of his telephone calls with
the police, his voice was unable to

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be confidently identified. This meant that
even though he was charged with murdering Barbara

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and attempting to murder Denise, he
was not convicted of the rest of the

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crimes that the weepy Voiced Killer was
believed to be responsible for. In nineteen

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ninety seven, Paul received a diagnosis
of terminal skin cancer. Knowing that he

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would likely not survive for more than
a year, he decided that he would

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reveal the true extent of his crimes
and confessed to killing Kimberly Compton in nineteen

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eighty one, Barbara Simmons in nineteen
eighty two, and a woman named Kathleen

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Greening in nineteen eighty two. At
this point, police had not linked the

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Weepy Voiced Killer to Cathy's death.
In fact, there had been nothing to

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suggest a link between the cases.
Kathy had been drowned in her own bathtub

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instead of being beaten or stabbed,
and no remorseful phone calls had come through

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to nine one one after her body
was discovered. In total, Paul confessed

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to a near fatal beating, three
stabbings, and one drowning. In a

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statement to the media, he said, quote, since I've been locked down

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for the last fifteen years, I've
wondered how all this could happen. And

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all I can say is I'm sick
and I'm sorry, if sorry means anything.

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After fifteen years, one year after
confessing to his additional crimes, the

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Weepy Voiced Killer died in prison.
Don't talk just for us. I'm sorry

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what I did, the content I
couldn't help, but don't know why I

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had ever. I am o'sset about
it. I can't get a contra I

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can't believe it's a big tream.
I can't think a bid top. If

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I get locked up, I kill
myself. I'd better kill myself to get

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locked up. I'll try not to
kill anybody else. Players don't talk,

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then listen. I'm sorry I killed
a girl. I stand there forty times

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kimberly content with the birth over safe. I don't know what I'm gonna kill

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myself. I'm just gonna other guys
and would hunt me. I say me,

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I just get somebody when her name
speak, I can't tell myself,

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and you can't killing somebody Jays.
Please, this is an emergency. Please

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send us Quata kiss from the road. Momberg Manufacturing Company machine shop. Please?

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Is it Amman stood as a girl? Who? Can you tell me

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what happened to him? The times
that she's laid on the girl in the

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back her? What's the address?
I don't know. That's ten Minute Murder

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for today Brief and bingeable true Crime. I'm Joe the host. Thank you

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so much for listening, and be
sure to subscribe. If you're listening right

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now and you have not subscribed to
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a moment in the time that I
said that you could have already subscribed,

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and if you didn't, let me
give you a chance. Okay, you

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should be subscribed now. Cool.
I appreciate it. For all things related

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to the podcast. You can go
to ten minute Murder dot com and coming

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up on the next episode of the
podcast, it's a chilling, twisted case

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of betrayal and teenage Quarrel's gone too
Far. It's a story about Skylar Nice

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and it highlights the importance of knowing
who is in our children's lives and how

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even though they may look angelic faced, they could be the stone cold killers.

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And I know that sounds a little
bit dramatic and hopefully not our kids,

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right, but in the story you're
gonna hear coming up after this one,

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it definitely is that situation. A
quick listener email before we go,

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Hey, Joe Tam from Zimbabwe here. I listened to your podcast on Deezer.

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I was a tad late to find
it, only stumbled upon it last

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November, but I listened to at
least ten episodes a day while at work.

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It's the perfect podcast for short and
sweet and entertaining. And you remind

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me a lot of myself when you're
talking about certain things. The diet coke

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can being changed did it for me. Like I said, I found you

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recently and I've been going through all
the episodes, so I'm a little delayed

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to the diet coke can change.
But thank you for making my days a

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little more bearable. I appreciate the
hard work you put in. Stay blessed,

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Tam. And first of all,
thank you so much Tam from Zimbabwe

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for taking the time to send the
email. And in case you don't know

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what in the world Tam is talking
about with this diet coke can, well,

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when diet coke would not die,
it was coke zero. When they

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switched from that black can to the
red can, I was a little skeptical

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about it. I didn't want to
switch with them, and apparently the recipe

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wasn't supposed to change. But I
think it may be psychosomatic because it did

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definitely taste different to me. Not
bad, but it just tasted different.

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And I was, in my own
silent protest, which I'm not so silently

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mentioned on this podcast, I switched
to diet pepsi and that's exactly what I'm

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drinking right at this current moment,
is diet pepsi, which other people absolutely

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hate and I don't know why because
it tastes fine. However, I have

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been mixing in a lot of water. Now I drink way less soda than

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I used to, because, first
of all, it's not healthy to drink

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as much soda as I was drinking, and because the onslaught of messages and

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emails from people saying, hey,
you need to knock off that soda altogether.

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So I didn't do that, but
I mean I'm trying anyway. That's

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the episode for today. Thank you
so much for listening to another ten minute

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Murder Podcast episode. I will see
you on the next one. Bye.