When Trust Becomes a Weapon: The Lisa Knoefel Case

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A mom is stabbed nearly 200 times in her own bed.

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The person holding the knife, her 17-year-old foster daughter, but before you go thinking,

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this is just another case of a troubled teen snapping.

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There is a husband in the background who's been way too involved and just happened to

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take a work trip the night it all went down.

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Let's talk about how it really fell apart.

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

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place.

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Hit follow now for at least two new episodes every week.

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This is 10-minute murder.

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Let's get into it.

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Lisa Knaifle was 41 years old and on the night of November 26, 2012, she was exactly where

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she should have felt safest, her own bed trying to get some sleep.

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No alarm bells, no warning signs, just the usual quiet that comes with middle of the night

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stillness.

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Until it wasn't.

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The bedroom door cracked open, slow and deliberate.

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Someone stepped inside without saying a word.

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It would have followed.

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Chaos, fast, brutal and horrifying.

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Lisa woke up fighting for her life.

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And stabbed another 12.

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One of the wounds blinded her.

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Two of her fingers were nearly sliced off.

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Defensive wounds on her arms and hands told the story.

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She tried to fight back, twisting, grabbing, shielding herself the way that anyone would

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when survival mode kicks in.

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She curled in on herself, instinctively protecting the parts of her that mattered most, but two

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of the stab wounds hit fatal targets.

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One tore through her lung, diaphragm and liver.

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The other cut straight through her carotid artery.

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After that, the clock was ticking.

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Just minutes.

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Lisa never stood a chance.

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She didn't go quietly.

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She fought.

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Hard.

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But there's no defense for being ambushed in your sleep.

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And here's the part that makes your stomach turn.

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Lisa had spent years caring for the person who just killed her.

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The same person who crept into her room that night.

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The same person she had tried to help.

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When police got to the scene, they walked into something straight out of a nightmare.

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Seventeen-year-old Sabrina Zunich was still there, covered in blood, clutching the knife

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she'd just used to kill Lisa Knaifl, the woman who had taken her in and tried to give her

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a stable home.

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Her foster mom, her safe place.

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Or so everyone thought.

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Sabrina didn't just end up with the Knaifl's by accident.

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Lisa and her husband, Kevin, made the choice to bring her into their family a few years earlier.

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They'd fostered kids before.

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Lisa had the background.

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She was a social worker with experience helping teens who'd been through the ringer.

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This wasn't new territory.

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But Sabrina wasn't coming in with a blank slate.

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Her life up to that point had been chaos.

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Someone said that when she was still in diapers, her family used vodka and her bottle to get

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her to go to sleep.

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Her main caregivers were her grandmother, elderly and overwhelmed, and her father, who

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was deep in addiction.

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Mental health issues started young.

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Sabrina was diagnosed with ADHD at 4, followed by a running list, oppositional defiant disorder,

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bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression.

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The kind of resume no kid should have.

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When her grandmother could no longer care for her, Sabrina landed in the foster system.

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Her dad died not long after, an apparent overdose.

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From there it was the usual shuffle, one house to the next until she ended up with the

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Knaifls.

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And on paper it looked like she finally caught a break.

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Had she been placed anywhere else, she might have made it.

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Someone would later testify in court that one sentence says a lot, and none of it is good.

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Lisa tried.

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People who knew her said that she went above and beyond for foster kids.

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Her ex-husband called her a "natural" with children.

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Her friends said she treated every foster child like her own, and did everything she could

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to give them a real shot.

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The Knaifl home had two biological daughters already, one from Lisa's first marriage and

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one from her marriage to Kevin.

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It was supposed to be a full, blended, healthy family.

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Safe, supportive, normal.

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But behind closed doors things were unraveling.

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Lisa's marriage to Kevin was starting to crack, and it was more than just the usual arguments

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over dishes or bills.

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Something deeper was off, and Lisa maybe was starting to feel it.

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Before the chaos, before the knife, before anyone started calling lawyers, Lisa Knaifl had

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a pretty average looking family tree.

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Her first marriage was to a man named Nicholas Zonella, and together they had a daughter named

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Megan.

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Her relationship eventually ended, and life moved on.

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Lisa later married Kevin Knaifl, a truck driver with a calm demeanor, and what most would

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assume was a solid pair of hands for steering life's chaos.

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They had a daughter of their own, Haley.

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Add in Sabrina, their foster teen, and the family unit looked complete.

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One big blended household, with Lisa at the center holding it all together.

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At first it actually worked.

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Sabrina started to settle in.

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She felt supported.

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She had siblings, structure, someone checking in on her homework.

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Lisa and Kevin were both involved, but it was Kevin, who Sabrina said she felt especially

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comfortable around.

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We had a very close relationship, she later said I could be open with him.

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With that closeness, it started veering way off course.

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They were too friendly.

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One of Sabrina's friends told investigators later they were too close.

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They'd make sexual jokes toward each other.

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That wasn't just teen gossip.

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People were noticing, and Lisa, she wasn't looking the other way.

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She and Kevin got into it, loudly.

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One of their final arguments was about Sabrina.

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Lisa accused Kevin of crossing a serious line of being physically involved with the teen

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who was supposed to be their responsibility, not his whatever this was turning into.

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It was a fight, sure, but it was also Lisa sounding the alarm.

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After a year after Sabrina moved in, Kevin Knaifl's behavior took a disturbing turn.

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According to what Sabrina later told investigators, Kevin had begun giving her money in exchange

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for letting him take inappropriate photos.

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What she didn't share at the time, but later would admit, was that their relationship

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had already crossed a serious and illegal line.

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This was not a foster parent helping a teen through a rough patch.

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It was grooming, manipulation, and abuse.

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Kevin was already laying groundwork behind the scenes.

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He told Sabrina social worker that he was thinking about divorcing Lisa.

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If that happened, he wanted custody of Sabrina, not out of concern, out of control.

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He wanted her close and was willing to say whatever he had to in order to make that happen.

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But he never filed for divorce.

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Instead, he leaned in closer to Sabrina and began planting a deadly idea.

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According to her later testimony, Kevin told her that Lisa had to die.

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He didn't just suggest it, he allegedly coached her on how to stage the crime and how to make

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it look like a break-in gone wrong.

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He told her where to stab someone if she wanted it to be fatal.

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He even helped her pick out a knife.

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Then just before it all happened, Kevin left the state for work.

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While Sabrina stayed home, he was off to Michigan, putting distance between himself and

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the crime that he had just said in motion.

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Inside the canafe house that night were two kids who had no business being anywhere near

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what was about to happen.

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13-year-old Megan and three-year-old Haley were both home.

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When Megan heard the struggle in her mother's bedroom, she ran toward the sound, which she

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found was horrifying.

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Sabrina, older, stronger and completely out of control, was stabbing Lisa.

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Megan did what most kids wouldn't even think to do.

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She tried to stop her, she physically launched herself at Sabrina, pulling, grabbing, doing

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anything she could, but it wasn't enough.

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So Megan ran, she grabbed the phone and called 911, her voice shaking and desperate.

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She stabbing my mom with a knife and she's beating her.

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You can hear on the 911 call, plating court.

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When the dispatcher asked who was attacking her mother, she replied, "My sister, she's

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trying to kill my mom."

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By the time the first responders arrived, Sabrina was still there, still holding her hand.

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Holding the knife covered in blood, Lisa still alive, but barely.

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She died in her bedroom moments later.

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Three-year-old Haley was found hiding in the closet.

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This wasn't a who-done-it.

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Everyone knew who killed Lisa Canapal.

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Sabrina pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and was sentenced to life in prison with the

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possibility of parole after 30 years.

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Her earliest chance at parole will come in 2042 when she'll be 47.

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She had never denied what she did, but for a while she refused to explain why.

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And while she said in jail, silent, Kevin Canapal was out there living his best life on

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someone else's grave.

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He collected on two life insurance policies he had taken out on Lisa.

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That payout totaled more than $790,000.

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He kept the house, got custody of the kids, he bought new cars, took flying lessons, moved

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on like nothing had happened.

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And he let Sabrina rot.

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But eventually reality hit.

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Sabrina realized Kevin had no intention of helping her, no plans, no loyalty.

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He had just used her, tossed her aside, and left her holding the knife in every way possible.

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So she talked.

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She told the police that the murder wasn't her idea.

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It was Kevin's.

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"I said, why not just divorce her?"

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She said because I can't do it, the girls would end up going to her.

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Then he said she's worth more dead than alive.

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That broke it open.

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Kevin Canapal was hit with 11 charges, including sexual battery and complicity to commit aggravated

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murder.

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Sabrina testified against him and the jury believed her.

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Kevin was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life in prison.

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The man who manipulated a broken teenager into killing the mother of his children now

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has nothing.

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No money, no freedom, and no one left to manipulate.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minutes Murder.

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Brief and Bingeable True Crime.

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

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You now know more about this case than most people who live on the same streets as it happened.

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But before you go disappearing back into your true crime rabbit hole, do me a favor.

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shouldn't be as funny as it is.

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You'll find every episode, some cool merch and contact page where you can send me story

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suggestions or conspiracy theory.

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Whatever it is you want to send me casserole recipes.

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I've gotten those before.

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Alright, that's it for now.

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Go drink some water or some coffee.

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Whatever time of day it is for you.

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Thank you for listening to 10 Minute Murder.