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Love Turned Lethal · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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In nineteen forty eight. Richard Wade Farley, like many children in military families,
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was born into a family of constant change. He was the oldest of
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six children and found himself trudging from home to home as he and his siblings
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followed their parents from city to city and state to state. Eventually, after
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years of nearly constant traveling, the Farleys settled in California, where Richard finished
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his high school and went to get his college education. At school, Richard
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found it difficult to get along with others and didn't have very many close friends.
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He was often bullied and ostracized, and that seemed to go for his
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home life as well. Despite being one of six siblings, the children later
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claimed that no one in the family was particularly close, and one of his
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brothers had even gone ten years without speaking to Richard at all. Despite that,
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Richard did like so many children born into military families do, and signed
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up for the service himself. Richard joined the Navy and served for a total
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of ten years before moving back to California, maybe the first place that Richard
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could think of as his home. It was there in California that Richard began
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his new career as a software technician at Electromatics Systems Labs, Inc. A
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company that develops reconnaissance software and technology, but it was far from the place
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where Richard began to flourish. It was during his ten years at ESL that
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Richard Farley met Laura Black, a young and talented twenty two year old electrical
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engineer. In his own words, the then thirty five year old Richard fell
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in love with Laura at first sight, and he was determined to do everything
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he could to win her over. He began by leaving Laura handwritten letters and
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homemade gifts on her desk. He kept telling Laura how he felt about her,
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and asked her out on several occasions, but every time he did,
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Laura politely refused. The feelings that Richard was feeling weren't mutual, and Laura
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later said that when dealing with Richard and his constant advances, she tried really
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to ignore him, but to be cordial, but it looked like Richard was
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not getting the message. The more she tries to push me away, the
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more I tried not to have her push me away. Richard later said when
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his letters and home baked goods didn't seem to be doing the trick, Richard
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dialed things up a notch. He tried calling her work phone to talk to
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her every few hours. He talked to the janitors and tried to get a
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copy of her desk keys, and then he found ways to invade Laura's personal
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life too. Richard talked to the HR department and talked them into handing over
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Laura's personal phone number and her address. After that, it was like the
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floodgates truly opened. Richard began sending letters to Laura at her home address multiple
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times a week. He constantly called her, He loitered outside of her house.
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He showed up at her aerobics class. He photoshopped pictures of the two
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of them together and then sent those to her as well. In the four
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years that they knew each other, Richard sent Laura over two hundred letters to
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her home addresses and yes, I said addresses, because Laura ended up moving
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several times in an attempt to get away from Richard, and every time he
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managed to track her down again. Finally, in nineteen eighty five, after
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enduring years of this, Laura asked the HR department at ESL for help with
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dealing with Richard. Realizing that Richard had gone way overboard, HR ordered him
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to attend psychological counseling, counseling that did not seem to work in the slightest.
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Instead of calming down and trying to go unnoticed. Now that he was
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on management's radar, Richard doubled down on his harassment of Laura and even spread
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his campaign further. When his colleagues began trying to defend and protect Laura from
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Richard, Richard started threatening them as well. A male colleague and friend confronted
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Richard and warned him that he would end up in jail if he didn't stop
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what he was doing to Laura. Richard responded by typing a letter to Laura
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and mailing it to her home address. Quote, it's not in your best
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interest for him to interfere. He doesn't have any idea what he's getting into.
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You'd better tell him. I'd better not see any police around me.
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Needless to say, management at ESL figured out that there was no changing Richard's
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behavior. His constant harassment of Laura had also begun to affect his own work
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and the hours that he was spending in the office, So after employing him
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for over nine years, esl fired Richard. Richard returned the favor by finding
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work at rival companies like Covalent Systems Corporation. But the truth was that his
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fixation with Laura was far from over. You cost me a job, forty
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thousand dollars in equity, taxes I can't pay, and foreclosure. Yet I
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still like you, He later wrote to Laura, why do you want to
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find out how far I'll go? I absolutely will not be pushed around,
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and I'm beginning to get tired of being nice. Things escalated even further in
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nineteen eighty eight, when Laura, now at her wits end after years of
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being stole, filed for a temporary restraining order against Richard. Her case went
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to court on February seventeenth, just over two weeks later, to see if
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her restraining order would be made permanent. Richard was fuming at this. In
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his mind, he and Laura had been in a real relationship all these years,
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and now she was trying to turn the tables on him. He sent
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a package to her lawyer with documents and evidence that he believed proved that he
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and Laura were in fact dating. It included hotel receipts, a written tale
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of the drugs the two of them had allegedly shared, and pictures of Richard
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and Laura together. Laura's lawyer later said that they believed everything in that package
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had been fabricated. With the court date looming, Richard realized that he was
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on the verge of losing Laura for good, not that he ever really had
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her. To combat that, he began buying and adding to his collection of
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guns and ammunition. The day before going to court, Richard drove his motor
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home to a familiar spot. He parked right outside Esl, California, and
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waited for Laura to come out after her day at work. In his mind,
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he was either going to convince Laura to drop the restraining order then in
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there, or he was going to kill himself. Around three o'clock that afternoon,
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Richard loaded eight different guns with ammunition, packed an extra one thousand rounds,
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a smoke bomb, a foot long buck knife, and strapped on his
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bulletproof vest to confront the woman he'd been obsessing over for years. But as
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soon as Richard stepped out of his motor home, he began firing and shooting
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at anyone in front of him, He headed to the side entrance, shot
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out the glass so he could walk in, and started stalking the corridors towards
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Laura's office. He shot and killed seven of his former co workers and wounded
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another three before he finally arrived at his intended target. Laura spotted Richard coming
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and slammed the door in his face in a desperate attempt to get away from
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him, but Richard managed to get the door open and positioned his gun so
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that he could fire at Laura. He hit her in the shoulder, completely
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shattering the joint and collapsing her lung in the process. Laura hit the ground,
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covered in blood and unconscious from her injuries, and that's maybe what saved
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her life. Thinking that his mission was complete, Richard then sat tight and
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kept the arriving SWAT team busy for a further five hours. During that time,
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Laura regained consciousness and managed to escape with employees who were also hiding from
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Richard. During talks with the police negotiator, Richard reportedly cried, showed remorse
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for the lives he'd taken and the damage he'd done that day, and he
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threatened to kill himself. Richard also confessed that during the years he'd been stalking
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Laura, he'd lost two homes, his car, and computer, and had
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fallen over twenty thousand dollars behind in his taxes. He was eventually convinced to
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come out and surrender to the police once his condition of a turkey sandwich and
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a diet coke were met. The court dates he'd been dreading so much when
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ahead the following day, where the judge, maybe to no one's surprise,
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made Law's restraining order permanent. With tears in her eyes, the judge commented,
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pieces of paper do not stop bullets, a statement that especially hit hard
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at a time when no one was certain whether Laura would actually recover from her
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injuries or not. At trial for the seven murders he'd committed that day,
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Richard and his lawyers attempted to argue that Richard wasn't normally a violent person,
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but he'd been blinded by his obsession with Laura. The prosecution fired back and
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claimed that Richard's behavior that day and the weeks leading up to it, where
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he'd bought and stockpiled several new guns and rounds of ammunition, proved that the
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attack had been premeditated. The courts agreed and found Richard guilty of seven counts
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of first degree murder. He was sentenced to death, but due to California's
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lengthy appeals process, he is still currently behind bars waiting his execution to this
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day. Laura fortunately survived the attack and the injuries she sustained that day.
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She continued to work at E. S L for several more years after that,
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but almost unbelievably, she would hear from Richard one last time. He
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wrote one final letter to Laura from his prison cell. In it, he
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stated that Laura had finally won. But it's safe to say that none of
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this was a game for Laura or for the rest of her co workers,
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who were deeply affected and harmed by Richard's actions throughout the years of constant harassment
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and stalking. In the wake of this stalking that led to a mass shooting,
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along with the high profile murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer, which I also
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covered in an episode in a book called Robert the Celebrity Stalker, California passed
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the first anti stalking laws in the nation. That's ten minute murder for today.
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Brief and binge able true crime I'm Joe. I'm the host, and
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thank you so much for taking the time to listen to ten Minute Murder.
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If you're a new listener, hit subscribe before you go. Also follow on
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social media links from the show notes, or you can go to ten minute
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Murder dot com to find the links. If you want to send me an
11:26
email, you can do that Joe at ten minute Murder dot com and here
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is one from Byron in South Dakota. Good morning, Joe. We had
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a good chuckle this morning. My coworker had unloaded some random things from a
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pickup last night and then left them laying on the floor in my workspace.
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My first glance is just a pile of random stuff, But as I walked
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over to him to ask him to move the items, a totally different idea
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came to mind. So when I approached Ryan, I asked, so,
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whom are we burying today? As you might guess, he was a little
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confused, and I said, you know you're a burial kid over there,
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looks like you've been hiding bodies or getting ready to You've got to shovel some
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chairs and cooler for taking breaks, a tent to keep the sun off of
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you, and a big bag for the body. He just looked at me
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and chuckled. He knew exactly why the idea had come to mind, and
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we both blurted out ten minute murder and so well, it's official, Joe,
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you finally corrupted us both or maybe I did it to him when I
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turned him onto the podcast one year ago. Myself, I've been loyal fans
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since you started. Thanks for the stories, hard work and dedication to your
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followers. Have a good day, sir. That's from Byron in South Dakota.
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And let me tell you he attached photos and me being me. As
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soon as I opened an email and see photos, that's the first thing I
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look at. I thought I was going to have to get the police involved
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right away because that does, in fact look like some burial kit. So
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then I read the email and realized, oh yeah, okay, this isn't
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what that is. But it was a close call. I thought I was
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going to call the cops on Byron. But all good, and Byron,
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thank you so much for listening to the podcast and turning coworker slash friend Ryan
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onto listening to it. And that's going to do it. That's your episode
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for today. Thank you so much for listening to ten minute murder