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This-crime-was-SOLVED-at-the-DMV · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: On April twenty ninth, two thousand and two, in the
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Speaker 1: small town of Patascula, Ohio, a social worker sat on
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Speaker 1: the floor with a two year old girl. This little
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Speaker 1: girl's mother had unfortunately been murdered in their kitchen just
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Speaker 1: the night before, and police thought this little girl might
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Speaker 1: have actually witnessed the crime, and so now the social
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Speaker 1: worker was trying to get this little girl to see
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Speaker 1: if she could remember if anybody else was here the
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Speaker 1: night before. And at first the little girl just clutched
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Speaker 1: her stuffed animal and didn't say anything. But eventually, after
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Speaker 1: some gentle prodding, the girl nodded and then she uttered
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Speaker 1: a name that would turn her family's lives upside down.
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Speaker 1: But before we get into today's story, if you're a
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Speaker 1: On the evening of April twenty eight, two thousand and two,
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Speaker 1: thirty eight year old Ronda Boggs sat on the couch
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Speaker 1: of her mother in law's house in the quiet city
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Speaker 1: of Patascla, Ohio, nervously watching the clock at her feet.
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Speaker 1: Her two and a half year old daughter, Amanda, was
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Speaker 1: playing with a stuffed animal. It was six thirty PM,
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Speaker 1: and Ronda's husband, Dave was supposed to call any minute.
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Speaker 1: Dave was currently being incarcerated at the County jail. Dave
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Speaker 1: had been sentenced to two weeks behind bars for failing
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Speaker 1: to pay child support to one of his exes, and
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Speaker 1: while Ronda was obviously not thrilled about this, she also
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Speaker 1: knew she should not be surprised. When Ronda had first
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Speaker 1: met Dave about twelve years earlier, it was his care
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Speaker 1: free personality that she had really fallen in love with.
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Speaker 1: He was in a rock band, and she had loved
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Speaker 1: going to his shows and dancing in the front row.
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Speaker 1: It all felt glamorous and exciting and like they were
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Speaker 1: going to stay young forever. But now they were both
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Speaker 1: thirty eight with a toddler to look after and Bill's
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Speaker 1: to pay, and Dave we really just kept on partying
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Speaker 1: and playing rock star while all their responsibilities sort of
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Speaker 1: fell to Ronda. She had barely been to any of
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Speaker 1: his shows since Amanda had been born, you know, in
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Speaker 1: part because it wasn't really the kind of scene you
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Speaker 1: could bring a baby to. A lot of the guys
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Speaker 1: Dave hung around with were heart drinkers and drug addicts
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Speaker 1: and ex cons, and so now, after almost four years
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Speaker 1: of marriage, Ronda was finally starting to see Dave for
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Speaker 1: what he was, which was not care free. Dave was
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Speaker 1: really just kind of reckless. The phone rang and Ronda
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Speaker 1: picked it up, and as expected, it was Dave. And
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Speaker 1: what Ronda really wanted to say to him was that
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Speaker 1: she was upset and seriously considering divorce, and that in fact,
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Speaker 1: she'd already taken his name off her retirement plan. But
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Speaker 1: at the same time, she saw her mother in law
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Speaker 1: standing in the doorway, clearly listening, and so instead of
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Speaker 1: saying what she really wanted to say, she just said, Hey, Dave,
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Speaker 1: how are you doing. An hour later, back at her
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Speaker 1: own home, Ronda put a cast roll into the oven,
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Speaker 1: and then she turned on cartoons for Amanda, and then
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Speaker 1: went outside to mow the lawn before it got too dark.
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Speaker 1: Ronda was used to doing almost everything around the house
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Speaker 1: herself since Dave was practically never home anyway, but now
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Speaker 1: that he was in jail, she had to literally do everything,
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Speaker 1: including you know, mowing the grass on a Sunday night.
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Speaker 1: So Ronda wheeled the lawnmower out of the garage and
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Speaker 1: into the yard, and then she pulled the cord to
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Speaker 1: start the engine. But like everything else in their little house,
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Speaker 1: the lawnmower was on the verge of breaking down, and
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Speaker 1: it kept shutting off. While Ronda struggled, she noticed her
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Speaker 1: neighbor coming out of the house across the street, and
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Speaker 1: he waved to Ronda as he came down his own driveway,
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Speaker 1: sort of telling her like, hey, you know, turn off
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Speaker 1: that lawnmower. And once she did, and once it was
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Speaker 1: quiet enough to actually hear each other, he shouted from
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Speaker 1: across the street and asked if she wanted to borrow
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Speaker 1: his lawnmower. That did work. Ronda found herself looking around
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Speaker 1: the yard at all the tall grass and saw how
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Speaker 1: dark it was already getting and then she checked her
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Speaker 1: watch and saw that, you know, her cast role was
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Speaker 1: going to be done in just a minute here, And
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Speaker 1: so she said to her neighbor that she really appreciated
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Speaker 1: the offer, but it didn't really matter because, you know what,
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Speaker 1: she doesn't have time to do this anyways. She has
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Speaker 1: to go back inside. So Ronda said bye to her
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Speaker 1: neighbor and then pushed her defective lawnmower back inside the garage.
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Speaker 1: And then she made a mental note to call Dave's
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Speaker 1: cousin Nick the following day to see if maybe he
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Speaker 1: could come by and fix her lawnmower. Nick worked as
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Speaker 1: a maintenance man at a big apartment complex, and even
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Speaker 1: though he lived forty five minutes away, he'd been helping
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Speaker 1: Ronda around the house while Dave was behind bars. Just
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Speaker 1: last week, he had fixed up her washing machine, and
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Speaker 1: he called all the time just to check in. Now,
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Speaker 1: Ronda went back inside the house into the kitchen and
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Speaker 1: took the cast roll out of the oven. Just before
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Speaker 1: the timer rang. She cut the cast roll into two
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Speaker 1: pieces and brought those pieces into the dining room and
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Speaker 1: set them on the table. Then she walked over and
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Speaker 1: turned off the TV. Scooped up her daughter and brought
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Speaker 1: her over to the table. It was getting late, and
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Speaker 1: all Ronda really wanted to do here was just eat
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Speaker 1: quickly and go to bed. But for every bite that
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Speaker 1: made it into Amanda's mouth, another wound up on the floor.
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Speaker 1: And so Ronda knew that, you know, at the end
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Speaker 1: of dinner, she would have to do another round of
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Speaker 1: cleanup before she could finally go to sleep. But Ronda knew,
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Speaker 1: you know, Amanda couldn't help it. She was a little kid,
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Speaker 1: and so she reached over and took her daughter's fork
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Speaker 1: and began helping her eat, you know, to not only
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Speaker 1: minimize the mess, but also to help her kid out.
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Speaker 1: And in reality, Amanda was actually the thing preventing Ronda
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Speaker 1: from just pulling the trigger on a divorce. She didn't
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Speaker 1: know if she could handle being a single mother. It
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Speaker 1: was hard enough having Dave gone for a few weeks,
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Speaker 1: you know, that she couldn't even imagine doing this all
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Speaker 1: alone by herself forever. And since she already knew Dave
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Speaker 1: was bad at paying child support, as that is the
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Speaker 1: reason he was in jail right now, she figured if
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Speaker 1: she was a single mom, you know, even if he
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Speaker 1: was ordered to pay her, she would likely have to
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Speaker 1: rely on paying the bills herself. She would need to
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Speaker 1: get a job and make money. Now. Ronda did have
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Speaker 1: a job now as an office assistant, but she wasn't
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Speaker 1: sure if that would be enough to fully support herself
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Speaker 1: and her daughter without any additional financial help. But just then,
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Speaker 1: as Ronda was scooping up another bite of cast role
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Speaker 1: for her daughter, she heard a noise outside that almost
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Speaker 1: sounded like heavy footsteps. She turned around and through the
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Speaker 1: curtains she could see the silhouette of a person clearly
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Speaker 1: coming up her driveway. The next morning, Monday, April twenty ninth,
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Speaker 1: Ronda's coworker, Gary Polowski, noticed that Ronda was running late
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Speaker 1: for her shift in the office at Hamilton Home Products,
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Speaker 1: which was a heating equipment company, and this was strange
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Speaker 1: because Ronda had actually never been late before in the
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Speaker 1: entire time that she had worked there. So Gary began
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Speaker 1: asking around to see if anybody knew where Ronda was,
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Speaker 1: or if maybe she'd called in or something. But his
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Speaker 1: coworkers all shrugged and said they hadn't heard from her
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Speaker 1: since she left the office on Friday night, and so
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Speaker 1: eventually Gary tried calling Ronda's landline at her house to
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Speaker 1: see if she was home, but after calling several times,
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Speaker 1: Ronda never picked up. He waited for a while to
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Speaker 1: see if maybe she would call back, but when he
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Speaker 1: still hadn't heard from her after an hour, he started
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Speaker 1: to worry that, you know, she might have run into
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Speaker 1: car trouble, like maybe she was stranded somewhere with her car.
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Speaker 1: He knew it was about a fifteen mile drive from
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Speaker 1: her house in Patascla to the office here just outside
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Speaker 1: of Columbus, and back in two thousand and two, not
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Speaker 1: everyone had a cell phone, and he didn't know if
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Speaker 1: she did, so if her car had broken down, you know,
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Speaker 1: she might be stranded without a way to call for help.
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Speaker 1: And so Gary decided he would just get in his
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Speaker 1: own car and drive the route from the office back
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Speaker 1: to her house to literally see if he could find
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Speaker 1: Ronda on the side of the road. Gary drove all
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Speaker 1: the way out to Potaskalack, keeping his eyes peeled for
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Speaker 1: Ronda's car on the side of the road, but there
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Speaker 1: was no sign of it. It was not until he
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Speaker 1: finally turned the corner onto Ronda's street that he saw
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Speaker 1: her car, and her car was parked in the driveway
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Speaker 1: of her white paneled, one story house, and at this
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Speaker 1: Gary's stomach kind of bawled up into a knot because
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Speaker 1: he realized that, you know, Ronda had clearly not left
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Speaker 1: for work at all, and he knew that if she
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Speaker 1: had just stayed home this whole time without calling in
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Speaker 1: or calling anybody back, that something bad had to have happened.
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Speaker 1: And so Gary pulled up to her house and he
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Speaker 1: got out of his car and walked up to the
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Speaker 1: front door and he knocked, but there was no answer.
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Speaker 1: So after a minute, he went around and knocked on
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Speaker 1: the back door, and there was still no answer back
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Speaker 1: there either, So he walked back around to the front
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Speaker 1: of the house and he was about to leave when
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Speaker 1: he saw the drapes rustling in one of the front windows.
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Speaker 1: He squinted at the window and he saw, you know,
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Speaker 1: what was causing the movement of the drapes was Roonda's
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Speaker 1: toddler daughter, Amanda, looking out the window, and her face
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Speaker 1: was red like she'd been crying for a long time.
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Speaker 1: And so now Gary started to panic, but he tried
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Speaker 1: to keep his voice calm as he ran over and
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Speaker 1: shouted through the window and told Amanda he was a
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Speaker 1: friend of her mother's and convinced her to open the
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Speaker 1: door so he could help her. It took a minute
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Speaker 1: for Amanda to figure out what Gary was asking, but
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Speaker 1: eventually she got it and she disappeared from the window,
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Speaker 1: and a moment later, the front door opened, and so
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Speaker 1: Gary walked over and he stepped through the front door,
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Speaker 1: and the first thing he saw were bloody footprints on
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Speaker 1: the living room carpet. Gary instinctively scooped Amanda up in
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Speaker 1: his arms and he ran across the street, banged on
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Speaker 1: the neighbor's door and told them to call the police.
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Speaker 1: Not long after, the Taskella police would arrive at Ronda's
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Speaker 1: house and they would search the end side and they
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Speaker 1: would find Ronda, and she was found stabbed to death
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Speaker 1: in her own kitchen. This was the first homicide in
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Speaker 1: Patascla in six years, and there were only seventeen officers
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Speaker 1: in the whole police department, and the crime scene unit
10:14
Speaker 1: was run out of a refurbished ambulance. So Police Chief
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Speaker 1: Chris foreshe didn't have a ton of resources to throw
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Speaker 1: at this case, but he called in all available officers
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Speaker 1: and sent them to the crime scene, and then he
10:26
Speaker 1: headed out there himself to make sure they did the
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Speaker 1: job right. By the time Forese pulled up to the house,
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Speaker 1: his officers had already sealed off the perimeter. He ducked
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Speaker 1: under the crime scene tape, walked inside the house, and
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Speaker 1: followed the sound of footsteps and clicking cameras into the kitchen,
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Speaker 1: where a woman was lying in a pool of blood
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Speaker 1: on the tile floor. An officer told Foresee that the
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Speaker 1: victim had been identified as Ronda Boggs, and it was
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Speaker 1: her coworker who had come to check on her when
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Speaker 1: she hadn't shown up for work that morning that ultimately
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Speaker 1: prompted a nine to one one call that led to
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Speaker 1: the discovery of the body. The officer also told or
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Speaker 1: She that Ronda's toddler daughter had been found uninjured in
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Speaker 1: the house with her body, and so for she knelt
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Speaker 1: down to examine the body, and right away he saw
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Speaker 1: at least, you know, more than a dozen stab wounds
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Speaker 1: on Ronda's head, her neck, her chest, and her shoulders.
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Speaker 1: The sheer number of wounds and the blood all over
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Speaker 1: the kitchen suggested there had to have been a struggle,
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Speaker 1: and that from the looks of it, Ronda had fought
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Speaker 1: very hard with her attacker the remnants of what appeared
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Speaker 1: to be a cast role were sitting on the stove,
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Speaker 1: and Ronda was fully dressed, So for she figured the
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Speaker 1: crime must have happened sometime before she went to bed,
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Speaker 1: so between dinner and bedtime. And then for she wondered
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Speaker 1: if her poor daughter had been awake or maybe even
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Speaker 1: in the room when this happened. After the scene had
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Speaker 1: been photographed, for she gave the green light for the
11:49
Speaker 1: corner to actually physically lift Ronda's body up off the
11:52
Speaker 1: ground onto a stretcher. And when the corner's staff hoisted
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Speaker 1: her up, for she noticed something lying underneath her body.
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Speaker 1: It was a steak knife with blood all over the blade.
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Speaker 1: For she looked around the kitchen and realized the black
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Speaker 1: handle on that knife matched the set of knives on
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Speaker 1: the countertop. It appeared that Ronda had been killed with
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Speaker 1: a knife from her own kitchen, which meantor killer did
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Speaker 1: not show up to the house with their murder weapon.
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Speaker 1: This suggested that this murder was likely a heat of
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Speaker 1: the moment crime rather than something that had been planned out.
12:24
Speaker 1: While fores She's officers finished collecting forensic evidence in the kitchen,
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Speaker 1: for she himself walked through the rest of the house,
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Speaker 1: it looked like it had been completely ransacked. The jewelry
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Speaker 1: box in the bedroom was empty, and the dresser drawers
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Speaker 1: were open, and piles of Ronda's clothes were strewn all
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Speaker 1: over the floor. And then in the dining room they
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Speaker 1: found a purse that had been overturned with all of
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Speaker 1: its contents spilled out, and clearly it looked like somebody
12:47
Speaker 1: had been sifting through it. And so for she thought that,
12:50
Speaker 1: you know, between the sort of ransacked appearance of the
12:53
Speaker 1: house and also the weapon of opportunity, that it seemed
12:57
Speaker 1: like this could have been a robbery gone wrong. However,
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Speaker 1: there was one factor that did seem to complicate things,
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Speaker 1: or at least make it seem like this could have
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Speaker 1: been something else, and that was that there was no
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Speaker 1: sign of forced entry. Just then, for she heard a
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Speaker 1: commotion near the front door, and so he walked over
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Speaker 1: and he saw there was a woman trying to push
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Speaker 1: her way into the house, and her face was all
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Speaker 1: red and she was crying, and she was shouting at
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Speaker 1: the officers, demanding to know what happened. For she took
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Speaker 1: this woman outside and tried to calm her down, and
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Speaker 1: she would eventually tell him that her name was Kim
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Speaker 1: Davis and she was Ronda's sister. Once she caught her breath,
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Speaker 1: for she explained to her what he already knew, which
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Speaker 1: was that unfortunately, her sister, Ronda, had been found stabbed
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Speaker 1: to death inside of her home, and the running theory
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Speaker 1: at this point, at least his theory, was this was
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Speaker 1: a robbery gone wrong, and potentially, because there was no
13:47
Speaker 1: sign of forced entry, it could indicate that it was
13:50
Speaker 1: somebody that you know, Ronda potentially knew, and who she
13:53
Speaker 1: would have, you know, let into the house if she
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Speaker 1: saw them. Now, Kim was obviously extremely upset by this,
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Speaker 1: and so for a minute for she just consoled her.
14:01
Speaker 1: But he really needed to kind of press this investigation,
14:05
Speaker 1: and so once she had kind of calmed down a
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Speaker 1: little bit, he asked her if she knew of anybody
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Speaker 1: who might have wanted to hurt Ronda, and Kim immediately
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Speaker 1: said no, she couldn't imagine her sister having any enemies.
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Speaker 1: But after sitting with that question for a moment, Kim
14:20
Speaker 1: said that actually there was one person who might have
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Speaker 1: had a problem with Ronda, and that was her husband, Dave.
14:28
Speaker 1: Kim said that Ronda and Dave's marriage had been on
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Speaker 1: the rocks for a while, and in fact, Ronda had
14:33
Speaker 1: told her recently that she was thinking about getting a divorce.
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Speaker 1: But Kim said, you know, Dave actually is currently in jail,
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Speaker 1: so I don't see how he could have done this.
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Speaker 1: He was literally in jail at the time this happened. Still, though,
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Speaker 1: she thought it was possible that, you know, Dave could
14:50
Speaker 1: have been involved one way or another. You know, he
14:52
Speaker 1: might have paid somebody to come here and do this,
14:54
Speaker 1: or maybe put one of his friends up to it.
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Speaker 1: Before she promised Kim he would look into this, was
15:00
Speaker 1: already feeling pretty skeptical. I mean, if Dave couldn't even
15:02
Speaker 1: pay child support, you know, what was the likelihood that
15:05
Speaker 1: he was able to afford a hitman. And also, the
15:08
Speaker 1: murder weapon appeared to come from Rhonda's kitchen, and so
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Speaker 1: that didn't really suggest that the suspect had been planning
15:14
Speaker 1: to kill her when they got there, so again sort
15:17
Speaker 1: of takes away from the idea that a hit man
15:19
Speaker 1: was used in this murder. But at this point before
15:22
Speaker 1: she thought their best chance to figure out what actually
15:26
Speaker 1: happened here was actually to speak to the only other
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Speaker 1: person who was at the scene at the crime that
15:31
Speaker 1: they knew about, and that was Ronda's own two year
15:34
Speaker 1: old daughter, Amanda. Later that day, a social worker from
15:43
Speaker 1: child Services pulled up outside the house, and for she
15:46
Speaker 1: walked out to greet her, and he said to her
15:48
Speaker 1: that before she took custody of Amanda, he was hoping that,
15:52
Speaker 1: you know, she could help him talk to this girl
15:55
Speaker 1: and see what she knew about the murder, because she
15:57
Speaker 1: was here, you know, when it happened, and there was
15:59
Speaker 1: nobody else who witnessed it but her. The social worker nodded,
16:03
Speaker 1: and so for she took her across the street to
16:05
Speaker 1: the neighbor's house where Amanda had been staying all morning. Now,
16:08
Speaker 1: for she didn't know if this little girl would be
16:10
Speaker 1: able to tell them anything at all. I mean, of course,
16:13
Speaker 1: she could be in complete shock. She's also two. And
16:16
Speaker 1: he also knew that even if she did tell them stuff,
16:19
Speaker 1: they wouldn't necessarily be reliable, because again she's two years
16:22
Speaker 1: old and she very likely is in shock. But regardless,
16:26
Speaker 1: for she knew he had to try. So he stood
16:28
Speaker 1: in the corner of the living room while the social
16:31
Speaker 1: worker sat down on the floor with Amanda and asked
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Speaker 1: her what she had seen the night before, and before
16:36
Speaker 1: she's surprise, the little girl looked up at the social
16:39
Speaker 1: worker and she jerked her little hand toward her neck
16:42
Speaker 1: in what looked very much like a stabbing motion, and then,
16:46
Speaker 1: in a quiet voice, she said her mother had fallen
16:49
Speaker 1: down and gone to sleep. Then the social worker asked
16:52
Speaker 1: her if anybody else had been there, and for she
16:55
Speaker 1: felt himself holding his breath waiting for Amanda to answer,
16:59
Speaker 1: And there was a moment of silence before Amanda said
17:03
Speaker 1: uncle Nick. A few hours later, chief, for she was
17:06
Speaker 1: still at the crime scene when two officers pulled up
17:09
Speaker 1: in a cruiser and took this grungy looking man out
17:12
Speaker 1: of the back seat and escorted him into the house.
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Speaker 1: This was not the Uncle Nick that Amanda had named.
17:18
Speaker 1: It was Amanda's own father, Dave Box, who had been
17:21
Speaker 1: in jail when his wife was murdered. Now, For she
17:24
Speaker 1: was absolutely planning to speak to this Uncle Nick, but
17:27
Speaker 1: first he wanted to gather as much information as possible
17:30
Speaker 1: about him. During Amanda's conversation with the social worker, she
17:34
Speaker 1: had said repeatedly that Uncle Nick had hurt mommy. But
17:38
Speaker 1: even though this two year old girl seemed very definitive
17:41
Speaker 1: about this, for she needed an adult perspective before he acted.
17:45
Speaker 1: A judge had let Dave Boggs out of jail early
17:48
Speaker 1: because of his wife's murderer, and for she had ensured
17:51
Speaker 1: that Dave was escorted to the crime scene so for
17:55
Speaker 1: she could speak to him before Dave got a chance
17:57
Speaker 1: to speak to anybody else. And now before she met
18:00
Speaker 1: Dave and the officers at the door and then guided
18:03
Speaker 1: them into the living room, where they sat Dave down
18:06
Speaker 1: on the couch. They filled him in on what had
18:08
Speaker 1: happened to his wife, but really before he could react
18:11
Speaker 1: to that, they also told him that they needed him
18:14
Speaker 1: to do a walk through of the house with them
18:16
Speaker 1: to try to identify what might have been stolen, which
18:19
Speaker 1: could help them figure out who did this. But first,
18:22
Speaker 1: for she said he had a very important question. He
18:25
Speaker 1: asked Dave, who is Uncle Nick? And at this Dave,
18:30
Speaker 1: who to this point had just looked completely shocked by
18:32
Speaker 1: what he was being told, began to look more confused,
18:36
Speaker 1: and he told Fores she that Uncle Nick was what
18:38
Speaker 1: his daughter called his second cousin. He said his real
18:41
Speaker 1: name was Richard Nicholas Robinson, and he had been helping
18:44
Speaker 1: Ronda out while Dave was in jail. Now, Dave said
18:47
Speaker 1: Nick had probably been at the house almost every day
18:49
Speaker 1: fixing one thing or another. But he said he didn't
18:52
Speaker 1: understand why for she was asking about him, because you know,
18:55
Speaker 1: there's no way he would have hurt Ronda. I mean,
18:57
Speaker 1: he really looked out for her and also for Amanda.
19:00
Speaker 1: But for now, for she was not going to answer
19:02
Speaker 1: that question. Dave's information was enough for him to go outside,
19:06
Speaker 1: get on his radio and broadcast a bulletin asking all
19:10
Speaker 1: police departments in the area to be on the lookout
19:12
Speaker 1: for Nick Robinson. Less than an hour later, a police
19:18
Speaker 1: cruiser found Nick Robbinson's SUV on State Route thirty seven,
19:22
Speaker 1: just outside of Patascola, and they pulled him over and
19:25
Speaker 1: they ordered him out of the vehicle, and as soon
19:27
Speaker 1: as he was out, they pushed him to the ground
19:29
Speaker 1: with a gun to the back of his head and
19:31
Speaker 1: cuffed him. And as they did this, they noticed a
19:34
Speaker 1: dark spot on Nick's baseball cap that looked a lot
19:37
Speaker 1: like blood. As they put Nick in the back of
19:39
Speaker 1: the cruiser, he kept asking them what was going on,
19:42
Speaker 1: but they didn't tell him. Instead, they searched his suv
19:46
Speaker 1: and there was cardboard laid out in the back with
19:49
Speaker 1: reddish brown smears all over it, which also appeared to
19:52
Speaker 1: be blood. And then when the officers got back into
19:55
Speaker 1: their cruiser, Nick asked them, is this about Ronda. By
20:00
Speaker 1: the time this arrest happened, Chief Forshey was at Nick
20:03
Speaker 1: Robinson's house questioning his wife, Debbie, so while he did that,
20:08
Speaker 1: he dispatched one of his best and only detectives, Bruce Brooks,
20:13
Speaker 1: to go down to police headquarters to handle Nick's interrogation.
20:16
Speaker 1: When Detective Brooks walked into the interview room, immediately he
20:19
Speaker 1: could see that Nick, who was resting his head in
20:22
Speaker 1: his hands, looked very pale and nauseous. When he asked
20:25
Speaker 1: him if he was okay, Nick said he was just
20:28
Speaker 1: hung over from a long night of drinking. He said
20:30
Speaker 1: he had been at a bar in Columbus until around
20:32
Speaker 1: ten thirty pm, and then he had gone to another
20:35
Speaker 1: bar in Lancaster, which was a town nearby where he lived,
20:38
Speaker 1: and then he had finally come home around one thirty
20:40
Speaker 1: am and passed out on his couch. Nick swore he
20:43
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about what happened to Ronda, and only
20:46
Speaker 1: found out she was dead when he saw it on
20:48
Speaker 1: the news. And as for the blood the police found
20:50
Speaker 1: in his suv, he said it was just animal blood
20:53
Speaker 1: from a hunting trip. But Brooks was not buying this
20:56
Speaker 1: because he had heard Amanda, Ronda's daughter say, uncle, Nick,
21:00
Speaker 1: Hurt's mom. And while, of course, you know, you can't
21:03
Speaker 1: take a two year old's testimony as absolutely reliable, but
21:07
Speaker 1: when she had said it, she said it very definitively
21:10
Speaker 1: and even gestured at her neck like she was stabbing herself.
21:13
Speaker 1: And Ronda was found stabbed to death. So he asked Nick,
21:17
Speaker 1: you know, if his alibi essentially was that he was
21:19
Speaker 1: too drunk to have committed this murder, well then how
21:22
Speaker 1: could he be sure, you know, given he was too
21:24
Speaker 1: drunk that he hadn't killed Ronda in an alcohol fueled blackout,
21:28
Speaker 1: you know, if he can't remember, you know, it's just
21:31
Speaker 1: as likely that he could have done it. But Nick
21:33
Speaker 1: just shook his head and said no, and no seemed
21:36
Speaker 1: to be Nick's answer to just about every question Brooks
21:39
Speaker 1: asked him, and eventually the detective got frustrated, you know,
21:42
Speaker 1: because basically everything he asked Nick, he denied, and so
21:46
Speaker 1: eventually he told Nick that Ronda's daughter had seen the
21:49
Speaker 1: whole thing, and he told him to imagine that little
21:52
Speaker 1: girl on the witness stand having some defense lawyer poke
21:55
Speaker 1: and brought her about the most traumatic event she had
21:58
Speaker 1: ever experienced of her own mother. And when he said that,
22:03
Speaker 1: a crack seemed to appear in Nick's sort of outward
22:05
Speaker 1: demeanor of denial, like, clearly he saw how awful this
22:08
Speaker 1: thing really was. And then finally, a little after midnight,
22:12
Speaker 1: so six hours into this interrogation, Nick just agreed to
22:16
Speaker 1: take a lie detector test, and when the results came back,
22:19
Speaker 1: it showed very clearly that Nick had failed. He had lied.
22:23
Speaker 1: But instead of confessing at this point, Nick dug in
22:26
Speaker 1: and swore up and down that he really was innocent.
22:29
Speaker 1: So Brooks pulled out the last threat he could think of,
22:33
Speaker 1: which was that if Nick didn't confess now, he could
22:36
Speaker 1: be looking at the death penalty. And at that point
22:38
Speaker 1: it was very clear Nick cracked like that absolutely affected him.
22:44
Speaker 1: And so after a long silence following this this threat
22:47
Speaker 1: of the death penalty, Nick said that, you know, maybe
22:50
Speaker 1: he did have something to do with what happened, but
22:53
Speaker 1: he just couldn't remember it. From there on, Brooks kept
22:57
Speaker 1: on pushing and pushing until around five am, when Nick
23:01
Speaker 1: finally completely broke down and confessed to the murder. He
23:05
Speaker 1: said he had gone to Ronda's house in between the
23:07
Speaker 1: two bars that he had visited, and he tried to
23:09
Speaker 1: kiss her. She pulled away and she grabbed a knife,
23:12
Speaker 1: and when Nick tried to take the knife from her,
23:15
Speaker 1: he said he accidentally stabbed her. As the sun came up,
23:19
Speaker 1: officers drove Nick to the Licking County jail and officially
23:22
Speaker 1: booked him for Rhonda's murder. Later that morning, Chief for
23:35
Speaker 1: She stood in front of a group of reporters outside
23:38
Speaker 1: the police station and praised his officers for catching Ronda
23:41
Speaker 1: Boggs's killer and getting a confession in less than twenty
23:44
Speaker 1: four hours. But later that week, Detective Brooks was in
23:47
Speaker 1: his office wrapping up paperwork when a secretary stuck her
23:50
Speaker 1: head in the door and said there was somebody on
23:53
Speaker 1: the phone for him. Brooks picked it up, and the
23:56
Speaker 1: man on the other end of the line introduced himself
23:58
Speaker 1: as Bob Cisco, and he said he was the bandmate
24:01
Speaker 1: of Ronda's husband, Dave Boggs, and he did not think
24:04
Speaker 1: Nick was guilty of this murder. Bob said On the
24:07
Speaker 1: evening that Ronda was killed, another one of their former bandmates,
24:11
Speaker 1: a guy named Chris Williams, had stopped by his house,
24:14
Speaker 1: and Chris had seemed very nervous and sort of keyed up.
24:17
Speaker 1: He was pacing around and smoking cigarette after cigarette, and
24:21
Speaker 1: it just seemed like he was very mentally preoccupied with something. Now,
24:24
Speaker 1: Bob said Chris had actually, in the past already robbed
24:29
Speaker 1: Ronda and Dave's house. He had stolen a bunch of
24:32
Speaker 1: band equipment and sold it for drug money. And so
24:35
Speaker 1: when Bob Cisco saw on the news that Ronda was
24:38
Speaker 1: dead and her house appeared to have been robbed, he
24:41
Speaker 1: couldn't shake this feeling that Chris might have been involved.
24:45
Speaker 1: It just seemed too similar to be a coincidence. Brooks
24:48
Speaker 1: wrote all this down and thanked Bob for the information,
24:51
Speaker 1: but he wasn't sure how seriously to take this tip
24:54
Speaker 1: since they already had a confession from their primary suspect.
24:58
Speaker 1: But he spoke to Forshey, and Chief decided to go
25:01
Speaker 1: ahead and reinterview Ronda's two year old daughter just to
25:03
Speaker 1: cover their bases A few days later, So, about two
25:07
Speaker 1: weeks after Randa's murder, Chief for she waited by the
25:10
Speaker 1: phone in his office, anxiously watching the clock. He knew
25:14
Speaker 1: that the social worker who had spoken to a man
25:16
Speaker 1: of the first time was in the process of interviewing
25:19
Speaker 1: her a second time, and any minute now, this social
25:22
Speaker 1: worker should be calling him with an update now, for
25:25
Speaker 1: she was hopeful that the little girl would just repeat
25:27
Speaker 1: the same story that she had told on the day
25:30
Speaker 1: of her mother's murder. But when his phone finally rang
25:34
Speaker 1: and four she picked it up, he learned that that
25:36
Speaker 1: is not what happened. The social worker said that this time,
25:40
Speaker 1: when she asked Amanda who she saw on the night
25:42
Speaker 1: of the murder, she did not say anything about Uncle Nick. Instead,
25:47
Speaker 1: she said, Bob did it. When for she heard this,
25:51
Speaker 1: he immediately got a pretty anxious feeling. He'd been afraid
25:54
Speaker 1: from the beginning that a toddler was not a reliable
25:57
Speaker 1: eyewitness and she could just be throwing out whatever names
26:00
Speaker 1: popped into her head. But he also thought it was
26:03
Speaker 1: a very strange coincidence that, of all the people she
26:06
Speaker 1: could have named other than Uncle Nick, she said Bob,
26:10
Speaker 1: the same guy who had just called the station trying to,
26:13
Speaker 1: you know, cast blame onto some other guy. The police
26:15
Speaker 1: had never even heard of something just felt off. But
26:19
Speaker 1: as for she thought about it, he decided, you know,
26:22
Speaker 1: it didn't really change anything. Nick had already confessed, like
26:25
Speaker 1: he said, he did this, so they didn't really need
26:28
Speaker 1: Amanda as a witness to make the charges against Nick. Stick.
26:33
Speaker 1: Five days later, a grand jury officially indicted Nick on
26:36
Speaker 1: murder charges, and to the huge surprise of investigators, Nick
26:40
Speaker 1: pled not guilty. So he was now claiming he had
26:44
Speaker 1: given a false confession and that he was not run
26:47
Speaker 1: to Boggs's killer. About seven months later, in December of
26:55
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, a man named Matt Sower stepped
26:59
Speaker 1: into a bar called Mary Melodies in Columbus, Ohio. He
27:03
Speaker 1: went up to the counter and pulled a Manila folder
27:05
Speaker 1: out of his messenger bag, and he asked the bartender
27:08
Speaker 1: if he recognized the man in the photograph inside. The
27:11
Speaker 1: bartender looked down at the photo for a second and
27:13
Speaker 1: then looked back up at Sour and nodded and said, yes,
27:16
Speaker 1: that's Nick Robinson. He was here eight months ago on
27:20
Speaker 1: the night of the murder. And I've been waiting for
27:23
Speaker 1: you guys to come here and talk to me about it,
27:25
Speaker 1: because I know he was here on the night of
27:27
Speaker 1: the murder. Sour was kind of caught off guard by
27:30
Speaker 1: how sure the bartender was, and so he asked them, like,
27:33
Speaker 1: how can you be so sure it was him? And
27:35
Speaker 1: how do you know he was here on the night
27:37
Speaker 1: of the murder? How can you remember that? But the
27:39
Speaker 1: bartender had a quick answer. He said, the reason he
27:42
Speaker 1: remembered Nick is he had been wearing this very unique,
27:46
Speaker 1: unforgettable T shirt that night with this obscene joke on
27:49
Speaker 1: it about women's bodies, so he just remembered it. Bartender
27:52
Speaker 1: said Nick had stayed there on the night of the
27:54
Speaker 1: murder until ten fifteen or maybe ten thirty. The bartender
27:58
Speaker 1: was absolutely certain, and so again the bartender said to Sour, like,
28:02
Speaker 1: I'm just pretty surprised it took this long for you
28:05
Speaker 1: all to come here and confirm his whereabouts, Like I've
28:08
Speaker 1: known this. Sower closed his folder and thanked the bartender
28:12
Speaker 1: and then just set his business card down on the counter,
28:15
Speaker 1: And when the bartender picked it up, he looked surprised
28:18
Speaker 1: because Matt Sower was not actually a police officer. He
28:21
Speaker 1: was a private investigator, and he'd been hired by Nick
28:25
Speaker 1: Robinson to clear his name. Sour knew this was going
28:29
Speaker 1: to be a tough job because Nick had already confessed
28:32
Speaker 1: to Ronda Boggs's murder, but Sower was hoping that this
28:35
Speaker 1: interview with the bartender would help him poke a massive
28:38
Speaker 1: hole in the case against him. And so now that
28:40
Speaker 1: Sower had gotten this testimony from the bartender that did
28:43
Speaker 1: appear to poke this hole in the case, Sower left
28:46
Speaker 1: the bar, got in his car and drove to the
28:49
Speaker 1: second bar Nick had claimed to be at on the
28:51
Speaker 1: night of Ronda's murder. It was called the Fairview Inn
28:54
Speaker 1: in Lancaster. And when he got there, he showed that
28:57
Speaker 1: staff the same photo, and just like the first tender,
29:01
Speaker 1: they all remembered Nick as well. They said he was
29:03
Speaker 1: there on the night of April twenty eighth, the night
29:05
Speaker 1: of the murder, and they remembered because of his distinctive
29:09
Speaker 1: T shirt. And so now sower knew he was onto
29:12
Speaker 1: something because the prosecution's case said that Nick had left
29:16
Speaker 1: Mary Melody's bar, that first bar Sour had gone to,
29:19
Speaker 1: driven to Ronda's house and killed her, and then went
29:23
Speaker 1: to this bar, the fair View In. But the staff
29:26
Speaker 1: at both bars said Nick was wearing this same distinctive
29:30
Speaker 1: T shirt, and Sower knew that if Nick had stabbed
29:34
Speaker 1: Ronda to death in between these two bars, wouldn't that
29:37
Speaker 1: shirt have been covered in blood? And wouldn't you know,
29:40
Speaker 1: the fair View In staff have not just remembered that
29:43
Speaker 1: it was this distinctive shirt, but the distinctive shirt that
29:46
Speaker 1: had blood all over it like that would also be
29:48
Speaker 1: a detail they would recall, But they didn't. They just
29:51
Speaker 1: said he had that shirt on nothing else. A few
29:54
Speaker 1: days later, Sower drove back to Marry Melody's bar, but
29:58
Speaker 1: this time he didn't go inside. Instead, he just pulled
30:01
Speaker 1: his car into their parking lot and started his stopwatch.
30:04
Speaker 1: And then once it was going he pulled out of
30:06
Speaker 1: the parking lot, turned down the street and drove all
30:09
Speaker 1: the way to Fairview In. And when he reached their
30:12
Speaker 1: parking lot, he checked a stopwatch and the drive had taken,
30:15
Speaker 1: you know, about forty five minutes. The prosecution's case against
30:19
Speaker 1: Nick had him leaving Mary Melody's bar, murdering Ronda, and
30:24
Speaker 1: driving all the way to the Fairview all within thirty
30:27
Speaker 1: to forty five minutes. But Sowers's experiment here with his
30:31
Speaker 1: stopwatch proved there was simply no way for Nick to
30:35
Speaker 1: have driven all the way to Ronda's house, committed the
30:37
Speaker 1: murder and then made it back to the Fairview in
30:40
Speaker 1: in that same window of time, it just wasn't possible,
30:43
Speaker 1: which meant Nick's alibi was airtight and he could not
30:48
Speaker 1: have been the killer. Now Sower just had to figure
30:51
Speaker 1: out who actually was Matt. Sower showed the evidence he
30:56
Speaker 1: had found to Neix's defense attorney, who then brought that
30:59
Speaker 1: evidence to the job in the case, and they also
31:02
Speaker 1: asked the judge for an order to test a key
31:04
Speaker 1: piece of evidence that the potaskeal of police had never
31:07
Speaker 1: even sent to the crime lab, the murder weapon. And
31:11
Speaker 1: so the judge agreed to test the knife, and a
31:13
Speaker 1: month later, in January of two thousand and three, the
31:16
Speaker 1: evidence came back from the lab and they discovered there
31:19
Speaker 1: was DNA on the knife from someone other than Ronda.
31:23
Speaker 1: Investigators were not sure who the DNA belonged to, because
31:26
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and three, it isn't like you
31:28
Speaker 1: had this huge bank to test it against. You basically
31:31
Speaker 1: had to test DNA one to one. But they were
31:34
Speaker 1: able to do that with Nick's DNA and were able
31:37
Speaker 1: to confirm that it was not his DNA on the
31:40
Speaker 1: murder weapon. And so this cast serious doubt on Nick
31:44
Speaker 1: as a suspect, but it wasn't enough to clear his name,
31:47
Speaker 1: not until Sour could figure out who that other set
31:50
Speaker 1: of DNA belonged to. And so Sour dug through the
31:53
Speaker 1: police files on the case, and he realized there were
31:56
Speaker 1: a lot of potential suspects the police had never even
31:59
Speaker 1: bothered to look at closely or at all. There was
32:03
Speaker 1: Ronda's soon to be ex husband, Dave, who'd been flagged
32:06
Speaker 1: by Ronda's sister on day one. You know, Dave obviously
32:08
Speaker 1: could not have committed the murder himself because he was
32:11
Speaker 1: in jail, but you know, like the sister suggested, it's
32:15
Speaker 1: possible he could have recruited somebody else to do it.
32:17
Speaker 1: And so all of Dave's friends, his acquaintances, the people
32:21
Speaker 1: he met in jail, potentially were suspects too. There was
32:24
Speaker 1: also Chris Williams, the former bandmate who had previously robbed
32:28
Speaker 1: Dave and Ronda's house once before and sold Dave's guitars
32:32
Speaker 1: for drug money. And of course there was Bob Cisco,
32:35
Speaker 1: the man who had actually called in the tip about Chris,
32:38
Speaker 1: And at one point, Ronda's own daughter had said Bob
32:42
Speaker 1: had been in the house during the murder, and so
32:45
Speaker 1: maybe that was Bob Cisco. Any of those people could
32:48
Speaker 1: have been Ronda's killer, but since there was so little
32:51
Speaker 1: investigation done, sour was essentially starting over from square one,
32:55
Speaker 1: almost nine months after the crime. The killer could even
32:59
Speaker 1: be somebody the police never even knew about, because they
33:02
Speaker 1: had never really even bothered to focus on anybody but Nick,
33:06
Speaker 1: and so with little concrete to go off of, Sower
33:09
Speaker 1: decided that before he began investigating eighty seven different people,
33:14
Speaker 1: he would start with the sort of one concrete thing
33:17
Speaker 1: he had, which is they knew what items had been
33:20
Speaker 1: taken from Ronda's house during the murder, and so what
33:23
Speaker 1: he decided he would do is try to track down
33:26
Speaker 1: those items and hopefully they would lead him to the
33:29
Speaker 1: actual killer. A few days later, Sower stepped into a
33:37
Speaker 1: pawn shop in Columbus and walked slowly down the aisle,
33:40
Speaker 1: scanning the shelves for some of the items that he
33:43
Speaker 1: knew had been taken from Ronda and Dave's house. But
33:47
Speaker 1: like all the other pawn shops he'd been to that day,
33:49
Speaker 1: he hadn't found anything. And when he got to the
33:51
Speaker 1: end of this aisle. He knew this pawn shop as well,
33:54
Speaker 1: did not have any of these missing items. Now, it
33:57
Speaker 1: was entirely possible that the items that had been stolen
34:00
Speaker 1: had not been pawned off yet, or maybe they had
34:02
Speaker 1: been pawned off in some other part of the country
34:05
Speaker 1: or something, but it just seemed kind of likely that
34:07
Speaker 1: if they had been pawned they might be sort of
34:09
Speaker 1: roughly in the area. But so far he had not
34:13
Speaker 1: found anything promising, and so after leaving this pawn shop
34:16
Speaker 1: and going to another and then another, and still not
34:19
Speaker 1: finding any of the stolen items, sour finally decided to
34:23
Speaker 1: call it a day and head back home. However, on
34:26
Speaker 1: his ride back home, Sower found himself stopped at a stoplight,
34:31
Speaker 1: and as he was idling there, he just happened to
34:33
Speaker 1: look out the window, and on the other side of
34:35
Speaker 1: the road he saw a Bureau of Motor Vehicles a DMV.
34:39
Speaker 1: And when he saw the DMV, it was like something
34:42
Speaker 1: kind of rattled loose in his mind. He remembered that
34:45
Speaker 1: one of the persons of interest on his list had
34:48
Speaker 1: been arrested for car theft about a week after Rhonda's murder,
34:52
Speaker 1: But according to the police files, that suspect owned a
34:56
Speaker 1: car of their own, a blue Cadillac. They need to
35:01
Speaker 1: steal another car if they already owned one, And so
35:04
Speaker 1: on a whim, Sour pulled into the parking lot of
35:07
Speaker 1: this DMB. He went inside and he went up to
35:10
Speaker 1: one of the clerks and he asked them to look
35:12
Speaker 1: into this particular blue Cadillac. He gave the clerk the
35:16
Speaker 1: license plate number, and he quickly found out that on
35:19
Speaker 1: April thirtieth, two thousand and two, so one day after
35:22
Speaker 1: Ronda's body had been found, that blue Cadillac had been
35:26
Speaker 1: sold to a woman in Columbus whose name was Letitia Gordon.
35:30
Speaker 1: And so Soyer left the DMV and drove straight to
35:33
Speaker 1: Letitia's house and he knocked on the door, and the
35:36
Speaker 1: woman who opened it looked a bit scared when he
35:38
Speaker 1: introduced himself as an investigator, but she also did not
35:41
Speaker 1: seem surprised. Latitia told Sour that she knew why he
35:45
Speaker 1: was there. It was because of the blue Cadillac that
35:47
Speaker 1: she had bought. She said that she had bought that
35:50
Speaker 1: car off a stranger right off the street, who had
35:52
Speaker 1: offered to sell it to her for just three hundred dollars,
35:55
Speaker 1: something she couldn't pass up. However, when she got home
35:59
Speaker 1: with this new car, she looked inside of it and
36:02
Speaker 1: she found there was all the stuff piled up in
36:04
Speaker 1: the back of the car, which included clothes, jewelry, and
36:07
Speaker 1: a purse with somebody's photo ID inside, and the name
36:11
Speaker 1: on that ID was Ronda Box. And so, with his
36:19
Speaker 1: suspicions now confirmed, Sour was finally able to reconstruct what
36:23
Speaker 1: really happened to Ronda Boggs on the night of April
36:26
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, two thousand and two. On that night, while
36:35
Speaker 1: Ronda Boggs was finishing up dinner with her two year
36:37
Speaker 1: old daughter, her killer was parking their blue Cadillac just
36:41
Speaker 1: down the block. They eventually got out and stormed over
36:44
Speaker 1: to Ronda's house in a total fury, with their heart
36:47
Speaker 1: pounding and their heads swimming, and they stomped up her
36:50
Speaker 1: driveway and they rang the doorbell, and when Ronda opened
36:53
Speaker 1: up the door, she looked confused and a bit scared
36:56
Speaker 1: to see this person. She asked them what they were
36:58
Speaker 1: doing there, but the killer just brushed past her and
37:01
Speaker 1: stormed into her house, into the kitchen and began digging
37:05
Speaker 1: through her purse right on the counter. Ronda tried to
37:08
Speaker 1: stop them, but when she put her hands on them,
37:10
Speaker 1: the killer, without any hesitation, grabbed a nearby steak knife
37:14
Speaker 1: and stabbed Ronda in the chest. Ronda she fell to
37:18
Speaker 1: the ground and tried to stand back up and tried
37:21
Speaker 1: to defend herself, but the killer was on top of her,
37:24
Speaker 1: stabbing her over and over and over again until Ronda
37:27
Speaker 1: was no longer moving. The killer at that point stood
37:30
Speaker 1: up and backed away from Ronda's body, which was now
37:33
Speaker 1: lying there in a pool of blood on the kitchen tile.
37:35
Speaker 1: And then they just proceeded to ransack the house and
37:38
Speaker 1: stole whatever money and valuables they could find. And then
37:41
Speaker 1: as they were about to leave, they saw a toddler
37:44
Speaker 1: just standing in the hallway watching them. The killer paid
37:47
Speaker 1: the child no mind and just hurried right past them
37:50
Speaker 1: out of the house, got back into their blue Cadillac,
37:53
Speaker 1: and spent the rest of the night on a massive
37:55
Speaker 1: drug bench. And then the next morning they sold that
37:58
Speaker 1: blue Cadillac to a woman in Columbus on the street,
38:01
Speaker 1: accidentally leaving Ronda's stolen purse, her id, and jewelry in
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Speaker 1: the back of that car. And nearly a year later,
38:09
Speaker 1: those items would lead investigators to the killer. The killer
38:13
Speaker 1: was Chris Williams, Dave Boggs's former bandmate, who had robbed
38:16
Speaker 1: him and Ronda once before. On the night of the murder,
38:21
Speaker 1: he was high on crack and needed money for his
38:23
Speaker 1: next hit, and Ronda unfortunately got in the way. Chris
38:27
Speaker 1: was charged with Ronda's murder, and on March twenty eight,
38:30
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, he was found guilty on all counts.
38:33
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to twenty years to life for Ronda's
38:36
Speaker 1: murder and a total of twenty eight years for aggravated robbery, burglary,
38:40
Speaker 1: and escaping from a halfway house. After Chris Williams was charged,
38:45
Speaker 1: all the charges against Nick Robinson were dropped. And for
38:48
Speaker 1: Nick Robinson this completely changed his life, not just because
38:52
Speaker 1: now he was free, but once he came back home,
38:56
Speaker 1: he stopped drinking, and he returned to work, and he
38:59
Speaker 1: sued the city of task A Love for three million
39:01
Speaker 1: dollars in damages. Thank you so much for watching. Let
39:13
Speaker 1: me know what you thought of today's episode in the comments,
39:15
Speaker 1: and remember, we have a whole playlist of true crime
39:18
Speaker 1: episodes ready for you to binge right now, so click
39:21
Speaker 1: here and give them a watch. All right, until next time,
39:24
Speaker 1: see ya,