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on October 29th 2017 19-year-old college student Kaylee mandad arrived at a Texas
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hospital she was nearly naked bruised and not breathing her sometime boyfriend Mark Howton told doctors they'd taken
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ecstasy at a music festival and she passed out after consensual sex in his car her parents rushed to her side
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doctor came in and we asked what's the prognosis and he said there is none he said she's not coming out of this I'm
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telling you right now I'm sorry the medical examiner ruled that Kaylee had died from blunt force trauma to the face
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and to the head and Mark Howton is arrested at the first trial in 2019 the jury was unable to reach a verdict and a
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mistrial was declared before howerton's second trial in 2023 kayle's stepfather Lawrence baand and mother Allison steel
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made it their mission to get Justice for their daughter you became investigators
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we did yes I knew we needed to show what happened in that car the jury needed to
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know how it happened Allison a scientist and Lawrence a NASA engineer both got to
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work I spent hours and hours studying autopsy photos and I really fixated on one of the autopsy photos that showed an
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impact on kayle's head you know right in front of her ear there was a small dot above kayle's right ear she also had
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deep bruising above her left ear kayle's parents believe her bruises tell a story
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we believe that of all of the injuries the blows that he landed on her the Fatal one occurred when he reached from
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his driver's seat HIIT her in the left ear and drove her head into the window and onto the lock button of the car in
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fact in a recorded audio interview with police the day Kaye died howon admitted he had previously done just that did you
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ever push Kay's head up against the window um I pushed her and she hit the window one time that was over a week ago
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yes so in many respects it was like same song second verse they'd need proof to convince a jury kayle's parents headed
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to a used car lot where Allison posed in a car similar to the Mercedes Howton drove that night and I'd photographed
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her head in different positions while I'm holding the autopsy images trying to see if they match up with the door and
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it's a near perfect match Lawrence decided to go a step further by building a 3D model of his stepdaughter's head to
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bring them closer to having actual proof so then I loaded this 3D modeling program the first thing you can do is
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you can create a solid out of that 3D mesh and then and you can project an image onto it this gave me the
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confidence to go to the next step which was to seek out the Killer's car Howton sold the car in 2018 Lawrence Tracked
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Down the new owner and bought the car what' you think of that uh well this is new this is uh not something I've been
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uh accustomed to hearing uh in other cases show me what what you believe went down let's go up to the passenger side
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the car Kaye was fatally injured in is sitting in her parents' driveway Lawrence says driving it home was a
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haunting experience it's torturous um but it's also you you know she was showing us
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what happened you know she was guiding us to this car can you believe that he struck her
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when he did she came over to this knob her hit her head hit it now you notice when you push it down it doesn't go FL
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it doesn't go flat right this will not retract fully no matter how hard you hit it kayle's parents decided to commission
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a video to demonstrate their theory in court they went and found two actors a male and a female to to dress the parts
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they were um similar size similar weight if we did the Reconstruction ourselves it would be considered biased and
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probably thrown out or at least discredited so they hired a private investigator to produce the
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demonstration they didn't even look at it in case they were called to testify about it the following reenactment may
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be disturbing for some viewers the video shows three angles of what kayle's parents and their experts
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believe happened would showing a jury a video like this potentially help the prosecution's case
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if if it's allowed jurors are very visual it makes it easier for them it shows how it can happen and it answers a
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number of the questions that the jury had in the first trial