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a new 48 Hours investigation tells the story of one Louisiana family's nearly decade long search for justice in 2014 a
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young mother called Megan perah was found inside her own home shot to death her death was ruled a suicide initially
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and the case was closed but peris's family felt that investigation had been rushed so they took matters into their
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own hands and reviewed evidence from the case themselves lead National correspondent David begno on assignment
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for 48 hours has a preview on June 28th 2014 in the small town of Cottonport Louisiana Missy and Steve
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deot fac the unthinkable when they discovered their daughter Megan Pera in her own home with a gunshot wound to the
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head I wouldn't know how to tell you I've never felt like that before or since Missy a nurse practitioner tried
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to revive her daughter she was breathing just barely though Megan's husband Dustin showed up minutes later slipped
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in his wife wife's blood and also tried to save Megan but it was too late she was taken off of life support the next
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day her death was ruled a suicide but Steve deot was convinced there was Foul Play I knew something was wrong with
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this case from the start I knew she hadn't kill he eventually got his hands on more than 100 images taken at the
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shooting scene some of the photos revealed signs of a struggle says D Cody like this wine rack found behind a chair
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Megan's sister Betsy jeon says the blood spatter patterns just didn't look right
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to them we were on the computer researching and learning about ballistics about blood spatter Steve D
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cot says they kept finding more and more evidence they believe proved Megan was murdered but no one would listen the
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state shut you down oh yeah Sheriff shut you down right until a crime scene analyst discovered what he believed to
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be irrefutable physical evidence on the shorts Dustin was wearing that day evidence that the of oils Parish
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district attorney Charlie riddle presented to a grand jury on October 13th 2021 6 minutes after you present it
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to the Grand Jury they come back with a charge of second degree murder but it was not an open and shut
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case says riddle people thought we were just a grieving family and he just led us for 9
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years still leading [Music] us wow wow wow David begau joins us now David good to see you tough story here
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why was Megan's death initially anyway declared a suicide well Tony Megan was discovered in her own home she was alone
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and the doors were locked so it looked like a suicide at first and the night before she was found shot Megan was in a
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car accident she was driving by herself she had gone off the road not far from home and hit a tree Megan said she had
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just lost f Focus though it's not clear if she had ever tried to hit the brakes so when Megan was found shot the
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original detective on the case thought okay it's a suicide but he did very very little to investigate David cases like
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these um usually come up on obstacles what were some of the obstacles in this one well Nate you had state and local
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experts who had investigated and actually disagreed with what the family's expert found on Dustin shorts
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in fact they were planning on testifying for the fence now you're going to have to watch to find out what the resolution
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of the case was the way it ends the way the hour ends is quite stunning did they
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find help from anyone any surprises pop up yeah after pushing authorities for years without success Steve called an
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old high school friend who happened to be a retired FBI agent he and a second retired FBI agent actually agreed to
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help so they convinced the Cottonport Police Chief this is a tiny town in Central Louisiana they convinced him to
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deputize them so that they could then investigate in an official capacity they started interviewing Witnesses which was
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recorded on body cam by the way you're going to see that in our report and they in they actually interviewed Dustin
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Megan's husband wait until you see that interview hey David it's clear that this
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family uh just was relentless in their Pursuit and advocating to find out what happened to their daughter how did the
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family get those photos that that seem to prove really important well Jer Steve D Cody contacted the
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officer who actually took the photos Dave Blanchard and found out that Blanchard had never erased them from his
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camera in fact they were in a trunk he was just hiding them there not hiding them but keeping them there and
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Blanchard told us he saved them because he felt that something was kind of off a
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little suspicious in the case Steve deot asked for the photos but Blanchard said
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Hey listen I'm not authorized to give them to you you got to go get him from the district attorney so he asked the da
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he demanded the da give them to him and the da gave him the photo and that was a
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game changer wow all right David begno David thank you very much you can see David's
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full report the suspicious death of Megan perah on 48 hours tomorrow night at 109 Central right here on CBS and on
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Paramount Plus