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a late night street fight left one man
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dead and contradictory accounts of what
00:00:12
took place
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some said the victim was murdered others
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said it was self-defense
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it took a member of the wrestling hall
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of fame a blood spatter expert and
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forensic animation to reveal how a
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world-class athlete lost one of the most
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important fights of his life
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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[Music]
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san diego california is a mecca for both
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athletes and outdoor enthusiasts
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and it's where 25 year old dusty harlis
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settled after his successful college
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career as the aau national wrestling
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champion
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dusty was a wakeboard salesman which
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combined his passion for sports with his
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personality for sales
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he had so many friends he knew so many
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different groups of people
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all over san diego and everyone loved
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him he was just a great person like if
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he touched your life you were a lucky
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person
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dusty's stomach tomorrow he'll sit on
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the can for an hour oh no run five miles
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come back do a couple hundred push-ups
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[Music]
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just after midnight one saturday night
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dusty and his girlfriend sky flanders
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were heading home after an evening on
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the town
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we were just gonna walk to the liquor
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store to call a cab
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[Music]
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skye ran ahead of dusty seeking shelter
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from the rain
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[Music]
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a man in a car pulled up beside her
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he said something to the effect
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hey baby you want a ride
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[Music]
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and i said no i'm with someone like
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obviously i don't need a ride because
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i'm not alone
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he hadn't seen dusty right away
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[Music]
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dusty walked over to investigate
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he made a statement of the effect of hey
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that's my girlfriend you know what's
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going on here
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dusty went around to the driver's side
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words were exchanged there was an
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altercation
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[Music]
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by the time it was all over the car sped
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away leaving dusty lying on the ground
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bleeding to death
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i didn't know there was a weapon
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involved until then and
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i mean obviously when i saw
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the wound
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things you know started coming together
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i was hysterical
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why did you do this to dusty
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[Music]
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when paramedics arrived
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dusty had bled to death
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i just
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was in
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total disbelief i
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didn't want to hear what he was telling
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me i didn't want to believe it i didn't
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want to hear it i was like here lying to
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me and
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i was
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hitting the wall and freaking out and
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he had to take me outside i was being
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way too loud
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skye was able to provide the assailant's
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license plate number two uca167
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the car was registered to barbara
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gensler she told police her son david
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was using the car but she didn't know
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where he was
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twenty-five-year-old david gensler was a
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finance student at san diego state
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university
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he matched the general description sky
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had given to police about six feet tall
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thin with glasses
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three days later
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gensler turned himself in
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obviously he knew he stabbed someone but
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didn't know the extent of that wound
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when he learned that this person had
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died that's when he contacted an
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attorney
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gensler refused to tell police where the
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car was
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and he also refused to give them the
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clothes he wore that night and the knife
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what his story is i don't know he's
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never given us a statement
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gensler looked very studious he had the
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little glasses and there was a tall
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wanky guy that
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he didn't look like someone he would
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expect to get into a streetball much
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less kill someone
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but several eyewitnesses disagreed
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[Music]
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hundreds of friends turned out for dusty
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harlis's funeral
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he was a former wrestling champion and a
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world-class wakeboarder
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his friends went out into the pacific
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near his home and dropped wreaths of
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flowers on the water in his memory he
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knew
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so many people in san diego different
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groups of people in different areas and
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he had a lot of friends like a lot of
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people loved him
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if you knew dusty you
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were touched and you were lucky
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[Music]
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the autopsy revealed the cause of
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dusty's death was a single stab wound to
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his aorta the largest artery in the body
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just one stab wound and it went in four
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instances into the body
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and sliced the the aorta
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dusty's girlfriend skye flanders didn't
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see everything that happened
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but she was certain david gensler was a
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killer
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he looked kind of crazed he looked
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like a wild animal really he had like a
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crazy look in his eyes and
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got in his car and
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left
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so
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he didn't say anything
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[Music]
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eventually an eyewitness came forward
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his name was scott davis he said he was
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driving by and saw two men fighting and
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stopped to try to break it up
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scott davis was a first class petty
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officer with the navy who was
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moonlighting as a
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bouncer at a local bar
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and he drove up
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just as this was beginning
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and what he said is as he drove up he
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saw this beginning of a confrontation
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and he saw the defendant take a hard
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swing
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and hit
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dusty on the left side of his head and
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that dusty went down on his back that
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the defendant jumped on top of him
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straddled him pulled out a knife with
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his right hand and stabbed him once in
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the chest
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[Music]
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davis said he fled the scene because
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gensler had threatened him too
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but david gensler's version of events
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was significantly different
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he said dusty harliss instigated the
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fight by pulling him out of his car and
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wrestled him face down to the ground
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he also said that scott davis the
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so-called witness was in fact an active
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participant
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gensler insisted davis kicked him
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repeatedly while dusty had him pinned
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down but he managed to get a knife out
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of his pocket to defend himself
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he's thinking he's getting his ass
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kicked and he's in fear of his life and
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he just blindly
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reaches back and stabs him is it likely
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or unlikely i really can't say
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and that is what
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made the one stab wound into the pretty
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much the center of the chest of dusting
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a week after dusty's death police found
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gensler's car parked in a neighborhood
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on the other side of the city
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we were able to get dna from the
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steering wheel from the gear shift from
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the turn signal and that dna that blood
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came back and matched that of the victim
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dusty harless
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this tied gensler to the killing
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a short time later after hearing about
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the incident in the media one of
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gensler's friends turned over a knife
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which she said belonged to gensler
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it was consistent with the size of the
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wound it was basically a four inch
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single bladed knife and it was
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consistent with the depth of the wound
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and other dimensions of the wound
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and the friend also turned over
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a bloody shirt
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tests revealed the blood on the shirt
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was that of the victim dusty harless
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the blood was on the front of the shirt
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inconsistent with gensler's version of
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the incident
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had gensler been underneath dusty on his
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stomach when he stabbed him
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dusty's blood would have been on the
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back of gensler's shirt not the front
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the fact that the majority of the blood
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is the front it seems a more likely
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theory that it was a front face-to-face
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confrontation based on the facts of the
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case based on the eyewitnesses based on
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the periphery witnesses
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after the fact i felt we had a murder
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case
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here
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i couldn't believe it actually
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i actually took another man's life
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i only thought i got the guy in the
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shoulder i didn't know
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i didn't know he's gonna die
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david gensler was convicted of
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second-degree murder in the death of
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dusty harless
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he was sentenced to 20 years to life in
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prison
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which in california means life and
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people don't get parole when they have
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indeterminate sentences like that
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while in prison
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gensler continued to maintain he had
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acted in self-defense
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and he hoped that one day
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he would get a second chance to prove
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his innocence
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david genzler couldn't understand how a
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jury concluded he beat a national
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wrestling champion then stabbed him in
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the chest without provocation
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gensler appealed his conviction arguing
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he was denied his choice of counsel
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the defendant's initial attorney jerry
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blank
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was
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ruled not to be able to represent him
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because of some technical
00:10:50
issues the court of appeals said that
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that denied mr gensler his right to the
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council of his choice and reverse it on
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that ground
00:11:00
in preparing for the second trial
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gensler's new defense team found
00:11:04
something in dusty hollis's background
00:11:07
that made gensler's claim of
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self-defense more believable
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numerous witnesses came forward to say
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dusty hollis had a reputation for
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starting fights
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they brought some people in that said my
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son was a street brawler
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i don't know how they found him but they
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did find some people that weren't really
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in you know a dusty fan
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in addition
00:11:32
toxicology tests showed dusty was
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legally intoxicated at the time of his
00:11:38
death with a .12 blood alcohol level
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there were also traces of marijuana in
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his system
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and the defense team discovered that sky
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flanders originally gave police a
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completely different version of events
00:11:54
from what she testified to at trial
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[Music]
00:12:06
sky flanders is interesting she told
00:12:07
police a few hours later that she saw
00:12:10
dusty when some kind of a wrestling hole
00:12:13
holding gensler and throwing him
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but then she didn't see a lot else until
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she saw him bleeding
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later she changed that story on the
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stand in the first trial and
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and testified that it was
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gensler who was the complete aggressor
00:12:28
coming out after
00:12:30
skye also admitted that dusty instigated
00:12:33
more than his share of fights
00:12:36
sky flanders did admit that she had
00:12:37
committed perjury that she had in fact
00:12:39
seen dusty harless
00:12:41
in one brawl that she had witnessed
00:12:43
after she had been insulted in a bar
00:12:44
he'd taken the guy out and beaten him
00:12:47
beating the bad down in the alley
00:12:49
and that she had heard about several
00:12:51
other fights where he was always
00:12:53
pretty much the winner and he was a good
00:12:55
fighter apparently
00:12:57
it was now
00:12:58
coming out that i
00:13:00
had not been completely truthful on my
00:13:03
original testimonies and
00:13:05
the reason
00:13:07
i had said that is because i didn't want
00:13:09
to feed the defense any information that
00:13:13
they would use against dusty in the case
00:13:16
from the beginning david gensler
00:13:18
described in specific detail how dusty
00:13:21
held him to the ground
00:13:24
to see if this was possible the defense
00:13:27
consulted ned blass
00:13:29
a two-time national collegiate wrestling
00:13:32
champion and member of the wrestling
00:13:34
hall of fame
00:13:36
blast said that gensler's description
00:13:39
was consistent with the classic
00:13:40
technique every wrestler is taught and
00:13:43
i'm taking the position of
00:13:45
mr gensler mr harlis over here
00:13:48
and i'm probably not wanting to fight as
00:13:50
i back up he'll attack my arm
00:13:52
turn me up i'm going to go to my face
00:13:54
because i don't want to land on the back
00:13:55
of my head
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drives my head down and keeps me
00:13:58
positioned i can't get up
00:14:00
he pulls my head back i realized i have
00:14:02
a knife in my belt i'm taking the knife
00:14:04
out
00:14:04
plenty of room to take it loose and stab
00:14:06
wherever i can stab
00:14:09
prosecutors scoffed at this notion as
00:14:11
did dusty's family
00:14:14
david ginsler
00:14:15
would have us believe that
00:14:17
he was laying face down on the ground
00:14:19
and dusty was sitting on his back
00:14:22
and that david ginsler actually stabbed
00:14:24
dusty like this up over the back of his
00:14:27
head
00:14:28
and stabbed him in the chest while he
00:14:31
was sitting on his back i mean there's
00:14:32
just so many things that don't wash here
00:14:35
but if genzler was telling the truth
00:14:38
why was the blood all over the front of
00:14:41
his shirt and not the back
00:14:48
david gensler spent six years in prison
00:14:51
for the murder of wrestler dusty harless
00:14:54
but he eagerly awaited his new trial
00:14:58
his hopes were raised when dusty's
00:15:00
girlfriend sky flanders changed her
00:15:04
story
00:15:05
and now admitted that dusty had been in
00:15:08
several previous fights with others
00:15:10
while they were out
00:15:13
as both sides prepared for the second
00:15:15
trial
00:15:16
they each had very different
00:15:18
explanations for how dusty's blood got
00:15:21
onto gensler's shirt
00:15:23
we have a blood spatter
00:15:25
interpretation expert look at it from
00:15:27
our crime lab
00:15:28
the defense hires a blood spatter
00:15:31
interpretation expert to look at it from
00:15:33
their end
00:15:34
and
00:15:35
not surprising at all their opinions are
00:15:38
diametrically opposed
00:15:41
the shirt had a large stain on the right
00:15:43
front shoulder
00:15:46
since dusty's aorta had been severed
00:15:48
both defense and prosecution experts
00:15:51
agreed the blood would have been
00:15:53
spurting from the wound in the same
00:15:55
cadence as his heartbeat
00:15:58
you now have a victim that is bleeding
00:16:00
and spurting with the maximum blood
00:16:02
output that could be
00:16:03
under stress 20 to 30 liters of blood
00:16:06
per minute are going to be coming out of
00:16:08
this wound either in the body or
00:16:10
spurting out the body
00:16:12
this meant that the blood flow
00:16:15
wasn't continuous
00:16:17
with an aortic wound blood doesn't
00:16:18
generally spill out it spurts out or
00:16:21
sprays out because of the pressure under
00:16:23
the aorta
00:16:25
defense experts believe this would have
00:16:27
given gensler enough time to rotate his
00:16:30
torso to face dusty as the blood spurted
00:16:34
from the wound
00:16:36
but gensler's attorney had to find some
00:16:38
way to show the jury how this could have
00:16:42
happened
00:16:43
and for that
00:16:45
he turned to the new field of forensic
00:16:48
animation forensic animation has a
00:16:51
specific application within the court
00:16:53
system and those animations have to
00:16:58
be conformed to the rules of the court
00:17:01
and what are expected in terms of
00:17:04
rules of evidence
00:17:06
there's a videotape made with david
00:17:08
ginsler and i think it was the attorney
00:17:10
who
00:17:11
played the role of dusty harless
00:17:16
and we videotaped that
00:17:18
from an angle that we were going to do
00:17:19
the animation from so i could use as
00:17:22
reference
00:17:23
to create the animation and create the
00:17:25
poses to get as accurate as possible
00:17:28
the computer takes several of these key
00:17:30
frames and then calculates the most
00:17:33
likely way the bodies would move from
00:17:35
one key position to another
00:17:38
it's called pose to pose animation which
00:17:40
was developed in the 30s by disney
00:17:43
where they would make a pose and then
00:17:46
you draw the next major pose
00:17:48
and then you fill in in between later
00:17:52
a layer called a texture map was then
00:17:55
created to show the movement of the
00:17:57
blood to gensler's shirt we wanted the
00:18:00
eye to focus on
00:18:02
this almost in a clinical
00:18:05
frame of mind rather than an emotional
00:18:07
frame of mind
00:18:09
a frame by frame sequence was created
00:18:11
corroborating gensler's story by showing
00:18:15
how the blood got on his shirt
00:18:19
in august of 2000
00:18:21
six years after dusty harlis's death
00:18:24
david gensler went on trial a second
00:18:27
time for murder
00:18:29
the defense presented a much different
00:18:31
account of the incident than the
00:18:33
prosecution did
00:18:38
the defense said gensler innocently
00:18:40
offered sky flanders a ride because he
00:18:42
thought she was alone
00:18:44
and the toxicology reports prove
00:18:47
dusty harlis was intoxicated
00:18:52
gensler said dusty pulled him out of the
00:18:54
car and in short order pinned him to the
00:18:56
ground
00:19:00
and that the witness scott davis helped
00:19:02
dusty by kicking gensler while he was
00:19:05
pinned
00:19:10
gensler says the fight was two against
00:19:13
one and that he pulled the knife from
00:19:15
his pocket stabbed blindly behind him
00:19:18
and quickly turned around so that the
00:19:20
blood hit the front of his shirt
00:19:23
scott davis admitted leaving the scene
00:19:26
of the incident but strongly denies
00:19:28
attacking gensler
00:19:31
[Music]
00:19:36
this interpretation of the forensic
00:19:38
evidence the forensic animation and
00:19:41
testimony of a hall of fame wrestling
00:19:44
coach resulted
00:19:45
in a very different conclusion
00:19:49
david gensler was found guilty of the
00:19:51
much lesser charge of involuntary
00:19:54
manslaughter
00:19:56
his sentence was reduced to time served
00:19:59
and he was released from prison
00:20:01
his life could never be ruined now he's
00:20:03
a free man i don't know what he's doing
00:20:05
now but i understand he wanted to become
00:20:07
a lawyer
00:20:09
[Music]
00:20:11
the case shows the limits of what
00:20:13
answers science can provide
00:20:16
questions about exactly what happened
00:20:19
the night of dusty hollis death remain
00:20:22
most likely the main reason why there
00:20:24
was more forensic evidence than second
00:20:26
trial is because there was literally
00:20:28
years in between to prepare and to
00:20:31
really go ever go through everything
00:20:33
with a fine-tooth comb
00:20:36
and to present all evidence that you
00:20:38
possibly could i've learned that
00:20:40
in a fight in a physical fight
00:20:42
things don't go always according to plan
00:20:46
the guy who's supposed to win the fight
00:20:48
ends up losing anything can happen and i
00:20:50
think that's what happened in this case
00:20:53
exactly what happened
00:20:55
i don't think anybody will
00:20:56
really
00:20:58
know
00:20:59
except possibly the defendant
00:21:04
[Music]
00:21:13
[Music]
00:21:32
[Music]
00:21:41
you
