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a wealthy american executive was found dead in his car in mexico it looked like an accident
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until a forensic anthropologist found evidence of a chilling tale of fraud and deceit
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] 34 year old madison rutherford had everything he was ambitious successful
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happily married and rich he worked as a financial advisor in connecticut with an uncanny ability to
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make money for his clients he also managed money for his friends like brigadier beck i thought since i am
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alone in this country i thought it might be wise if anything would happen to me i thought i should have him as my
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executor by all accounts madison rutherford and his wife reni lived lavishly and had expensive tastes
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so it wasn't unusual for madison to travel outside the united states pursuing his various interests
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madison rutherford and his wife had a penchant for various types of of animals including
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dogs and part of the reason for supposedly going to mexico was to obtain another exotic dog
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[Music] but a few days later mexican police found rutherford's car in a ravine near monterey
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it appeared that the car had swerved off the road and caught fire when they got there the car was burnt
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beyond recognition everything was gone and he opened up the driver door and found some bone fragments on the
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driver's side inside investigators found a medic alert pendant and a wrist watch
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on the back of the watch barely legible was the inscription to madison love reni
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also inside the car the charred remains of a human all that was left were some bones and
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teeth the cause of death was listed as total carbonization meaning that it was just disintegrated
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from the heat when rutherford's wife rene got the news she was devastated as i came into the house everybody was
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very long faces and sad and i said my goodness i thought what happened and this one person tells me that um
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there was something terrible happened last night max madison had an automobile accident and he got killed
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i thought this was just this was just awful you know my goodness how terrible fortuitously rennie said she could help
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investigators with the identification of her husband she proceeds to tell the insurance carriers that she has one of
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rutherford's teeth that was left over from some type of dental work the tooth was extremely helpful
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since its hard enamel shell often protects its inner core in a fire that core contains an individual's dna
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but one of the forensic scientists in mexico was suspicious particularly when he examined the items
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recovered from the car the clasp of the medical alert bracelet was found in the open position he
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thought that very odd if somebody had died and that bracelet was on them it would have been in the class
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position investigators wondered whether the open clasp was a clue or simply an unimportant detail
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[Music] although there was some inconsistencies in the accident scene the mexican authorities ruled that
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madison rutherford had burned to death in a car accident mexico wasn't pursuing this there was no
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complainant they had a a body and a tragic death and they've closed their case
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as a financial planner madison rutherford had planned for his family's future in the event of his
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death he had purchased an ample amount of life insurance rutherford had two separate policies
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with two separate companies he's doubly insured he's insured for seven million
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dollars four million from one company and three million from another company as a
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routine matter insurance companies like to make sure that a person who dies in a
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fire is in fact their client the tooth given to them by rutherford's wife could be used for dna comparison
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but it wasn't enough [Music] so they sent the charred remains from the accident to one of the most
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respected forensic anthropologists in the world dr william bass the best bone evidence was a small
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skull fragment and four teeth dr bass found something highly unusual about the skull fragment
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the top outside of the skull wasn't burned now i got a lot of problems with it
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if you're sitting in your car and it's on fire the top of your skull is going to burn
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it's going to burn up little pieces the size of a quarter now here's a situation in which this
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doesn't happen dr bass concluded there was only one way this could have happened
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the victim's head had to be on the floor of the car at the time of the fire this tells me then
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that this is a staged scene that this is not what happened in the normal crash of a car
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that this is a body that has been placed in there in a position that was not in before
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the skull fragment also provided clues about the victim's age the human skull has 28 different
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plate-like bones these bones come together in a process called fusion where they meet often looks like the
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stitching on clothes as a person grows older that stitching or fusion tends to disappear
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in this case it was almost non-existent it tells me that this is not a 34 year old individual
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that this is an individual maybe twice that certainly 50 plus because you don't
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normally get that much fusion in a 34 year old white male the teeth also told a story
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sometimes different races have different shaped teeth the ones recovered from the car had
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shovel-shaped incisors not something associated with a white or caucasian person
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these teeth had characteristics that are very specific to this is a japanese chinese or american indian
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characteristics these are what we call characteristics in addition the teeth had large unfilled cavities
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inconsistent with the wealthy man with access to the best in dental care dr bass informed the insurance companies
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of his findings i was told that the individual in his car was a 34 year old white male
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when i get through the analysis of the skeletal remains that's not what i see
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what is in that car is a 50 to 60 plus year old mexican peasant who has from a lower socioeconomic level
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obviously with a peasant but had done manual labor there were even more reasons to be
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skeptical and more evidence that the scene might have been staged insurance investigators look more
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closely at the medic alert pendant and the watch found in the ashes if the body had burned almost to ashes
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why did these items remain relatively intact and witnesses said they saw a bicycle on the back of rutherford's car
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earlier in the day but no bicycle was found at the accident site if it wasn't madison rutherford in the
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car who was it and where was madison rutherford forensic scientists were certain that
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madison rutherford was not the man killed in the car explosion in mexico the focus switched not so much from we
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need more proof of death we actually think he's alive and now we want to find out where
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the authorities weren't the only ones concerned his neighbor brigade beck had entrusted
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madison rutherford with her entire life savings about half a million dollars and she wanted to know where it was
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i was uncomfortable about the whole thing i said how is this going to play out where when do i get my money when do i
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get when do i have a clear picture of this whole thing brigado went to the rutherford's home
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and asked reni for answers she you know said um just i need to speak with you and
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just don't make a sound please don't make a sound don't say anything
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and i said what could what's what's happening so she leaned over kind of and
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she whispered he said madison is not dead i said what and i said what happened where is he
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and she said he's in hiding i just lost it i just thought this was just too much i just walked away after a
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few moments and i just cried i just i just broke down i mean this was too much for brigadier things soon got even
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stranger when madison rutherford showed up alive and well at her house this was all very bizarre
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and how could he do that and wouldn't he be afraid that he might get you know
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picked up but somebody might watch the house rutherford told brigada that his death
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had been staged for him by none other than the fbi he said that organized crime members
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were after him because he had refused to launder drug money he assured brigitte that her money was
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safe but instructed her to tell no one he was alive he asked me would you mind if i could
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spend a couple of weeks with you until i find know what i need to do next i said of course i mean the poor guy had
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to be hiding from the mob why wouldn't i help somebody without warning madison left brigade's
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home and she never heard from him again a few weeks later brigitte got another visit this time
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from the fbi their investigation into madison rutherford's financial dealings revealed
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he had withdrawn brigadier's entire life savings she was penniless the agent said there is no money and i
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thought maybe they made a mistake this cannot be and i realized i had nothing left he had dismantled
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everything little by little and i said my god what do i have in my pocket excuse me
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i had exactly five hundred dollars in my checking account [Music] investigators had rutherford's home
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under surveillance madison never appeared but they finally got a break a check of motor vehicles revealed that
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madison owned a car that was being driven by a businessman in massachusetts his name was thomas bay hamilton
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he works as a controller for a technology company it's a fairly small company
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in downtown boston as investigators were about to question thomas bay hamilton they got a call from mexican authorities
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they said they found a bag full of bloody clothes and dna tests concluded the blood was
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madison rutherford's [Music] one year after madison rutherford's disappearance
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mexican police found a bag full of bloody clothing near the site of his car fire
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the clothing showed numerous knife holes all over the chest area dna tests of that blood confirmed it
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belonged to madison rutherford but this time investigators didn't believe it
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they were convinced the man they were following in boston thomas bay hamilton was in fact
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madison rutherford stu robinson the agent who arrested him in boston has these fingerprints with
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him when thomas hamilton is arrested and we roll his fingerprints they're the same prince
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this is our army and this is madison rutherford the fbi searched his apartment and found
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books on how to change your identity and travel brochures on mexico and they found one item
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that appeared to tie up the case once and for all in the boston apartment we find um
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an actual to-do list it says goals for the year 1999-2000 the very top thing is collects seven
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million dollars from the insurance company so that was a pretty good clue we uh we kind of tied them together with just
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that one piece of paper right after he was arrested rutherford called his wife from prison
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this call may be recorded or monitored the first thing is we have to keep you from getting picked up for anything they
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think you did which you didn't okay you got to go somewhere where they don't know the address they'll be for
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you tomorrow morning they'll get it they'll get an arrest warrant by then
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what happens to everything i don't know let's do this piece by piece i know but we gotta get you out of here
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renny originally denied she had anything to do with the attempted fraud but when investigators showed her
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evidence that her husband was dating other women while living in boston reni changed her mind
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she was not happy she went through a range of emotions in a short period of time
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and ending with with anger with rennie's help prosecutors learned that they had been
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planning this crime for months while madison was in mexico he drove to a desolate graveyard in the
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mexican countryside and removed a body apparently he found a cemetery in mexico near to where the crash site was went in
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to an above ground tomb took off the top of a casket and took out the corpse out of the casket
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prosecutors believe he positioned his car with the body inside at the bottom of the ravine
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doused it with gasoline and started the fire when the flames subsided he threw in his
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medic alert bracelet and watch so they would survive the blaze and help identify the corpse
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he then took off on his bicycle rutherford returned to the united states and gave his wife the tooth he removed
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from the body so it could be used for possible dna testing according to his wife he walks in
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i believe with these things in a bag and says to her here's my seven million dollar tooth
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to this day no one knows whose bones were inside the car [Music] later when rutherford learned
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investigators were on to him he was forced to change his plans according to reni
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her husband got into the bathtub fully clothed and cut himself to make it appear that he had been
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stabbed then he returned to mexico to plant the evidence rutherford never realized that forensic
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anthropology would uncover the true position of the body in the car and that the bones would reveal the man's race
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and age madison rutherford thought of every detail but he never thought of the bone
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doctor investigators looking for a motive soon discovered that rutherford had gambled heavily in stocks
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and lost [Music] he saw himself as a financial guru and he tried to play the stock market as a
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day trader he lost a considerable amount of money in the 1995-1996 period and i think that he saw
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that faking his death and getting insurance proceeds was a way of recouping losses and providing himself
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with a nest egg for future investments investigators learned that rutherford used a number of aliases in the past all
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were presidential sounding names madison rutherford and now hamilton his real name was john sankey
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i thought it was ironic and quite humorous that he was arrested on election day on november 7th 2000. so he
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this man with all these presidential sounding names didn't get a chance to vote for the next president people think
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that the fbi doesn't have a sense of humor but i think this proves that we do
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[Music] when faced with the evidence against him madison rutherford pleaded guilty to
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fraud federal sentencing guidelines limit his sentence to five years his wife rennie was sentenced to 18
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months in prison for her part in the attempted fraud since rutherford had withdrawn half a
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million dollars from brigadobeck's accounts she has nothing left she confronted him during a telephone
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conversation while he was in prison can i ask you one question um [Applause] let's talk next week
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why next week only because i can't do anything that let's talk next week and go through
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stuff because you know i want to know a few things okay yeah let's talk next week
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okay let's talk next week he ruined my life he ruined my my security he couldn't care less
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my my wonderful friend heard and i turned into a monster to me and i hope that anybody that would find
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themselves in the same or similar situation be careful with so-called friends no criminal charges could be brought
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against rutherford for embezzlement since brigade had given him power of attorney
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for investigators rutherford was clever but clearly no match for forensic science
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this is one of the better cases that we have been able to solve from the use of science and we're able to show
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that the actual events do not fit the story that we were told there's an old adage that goes something
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like you're only as smart as you are educated and clearly madison rutherford
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as well educated as he might have been was not educated in the area of forensics
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[Music] [Music] you