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[Music] up next is it a murder suicide or fraud some red flags were going off i think for our
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detective bureau investigators followed the money trail for clues there was a 5 million policy that
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ultimately we found later there was a lot of items that weren't matching up at all but in the end
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only science has the answers i've never seen a case that took so many turns in so many different directions
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and really it was bizarre [Music] diesel truck pulling is an obscure sport in the united states
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but it enjoys a loyal and growing fan base it actually involves pulling way more
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weight than these trucks are designed to pool here we go can he get him and so you have to be a really good
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mechanic to be into it for 39 year old building contractor ari squire preparing diesel trucks for these
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competitions was more than a hobby it was his obsession to accommodate this pastime ari built
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a 2 300 square foot garage on his property in the chicago suburbs ari was a bit of
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a gearhead so he had his truck that he was apparently always working on it wasn't considered a dangerous hobby
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until one february morning in 2008 when ari's wife called 9-1-1 9-1-1 like county sheriff i think my
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garage is on fire they just heard some noise and i and and i out opened the door and it's
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all black smoke and there's smoke coming from your garage should i go outside or what do i
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do get outside shape okay when the smoke cleared firefighters found ahri's lifeless body underneath the truck
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it appeared the truck had slipped off the front jack and uh it had crushed the victim
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he'd suffered severe burns over most of his body it looked like the truck fell off the
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jack while ari was underneath working on the fuel filter fuel spilled from the filter
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onto ahri's clothes the truck broke a fluorescent lamp and a spark ignited the fuel this was
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likely an accidental death we've certainly seen deaths of people working under their vehicles that have slid off
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of jacks fallen on them and crushed them to death although the body was unrecognizable
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ari's driver's license was recovered from his back pocket we rarely actually compare these things
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to a driver's license people lie on their driver's license and so sometimes that information
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isn't correct the medical examiner wanted to make a positive identification using
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scientific methods this proved to be harder than anyone expected based on the extent
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of the burns on the face and the hands and the arms we couldn't do fingerprints we couldn't do facial recognition so our
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only choice was dna and dental well as it turns out ari squire hadn't been to the dentist in almost a decade
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at the fire scene investigators saw something suspicious on the garage circuit panel
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checking out all the circuits on those i noticed that they were in all in the off position if the circuit
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breakers were off there would have been no electricity to power the light which theoretically had started the fire
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i inquired whether the fire department had indeed you know turned those off they said no they hadn't touched the
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circuit box at all ari had been working on a diesel truck fuel filter but tests showed there was an accelerant
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on ari's clothing more flammable than diesel fuel some red flags were going off i think
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for our detective bureau certainly it was consistent with like a gasoline type which would have been more
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of a lighter petroleum product when investigators looked into ahri's personal life friends said
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there was no love lost in the squire's childless 14-year marriage they did not sleep in the same bed when
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i did get to the house i did see that it was obvious that both beds had been slept in that night
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it wasn't really a close-knit marriage that was coming out very clearly even more suspicious ari had five
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million dollars worth of life insurance and ari's wife denise was the sole beneficiary
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but when questioned by police denise claimed she knew nothing about it so we began to
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try to find out why the wife would not know these details concerning ari ari's wife moved quickly to cremate his
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body before being stopped by police the fire was on saturday and she wanted to have that body released
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i think she was making phone calls by monday or tuesday that she needed a body for a cremation it became more and more
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obvious that indeed this was a homicide that had been covered up ari squire was working on a diesel truck
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fuel filter at the time of his death when investigators recreated the incident they discovered it would have been easy
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for someone to release the jack holding up the truck and killed the person working
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beneath it a lot of people showed a surprise that ari would not have used safety
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equipment when working underneath his vehicle as investigators tried to figure out
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what was going on detective morrison was home watching television and saw an episode
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of forensic files that was eerily similar madison rutherford case it happened in
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new england i'm watching and i'm seeing he took a dead body there was a truck fire he faked his
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death and then came back and assumed another identity when i was watching the show i noticed
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there were so many similarities between the two cases the life insurance amounts in both cases
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were virtually identical madison rutherford he had two insurance policies one for five million one for
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two million it was very similar to re where arya had one for five million and one for one
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million the madison rutherford case unraveled when forensic odontology proved it
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wasn't rutherford who died in the fire and that's precisely what happened to ari squire
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when investigators found squire's dentist from 10 years earlier we were able to track down that dentist
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in california after some phone calls the file was so old there were no x-rays he did get a hold
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of a dental note about a certain tooth in a certain filling the dentist had seen him for a large cavity on a lower
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right molar and the dentist had placed a very large silver type filling in the tooth when investigators checked
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the victim's teeth there was no such filling the body that they had the burned body was not ari
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squires if it's not ari square who is it and why are they underneath there one clue came to police through a
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missing person notification a woman called police to report her 20-year-old son justin newman was missing
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he worked at the local home depot store and hadn't been seen since the fire he told me he had met a
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man that comes into home depot quite often and he had pulled justin aside and asked
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justin if he'd like to make more money so joseph said yeah that sounds good you know justin told his mother the man was
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ari squire and that he was going to do some work at ari's house he was supposed to be
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meeting with ari squire on february 23rd the day that arie squire was believed to
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have died he says mommy offered me 15 an hour he says and you know right now i could we
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could really use that money then the day after justin went missing his mother got a text message from his
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cell phone it said mom go on to missouri to work call you next week justin's mother was
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very skeptical justin doesn't text you know cause there which wasn't justin he he would pick up the phone and call me
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there was no way he would text me he could just call me as police tried to trace the origin of that text message
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they re-examined the burned body justin was five foot six 140 pounds virtually the same height and weight
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as ari squire scientists compared dna from justin's toothbrush to dna from the victim they also took a
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dna sample from justin's mother when they came to me for the swab i looked at her and i go it's my son in
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that morgue isn't it she goes no no no we're just doing this because this is what we do i go yeah and you're full of
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baloney and i knew it when she came and did it i just had that feeling when we finally got the dna results back
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we were able to positively identify the body that we had as justin newman police put out an all
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points bulletin for justin newman's car which was missing they assumed if they found newman's car
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they'd also find ari squire just one day after the arson fire that killed justin newman
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denise squire received an email from her husband ari my will and letters are in my file
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drawer to my left and my office they are located in a priority mail envelope addressed to you
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three days after the fire she received another email from ahri's email account when will my ashes be returned to you
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where are you planning on dispersing them is there anything you need thank you denise
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with my love ari it appeared to me that he was trying to find out where we're at in the
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investigation without coming out and saying hey you know how they how they doing today did they
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buy this denise denied any involvement in justin newman's murder and claimed she had no idea where ari was
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but now another home depot employee told police a story that turned the investigation
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upside down one of justin's co-workers comes up to the cops and he says i know ari squire he was in here all the
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time and this is the part that's really weird he was asking me to do work for him too
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justin was not the primary target ari had single out another home depot employee who better
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matched his age and physical description that person was sandy lively a remarkable physical match to ari
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squire it's a creepy picture he's the hunter and i'm the prey that's not exactly how i thought about
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it he was stalking i mean that's how i felt he didn't know that he was a possible victim
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he had no idea until we brought those pictures and we went i mean it was scary that was really
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scary strangely ari who normally didn't wear a beard grew one in the weeks before the murder
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ari starts to make himself look even more like sandy lively and by growing a beard the two almost
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looked like twins when sandy agreed to do some work for ari ari gave him this extraordinarily detailed job application
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i've never seen the application and asked where a tattoo was at and what they were of
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and the piercings if i had any piercings anywhere that i don't see how that would
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make it make a difference if i have a piercing if i want to be a carpenter finally
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sandy agreed to meet ari at his house but fortunately for sandy the meeting never took place
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i was supposed to go to ari's on a saturday morning and the night before my daughter had a
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slumber party for her 10th birthday party and kept me up all night so i overslept
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just a few hours later that same day prosecutors believe ari grew impatient and called his fallback target justin newman
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justin thought he was there to do some freelance construction work prosecutors think ari used chloroform
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since there was no evidence of blunt force trauma [Music] ari stripped justin down to his
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underwear and re-dressed him in his clothes and shoes he placed justin under the truck
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pumped up the hydraulic jack and then let it fall killing justin instantly in order to hide the identity
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of the body ari doused it with more diesel fuel than the fuel filter would have held
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then used a more flammable accelerant to propel the fire he wanted to make it look like the truck
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broke the fluorescent light creating the spark that ignited the fire but that's not what caused the fire
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the circuit breakers were off so there was no power going to the light he most likely
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used a match and the amount of fuel on the body was inconsistent in a mount and makeup
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from the fuel held by a truck's fuel filter [Music] ari clearly didn't realize that fire
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doesn't destroy everything justin's teeth didn't resemble aries clearly proving ari wasn't the victim
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i think that he had plans for me and you know i blew his plan that day i think about it every day
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every day all day sometimes that comes and goes the whole the whole thing with justin you know
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i don't know if would it have been different if i'd have showed up but the case was far from over
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ari squire who tried to fake his own death and defraud the insurance company of 5
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million was still on the loose investigators think that ari squire's motive for setting the arson fire and faking
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his own death was money he was about to turn 40 years old and he could no longer afford to pay his
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monthly premiums for his 5 million dollar life insurance policy and those premiums were about to go up
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the insurance premiums were 2 dollars a year but he came to a point where they were going to be jumping up to thirteen
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thousand dollars a year and he was broke he didn't have the money investigators also found evidence
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ari squires construction company was virtually bankrupt at the time of this incident the housing boom had now
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crashed people were starting to retract there wasn't any work his project down in florida his kind of
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33 unit condo project was failing in bankruptcy and he was having a lot of financial difficulties to fake his own
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death ari squire needed someone who looked like him in height weight and physical appearance
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he gave me his number and took my number and called me every day and stopped in every
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day and pretty much was pretty persistent when sandy lively failed to show up for
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his appointment with ari in frustration ari turned to his second choice justin newman and dna positively
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identified that it was justin who perished in the arson fire just the worst feeling i've ever
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had my entire life he was my best friend i just and and now still nowadays i just
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look and i go i just can't believe he's not here he was uh happy all the time nothing ever bothered him he's a hard
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worker like to like to have his fun too he was a nice guy police assumed ari fled to missouri because
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that's where he said he was in the phony text message he sent to justin's mother police in missouri
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had been on the lookout for justin newman's red sports car and nine days after the fire an alert
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police officer found it in a motel parking lot the motel's not your typical family motel was more
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of a run run down type motel the clerk the motel identified ari squire as the man who
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rented the room the room was registered in the name of justin newman the policeman decided to approach the
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room without backup and he knew most likely ari would be armed and ready before he can get through the door
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a loud gunshot he walks in there's a body there and there's the gun laying there
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the victim had justin newman's identification the same color hair and eyes but despite the attempt at disguise
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dna confirmed the dead man was ari squire he knew he was in some deep deep you know he took the easy way out
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because he knew he was going to go to jail he was going to jail for the rest of his
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life the thought of being behind bars for the rest of his life forget it it wasn't going to happen
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ari squire in his self-consumed mindset and his narcissism was too cowardly to come back face the
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music and be forced own up to what he did donna fiorito filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit
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against denise squire for the death of her son justin and the jury awarded her six million
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dollars i just can't believe he's not here that that man and his wife irish square and
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his wife always had money but it wasn't enough for them they had to go they had to go kill a young kid that had
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his whole life going for him a criminal investigation into denise squire's possible involvement
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continues this isn't the end of the case we still have ongoing issues that we're
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investigating at this time denise's attorney denies she was involved she knew nothing about the plan she knew
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nothing about the design she knew nothing about this newman man who was deceased
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however the emails exchanged between ari and denise squire after the fire leave little doubt in the minds of
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investigators he needed denise involved because they weren't going to give the five million
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dollars to him who were they going to give it to denise so in order for him to get anything out of that she
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would have had to have been involved [Music] ari squire spent months planning the
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murder but science inevitably had the upper hand in finding the truth worthless piece of
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nothing in the world a coward that took the easy way out after he took the life of a 20 year old
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kid that had he had a whole life ahead of him in this case forensic science worked forensic
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dentistry forensic odontology worked i'd never seen a case that took so many turns in
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so many different directions and really it was it was bizarre you can't fool science
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you can't uh by definition it's science and it works and it's repeatable and it's verifiable and it's accepted
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you