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before scott was a ladies man and while it wasn't unusual for him to be seeing a number of women at the same
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time his date on this night raised more than a few eyebrows hey everybody this is my lady
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sometime during the party scott became ill so sick he was unable to drive home a few days later
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scott dunn disappeared and was never seen again [Music] so 24 year old scott dunn was a fun loving
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young man who enjoyed life to the fullest scott lived in lubbock texas settling there after serving in the u.s military
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he worked for mgm electronics in a job he loved installing custom sound systems in automobiles
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[Music] the last time friend saw scott was on may 13 1991 at a party after work [Music]
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scott was a prankster and decided to add a little excitement to the festivities [Music]
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his date that night wasn't a she at all she was really a he a transvestite before the night was through scott's
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friends eventually found out and weren't amused later while still at the party scott
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became ill he was so sick he couldn't drive home and stayed overnight on the
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sofa the next day his live-in girlfriend lisha hamilton drove over to pick him up
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he looked like crap he couldn't hardly walk i mean you could tell he'd been in bed
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all day he wasn't showered he wasn't clean clothes on all awkwardly couldn't get
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dressed by himself after spending another full day in bed scott told lisha he finally felt well
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enough to return to work i woke up that morning he was in bed with me by then um
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asked him how he felt i asked him did he need a ride to work because he didn't
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have his cars there he said no his friend was coming for him and just asked me to get him a glass of
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water and some sinus medicine which i did brought it to him and then i left when i came home
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he was gone when scott's friend stopped by the apartment to pick him up there was no answer
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no one ever would answer so um just never heard from him two days later lisa called scott's
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father in pennsylvania to see if he had heard from scott and it's a young woman's voice and
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she goes into i don't know if i'm talking to who i'm talking to but i
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assume you're scott's father because i found the telephone number on the telephone bill and i said well
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that's right i'm scott's father but who are you she said well i've been living with
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scott for a couple of months now and sometimes we've been together for some time
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and i said well i don't know really know who you are jim dunn filed a missing
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persons report with the lubbock police department what was he wearing last we saw him
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police wondered whether scott dunn's personal life held some clues to his disappearance
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when scott dunn disappeared from lubbock texas without a trace his friends told police this was out of character the way
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scott was he would he would have called at least and said hey guys you know look
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i'm out here in mexico hanging out partying is something scott's live-in girlfriend lisa hamilton
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told police that when she returned from work scott was gone she also said that a
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large piece of carpet was missing from under the sofa when police searched the bedroom
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they discovered that another piece of carpet in the bedroom had also been removed and replaced with the carpet
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from under the sofa along the edge were some rust-colored stains the staining along the edge of that
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patch in the original carpet was very evident to anybody that's been doing this for any length of time it was blood
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when the carpet patch was lifted police noticed it was held together with duct tape on the underpadding was another
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large stain which also appeared to be blood in one spot it had soaked through a hole in the padding to the cement
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floor underneath and it looked as if someone had washed blood from the baseboard
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to find out investigators used a chemical called luminol which can detect areas where
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blood has been cleaned up with water and detergents the luminol revealed a scene
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of horrific violence you can actually see the pattern you can see where blood had been
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and my initial reaction was that something had occurred in that apartment it was stark
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somebody had very obviously tried to clean the whole thing up and had done a fairly good job of it i just knew that
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he was dead i felt very confident that he was was dead it was probably the longest day of my life and it was the
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most devastating thing that ever happened to me but who would want to kill scott dunn
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and why dunn had a previous arrest and conviction for possession of cocaine but the theory that this was somehow drug
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related was inconsistent with the crime scene if it was a drug hit they probably would
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have left the person there wanting everybody in the world to see so that nobody else would cross them
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and this this crime scene was covered up and the only reason it was covered up was because it was trying to be hidden
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police also discovered scott dunn was leading a secret life while living with lisha hamilton he
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continued to date numerous other women he was wild he played the field he had in my opinion he had a history of of
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using women for his own purposes in fact he was engaged to be married to a young
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lady in the metroplex while he was living with alicia hamilton lisha hamilton learned about scott's
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engagement just one month earlier he's calling his fiancee [Music] yeah i'll be sure to tell you called
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and i think at the point where that telephone call came is when alicia realized she had been had by scott
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and alicia herself was a user and when it became apparent to her that she in this
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situation was not the user but was in fact the uz she became enraged but was that sufficient motive for lisha
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hamilton to murder scott dunn and if so where was the body alicia hamilton continued to call jim
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dunn from texas keeping him informed of the investigation into scott's disappearance
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but she asked for something in return she wanted scott's yellow sports car jim dunn
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taped those telephone conversations you just seem to want the car and i have promised you the car
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when this is all over but you don't seem to want to wait actually i don't i don't i don't need it
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it is the want right now okay the only thing i want is this car that's the only thing i've wanted from
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the start that's the only thing i want now a background check by lubbock police
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revealed that lisha hamilton had a past arrest in new mexico for embezzlement but if lisha was involved in scott's
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disappearance why had she helped police by pointing out the missing carpet in their apartment
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lisa told scott's father that she thought a man named tim smith had something to do with scott's
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disappearance tim smith was a guy that lived in the apartment near alicia he had been brought up in a very strict
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very religious environment my theory was that this was the first real contact he'd ever had with a
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worldly woman and that he became enamored with her and the way she made him feel and he
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just fed him fell head over heels in love with her police discovered that smith did not
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show up for work on the day scott dunn disappeared tim smith police department when police visited tim smith's
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apartment to ask a few questions they noticed he was packing to move we're investigating the disappearance of
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scott dunn whatever i can do to help mind if we take a look around sure go ahead
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[Music] when they walked back into the living room they noticed that something that
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had been sitting on the bookshelf disappeared where's the roll of tape what table
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the duct tape was there on the shelf i don't know what you're talking about
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but behind some books on another shelf police found what they were looking for the duct tape that was on the shelf just
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a few minutes earlier that was a stroke of luck but it's also good investigative work i mean how many
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times you walk into a place where a guy is moving and see a roller duct tape and
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think nothing of it the duct tape was sent to the forensic laboratory for analysis
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the tape in smith's apartment looked very similar to the tape on the carpet patch in dunn's apartment
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the samples were analyzed using infraspectral photometry where infrared light is passed through the duct tape
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and the detector will determine how much wavelength of light is being absorbed at different
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wavelengths the results are then printed out in a chart in the case of roger scott dunn
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the duct tape we separated out into its components the fibers that run long in the duct
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tape the backing of the duct tape and the adhesive of the duct tape as you can see
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the infrared spectrum from the roll of duct tape found at the suspect's house
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and the duct tape found at the seam are consistent in the fibers component the backing component
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and the adhesive component and the roll of tape held even more clues on the side of the roll were green nylon
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fibers tri-lobal or triangular in shape they were the same size and shape and made of the same polymers and dyed the
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same color as the carpet in scott dunn's bedroom i feel confident that the fibers on the
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side of the duct tape came from the apartment and that the duct tape underneath the carpet came
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from the roll of duct tape but without a body authorities were hesitant to conclude
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homicide a lot of it had to do with the body we had no body and the district attorney's office at that
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time was very apprehensive to try to take something to trial where you had no no corpus delictis what they say
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a full year passed and jim dunn decided to take matters into his own hands he heard about a
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group of international forensic experts who meet several times a year in philadelphia to study unsolved murders
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the group of 82 members is called the vidoc society named after eugene francoise vidak an 18th century french
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detective considered to be the father of modern criminal investigation one of the co-founders of the vedoc
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society richard walter agreed to listen to mr dunn's story well after about an hour and a half of
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me presenting showing pictures and listening to some tape recordings and things i had he looked me straight in
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the eye and said jim aren't you tired of being the grieving father and he looked at me and he said i
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thought i was supposed to be and i said no you're supposed to be god damn mad
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let's go after that [ __ ] richard walter was convinced that lisha hamilton held the key to scott dunn's
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disappearance walter sent the crime scene photos to dr richard shepherd a forensic pathologist
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at scotland yard in london after reviewing the information dr shepard concluded that scott dunn had
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been murdered in the corner of his bedroom the result of multiple blunt trauma injuries
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but at the time under texas law without a body there was no homicide armed with dr shepard's forensic
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analysis richard walter pleaded the case to the district attorney arguing that they had a body part he said what part
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of the body is that i said blood's connective tissue he said he looked give me a long look
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and he said all right you got her murder prosecutors brought in their own blood spatter expert tom bevel to confirm the
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findings of dr shepard according to bevel the blood spatter pattern on the walls
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indicated three distinct lines of cast off blood from a weapon for example if we had three cast off
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stains that were going in three directions that would be consistent with three blows plus the one
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to create the blood in the first place so in this case we'd say there was a minimum of four blows that was delivered
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to find out how much blood scott dunn lost during the assault bevel conducted a blood saturation test
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by pouring human blood onto a test piece of carpet bevel created the same size stain found in the bedroom in this case
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266 square inches it took just under two units of blood to create the stain and soak through to the
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padding underneath if you take that in consideration with all the other physical evidence there
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such as the blood cleanup cutting out of the carpet the blood spatter the cast off that's to the wall and also to the
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ceiling along with that blood volume uh it certainly is a high suspicion that somebody in fact is dead
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[Music] authorities were now convinced that scott dunn had been murdered in his bedroom
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lubbock police suspected that both lisa hamilton and tim smith were somehow involved in scott dunn's murder but they
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had no evidence linking lisha to the crime and the only link to smith was the duct tape
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until richard walter discovered something that was previously overlooked walter learned that several strands of
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unidentified hair had been found on the duct tape in scott dunn's bedroom he suggested the hair be sent for
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forensic analysis at the fbi lab in washington dc the hair from the duct tape underneath the carpet
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was compared to hair samples from lisha hamilton and tim smith no scott dunn hairs were found on that
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tape but both the hairs of lisha hamilton and tim smith were found on that duct tape holding it in which means
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when that duct tape was put down and that patch put in place they were there five and a half years after scott dunn's
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disappearance lisha hamilton and tim smith were arrested and charged with murder
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prosecutors believe that lisia's motive was revenge that she was angry when she
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learned that scott was engaged to another woman she's hard as rocks bright aggressive
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works smart um but has his insatiable appetite for power control crushing people
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she dismisses you you don't dismiss her alicia hamilton was the absolute instigator ringleader and she was the
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wicked witch of the west who contrived developed lead and covered up this whole thing
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prosecutors believe that scott dunn was murdered in the early morning hours of may 16 1991.
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he was asleep in the bedroom and struck at least four times with a blunt object about two units of scott's blood was
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lost in the attack [Music] as scott's body was removed from the apartment his blood was transferred onto
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the bedroom doorknob the location of the body is still unknown [Music] the cover-up failed because the water
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and detergents could not remove the hemoglobin components of the blood which later fluoresced when sprayed with the
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chemical luminol a piece of carpet from under the sofa in the living room was used to patch the
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blood-stained carpet in the bedroom the duct tape used to patch the carpet together contained strands of hair
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consistent with hair samples from both lisa hamilton and tim smith and the side of the duct tape picked up
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some stray carpet fibers the roll was later found in tim smith's apartment lisha hamilton and tim smith were tried
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separately and both were convicted of murder lisa hamilton was sentenced to 20 years
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tim smith received a 10-year probation the jury i think believed that perhaps he had a great deal to do with disposing
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of the body but they didn't believe he was actually there when the murder took
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place and i think for that reason they recommended the judge imposed probation instead of
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sentencing him to a term in the penitentiary which would be carried out although the body of scott dunn has
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never been found a headstone waits and the father still mourns i'm just hopeful that at some point
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somebody will talk and that we can recover his remains and still we can have a decent burial and a decent
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ceremony that we can put him to rest and i'd feel totally absolved at that point that i'd done
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everything i could do if i could ever reach that point i haven't quite reached
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that yet and i still crosses my mind what else i can do but at this point i'm going to let it go and
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hope that somebody the good lord or somebody will give us some direction i'll know what that
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actually means in my life at some point [Music] [Applause] [Music] you