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[Music] up next an exotic dancer vanishes it was driving me crazy that she didn't come home
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was a jealous boyfriend involved he was kind of vague or was she simply a runaway she could
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have met someone who had money someone who improved her life but a police cadaver dog and the burned key
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point to a violent confrontation i watched forensic files csi i just feel like there's no hope there's no hope
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[Music] attention all strippers here's a song you can work it out too as soon as this beat come in you let the
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freak come out let it take total control [Music] instead of finishing high school shamaya
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smith dropped out and worked as a dancer at the cahoots gentlemen's club in east
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hartford connecticut i didn't approve of it i've always talked to her about
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getting a a job it's a lot safer one night shamaya didn't return home after work
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concerned her family called police she's a very respected young lady and all we want is her to come home safe
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and sound in a search for answers police questioned shamaya's boyfriend the boyfriend
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reportedly had some drug involvement he was living with shamaya smith at her parents home when
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she went missing and he had seen her the day she went missing he told police she left for work around 3 p.m but said
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he didn't know who had given her a ride the boyfriend's story that your girlfriend is leaving and meeting a
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stranger this would lead most people to conclude that maybe the story wasn't true
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shimaya's family gave police a potential clue someone had left a message on shamaya's
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cell phone at 11 55 a.m before shamaya left for work bye the significance of this message
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was enormous it gave the police and investigators another avenue to go down no one knew
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who this person was i didn't know i just knew something something wasn't right the number was
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traced to a wealthy local businessman 56 year old kenneth otto we found out that mr otto was a standing
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person he had a family a wife and kids he was a somewhat successful industrial business owner had no prior criminal
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record and liked to hang around strip clubs [Music] ken otto was a regular at the cahoots
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club where shamaya worked and he admitted he had given shimaya a ride to work that afternoon he said that he called
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shamaya and when he called her she requested that he bring her to work because she didn't have any
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transportation so he agreed to bring her to work he said that he last saw her going
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through the front doors of the cahoots and that he drove off but police found another customer who
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insisted he had given shamaya a ride to cahoots that afternoon his name was harold brown another
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regular customer he claimed he not only dropped shamaya off at the club he stayed and went inside for a few
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hours he also claimed he drove shamaya home later that night but according to her
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family she never made it inside so police now had two men both insisting they were the last ones to see
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shamaya alive and shamaya's boyfriend was still a suspect but where was shamaya
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two customers of the cahoots gentlemen's club both claimed they drove shamaya smith to work on the
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day she disappeared [Music] one of those men ken otto took a particular interest in shamaya
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other dancers at the cahoot said that kenneth otto would spend more time with shamaya he would give her
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extra attention sit next to her buy her drinks talk with her kenato also admitted he'd
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given shamaya 500 to continue her education and i told her nobody's going to give you 500 dollars
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just for nothing you had to do something and i was like just promise me you won't
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never go along with anybody again like that because people you just don't you can't trust everybody in ken
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otto's version he claimed shamaya walked into the club on the day he gave her a
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ride but the club's security tapes disputed that we viewed the videos surveillance tapes
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from cahoots and found that she never entered the establishment on the day that she went missing in harold brown's
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version he not only claimed that shamaya went into the club after he dropped her off
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he also said he went in too and stayed for several hours again the security tapes didn't show shamaya
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or harold brown in the club that day but the security tapes from the day before explained brown's confusion it was
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determined that he brought her home the day prior to her going missing brown had simply
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gotten his dates confused it was apparent that he was being truthful there was no motive that we
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could establish why he would commit a crime so police focused their attention on ken
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otto since he'd left a message on shamaya's phone several hours before he admitted
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picking her up on a hunch shimaya's sister decided to try subterfuge she called ken otto and left the message
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on his voicemail i caused him to pretend to be shamaya if i was like hey kenny it's maya just wanted to know if
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you want to hook up just call me when you get this message and she never received a phone call back
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and that was very telling because now you ask yourself why wouldn't he call her back then and
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ask how she's doing when police asked ken otto directly if he'd ever had a sexual relationship
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with shamaya he said that wasn't possible he told us that he was unable to perform
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sexually due to some surgery a condition that he had he has erectile dysfunction
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it was not very i tried to think of a word successful investigators checked shamaya's cell phone records and
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discovered that five days before her disappearance she made two cell phone calls that
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bounced off a tower directly across the street from a 75-acre piece of land owned by ken otto
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we thought maybe there's a possibility she might be there being held against
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her will we had officers on the ground and i directed that they go into the property
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and confirm that there was no one there in need of assistance police asked canado if they could search
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the property he agreed to consent search of his property on easter sunday when police arrived they noticed
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construction equipment a trailer some vehicles and a fire pit there was some heavy burning in the fire
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pit there was a smell of fuel but something else bothered investigators apparently otto didn't mind the police
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looking around but the cadaver dogs were another story he became very upset when the dogs
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arrived it appeared to me that he was worried we were going to find something there was a wood chipper on the property
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there's history of cases in the past where people have used wood chippers to
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dispose of human bodies at this point convinced he'd cooperated as much as he needed to
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otto asked the police to leave you know what i needed to wrap this up i uh i didn't know you were coming out
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here with all these guys and walls and stuff so yeah wrap this up all right now all
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right when someone grants a consent to search their property they're entitled to
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revoke that but by this time the cadaver dogs had already picked up a scent in the fire pit one of the dogs found
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a chunk of flesh that we it appeared to be animal flesh once again ken otto had an explanation
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you might find a beaver there excuse me a beaver i i shot one a while back and burned it in the pit okay
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there was no obvious evidence of of uh of a beaver being in the fire pit ken otto explained that he liked to
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kill animals and chop them up and spread them in the sand it was disappointing that mr otto
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revoked his consent but we knew we would be back two weeks after shamaya smith's
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disappearance investigators no longer considered her boyfriend a suspect the boyfriend saw shamaya leave the
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house and walk out and that was the last time that he saw it i believe that the boyfriend was telling
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the truth investigators were more interested in shamaya's relationship with ken otto a customer at the cahoots
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gentlemen's club and a piece of land he owned in rural connecticut it's about 75 acres
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large it's landlocked that means it's surrounded by other forests there's one road
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which is the dirt road access to it by his own admission otto was the last known person to see shamaya alive when
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he picked her up at her home on the day she disappeared otto allowed police to conduct an initial search of
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his property but asked them to leave when he realized they brought cadaver dogs in order to perform
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a more detailed search detectives needed both a warrant and lots of heavy equipment
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and manpower there were two jurisdictions involved in this there was a substantial rainstorm that
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came during that week that hampered the efforts and they all came together causing an eight-day delay
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not only could the rainstorm have washed away any evidence but eight days gave otto
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plenty of time to clean up a possible crime scene all of our fears are realized when
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the police go on the property ken otto is in a full-sized tractor attempting to bury the frame of his 30-foot trailer
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that was demolished and burned mr otto's property looked like man-made hell a person that
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was in the process of destroying everything trees digging holes destroying the dirt
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road that goes into the property but the one thing otto hadn't yet destroyed
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was the fire pit i was very happy to see that the fire pit hadn't been disrupted all that much
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almost immediately detectives got a break in the embers they found a house key i took the key cleaned it up placed it
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in the door lock of shamaya smith's home and it unlocked and opened the house so
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it was shamaya smith's house key but this didn't prove otto killed her in the fire pit
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police also found a spent bullet and three shell casings from a 40 caliber handgun
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on the ground near the burned out trailer investigators found a mop a vacuum cleaner
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and a large piece of carpet serologists looked for blood even though it had been sitting in the
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rain and mud for days it's definitely a forensic science nightmare especially when you're dealing
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with uh mother nature tampering with the evidence and really just presenting extra challenges the carpet was marked
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with a grid of four inch squares which were then swabbed with phenolphthalein and
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hydrogen peroxide a chemical combination which turns pink when it comes in contact with blood
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i started getting areas that were positive with my screening test and so that got me a little excited and
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i was ready to forge ahead on this thing each area that tested positive was marked with a piece of tape
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slowly an unmistakable pattern began to emerge it ended up being an area that was four
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feet by one foot in size to everyone who saw it it was a body it appeared to be a human body
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the outline was in human blood but when it was tested for dna investigators got a setback
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no dna was present it was just too much bacterial contamination investigators were beginning to wonder
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if they would ever solve this case i'm looking for the worst but hoping for the best and
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the worst is she's not coming home so i tried to prepare myself for whichever comes my way but when you
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in a situation like this you really can't prepare yourself in the search for shamaya smith
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investigators collected dozens of what appeared to be bone chips from the fire pit on ken
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otto's property and sent them to the forensics lab this skeleton was burned so
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significantly that it was nearly destroyed as if it would have been in a commercial cremation
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the fragmentation was so severe that you had pieces that were the size of a fingernail
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it really is like a needle in a haystack it's an anthropologist nightmare after close examination forensic
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anthropologists concluded the majority of the bones were human but that didn't
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mean police were any closer to knowing if the bone ships were shamayas there was
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a lot of thermal destruction this would suggest of a tremendous fire that lasted for as much as days
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i had never worked with samples that had been so charred and so burnt before so i was very hesitant as to whether i
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would be able to generate a dna profile from these remains but in a case with so few lucky breaks
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the forensic anthropologist finally got one they found a piece of a foot with soft
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tissue there was still organic material there was still definitely the potential of
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getting dna out of that foot well the other big challenge was that we didn't have a known
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sample from shamaya smith so what we had to do in that case was take those dna profiles regenerated from
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tissue and burnt skin and bone and then make a comparison to shamaya smith's biological mother and biological
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father dna tests revealed that the bone and tissue found in ken otto's fire pit
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was from shamaya smith we have enough evidence to establish that the reason he destroyed all that evidence is
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because he violently caused her death two months after shamaya's murder ken otto was arrested at a local airport
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he was carrying a briefcase containing ten thousand dollars he had toiletries his passport and
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various other items and he also had a small bag with uh some condoms in it and some cialis which is basically
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viagra generic viagra i have no doubt that he would have bought a ticket and flown to
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parts unknown taking mr otto into custody was a pretty proud moment in my life by his own admission ken otto
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pick shamaya up for work but the evidence shows that instead of taking her to the cahoots gentlemen's
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club he drove 30 miles to his property on the outskirts of town no one knows what happened after that
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just sit down for a second but prosecutors believe that at some point otto shot and killed shamaya
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inside the trailer with a 40 caliber handgun then he rolled her body in a piece of
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carpet creating the blood stains later found by forensic analysis then he burned shamaya's body
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for days in the fire pit when cadaver dogs picked up the scent in the fire pit otto asked police to leave
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and he had eight days to carry out the most extensive cover-up investigators had
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ever seen but he couldn't destroy everything investigators found shell casings a spent bullet shamaya's
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house key hundreds of bone fragments and even part of her foot which all told the
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gruesome tale of a needless murder i think she was very naive about everyone she knew like she just put her
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trust in everyone and you cannot do that ken otto was tried and convicted of shamaya's murder
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and tampering with evidence at the end of the day uh he's a cold-blooded killer
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for that reason mr otto you can stand up on the count of murders into the custody
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of the commissioner of corrections for a period of 60 years i was ecstatic when i heard the jury
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decision that he was guilty for murder it was a great feeling to uh you know not only to bring the case
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to an end but also uh again for the family you know to have to have a uh a good outcome for the family was
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very important to me the whole thing was really frustrating i'm thinking okay
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well maybe this man may get away with it but i was determined i was going to fight to
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the end we were all going to fight to the end so my sister cares in peace and she can get
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the justice she deserves for virtually everyone involved the most difficult aspect of the crime
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was determining ken otto's motive mr otto exhibited sadistic behavior with his treatment of animals and
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he may have been deciding to carry that kind of behavior up to a higher level and harm a human
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being i couldn't understand why he would do what he did we all have unanswered questions we
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couldn't even have a proper funeral for her because there was nothing to have
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it may look like a pile of burned fragments that are completely unrecognizable but
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in the hands of a trained forensic anthropologist they will find something uniquely human
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and they will tie him to that victim mr otto thought he was going to outsmart us
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and um he was pretty sure of it and he was going to do anything he could to to try to outsmart
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us but it didn't work