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[Music] the murder of a beautiful young woman went unsolved for years a murder with forensic evidence and
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plenty of suspects but sometimes that's not enough [Music] it took the victim's nine-year-old child
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notations in a diary and forensic psychology to determine which forensic evidence was important
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and which to ignore [Music] [Applause] [Music] thirty-year-old kathleen lipscomb was
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trying to find her way raising two young children while at the same time working as a nurse in san
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antonio texas she was a very caring person she loved her family she stayed in constant contact with us
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kathleen had been married for eight years to bill lipscomb a sergeant in the united states air force but they had
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recently separated their arrangement was for bill to take care of their children on weekends
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but one sunday night kathleen didn't arrive to pick them up as planned bill drove the children to kathleen's
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apartment but she wasn't there and her car was missing so they left notes on her door
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[Music] the next morning there was still no sign of her one of her co-workers called me and told
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me that they were worried that she hadn't showed up for work my stomach kind of not you know knotted
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up for a minute and then i thought no you know bill had the kids kathleen probably went
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out with some girlfriends or something and she'll she'll be in she's just late
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today later that same day a man spotted a nude body along a deserted road outside of town
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it was kathleen lipscomb it was clear she had been murdered elsewhere without a doubt she had been transported
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from point a to this point b being where she was she was left the fact that kathleen's clothing had
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been rolled not folded told investigators something important it's definitely military just without a
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doubt that's the only people that i have ever seen roll their clothes in that fashion is a
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military type person unfortunately there were no discernible tire or footwear impressions near the
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body kathleen's estranged husband bill was immediately called in for questioning
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i did check him to see if there were any any wounds on his body possibly any defensive wounds
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to see if there was any any kind of scrapes bruisings anything under his fingernails that
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would indicate where he had scratched anybody and could find that [Music] the children told police that their
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father was with them the entire weekend confirming his alibi at the autopsy the medical examiner
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determined the cause of death was strangulation it appeared kathleen had sexual relations 24 hours before her death
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friends told police that kathleen had been dating a married doctor in town david pearl
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kathleen and dr pearl worked together through their close association kathleen fell in love with him
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and she was thoroughly confident that he loved her too he promised to get a divorce and marry her we found out that
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dr pearl had had many relationships and told his girlfriends that he was in fact
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separated from his wife when he wasn't and you know just the jealous ex-wife kind
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of thing that that was one concern of mine dr pearl admitted he was with kathleen
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during the weekend but insisted he had nothing to do with her murder and investigators had another suspect
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vincent robidell a nurse worked with kathleen at the hospital and lived in the same apartment complex
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he hadn't shown up for work either he had left down he didn't even go back to pick up his
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paycheck nor did he even request it be sent to him with so many suspects investigators hardly knew
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where to start [Music] one week after kathleen lipscomb's murder her car was found in a restaurant
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parking lot not far from her apartment investigators found no foreign fingerprints on or in the car
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to determine the time of kathleen's death medical examiner dr robert bucks had two ways to tell
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she had eaten chinese food it was basically undigested which indicates that she had eaten in a short period of time
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prior to her death and the marks on kathleen's legs were identified as ant bites and helped
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establish a time frame most of the ant activity occurs during daylight hours so that probably occurred
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beginning around dawn on that morning these two indicators meant kathleen had probably been killed around dinner time
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on sunday night and dumped in the field before dawn forensic investigators found four
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strands of red human hair on kathleen's clothing under a stereo microscope scientists noticed the hairs had no root
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at the root end you should see the root which is a a bulb shaped structure depending on what the
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stage of the hair growth is when magnified 100 times you can see evidence that the hair was
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dyed many times you will see an actual demarcation line between the original color of the hair at the root end to the
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dyed color of the hair towards the tip end of the hair all four hairs showed the same dye
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pattern when compared the hairs were not similar to kathleen's estranged husband bill or her boyfriend
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dr david pearl at the time genetic testing was still years away the hair was minus its roots
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back in 1986 it is in the late 80s the forensic technology was not as advanced as it is today in 2003 so
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beyond that point this as far as we could go about the only bright spot in the investigation was when investigators
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located vincent robideau kathleen's co-worker and neighbor who disappeared the same weekend she was murdered
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he had gone back to galveston where he was from and got a job there in as a nurse with a
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local hospital because he had a fight with his boyfriend and therefore he just didn't want
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anything to do with san antonio again robideaux was no longer a suspect we had hit a point where we didn't feel
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like we were going to be able to solve it without some some big break and we just did not feel
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that break would ever come then investigators got another tip kathleen's neighbor said she saw a
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suspicious person leaving kathleen's apartment on the same day her body had been found
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the neighbor actually just saw this red-headed lady walk up to the door and then a few minutes later walk away from
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the door was this mysterious woman kathleen's keller for two long years investigators searched for kathleen
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lipscomb's killer kathleen's family always suspected that her estranged husband bill was somehow
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involved just seven months before the murder bill had increased kathleen's life insurance
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to 315 thousand dollars the family turned to a private investigator tom bevins for help
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bevins examined all of the personal items from kathleen's apartment in her diary
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evans found two items of interest the first was an unusual reference it said baseball tournament
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shannon gilbert there when i first came across the name shannon gilbert i didn't know what to
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make of it it was it was obviously a name i had never seen or never heard of and so
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my question was why did kathleen write it down obviously it meant something to her
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a background check revealed that gilbert was in the air force with kathleen's
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husband bill and there were rumors the two were having a sexual affair bevins went to visit shannon gilbert
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she said is this about bill lipscombe we said yes ma'am it is and she says i will
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need an attorney and at that point i knew i had something bevins found another interesting entry
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in kathleen's diary it said numerous calls and nights out passing information about wap's testing
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bill has all questions for the test waps stands for weighted airman promotion test which all military
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personnel must pass in order to gain promotion kathleen's entry suggested that her
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estranged husband bill had cheated bill lipscombe had been promoted faster than any other master sergeant in air
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force history this entry possibly explained why [Music] since these cheating allegations
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involved the air force dr charles mcdowell joined the investigation as part of the united states air force
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office of special investigations if you have a related peripheral crime which in its own respect i guess was
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serious enough but certainly doesn't compare to a murder case that gives you a venue of access
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that makes it easier to get closer to your subject while reviewing the crime scene photos
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dr mcdowell made an important discovery the positioning of the body and the context of how it was found suggested to
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me that the scene had been staged in order to convey an impression that this was a
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rape murder and this is and this is where the victim wound up and it didn't have a ring of authenticity to it
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within 30 45 minutes of reviewing the evidence he told us the bill did it bill was actually the murderer where we
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had all at that point thought he just paid someone to do it furthermore mcdowell believed kathleen's
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crossed legs revealed the body had been stored in a small cramped space after death
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when rigor mortis set in mcdowell also suspected that someone other than the killer had dumped the
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body that's because killers who know their victims tend to covered the body or
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concealed the victim's face which wasn't done in this case that became extremely important because
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if you have multiple players in a crime you have better opportunities for identifying
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first of all for identifying who they are and then for playing one off against the other
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and kathleen's daughter now nine years old revealed another piece of new information
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she said to me grandma who do you think kill my mother or my mama and i said i don't know who do you think
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killed your mama and she told me my daddy did because he wasn't where he said he was that
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night the children now revealed they were with their father's best friend tony barrello
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who had taken them out for dinner on the night their mother was killed and later that same night
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the children said they woke up and discovered their father was not home and his car was gone
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[Music] i remember asking tom evans one day what do they want a picture with his
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hands around her neck to me we had so much evidence that was pointing to him and we kept getting told
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no it's not enough it's not enough i was like you know there wasn't anybody
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there to take a picture for you bevins then requested forensic testing of the biological evidence collected
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during kathleen's autopsy to determine the identity of the person kathleen had
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been with before her death inexplicably in the two years since the murder the sample had been mislabeled
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then mishandled forensic testing was no longer possible prosecutors needed more than just
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circumstantial evidence to corroborate the children's story kathleen lipscombe's family hired a
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private investigator to help solve her murder an entry in kathleen's diary suggested
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that her estranged husband bill had cheated on his military promotion tests and that kathleen knew it
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in addition the divorce proceedings between bill and kathleen had been bitter bill wanted custody of the
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children and kathleen wasn't about to let that happen was it possible that kathleen had been using that
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information as blackmail in her custody battle she knew it and he knew that it would bust him so that's
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that's the button she used i mean she pushed it and he told her you know you
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can't do this because if you do you're going to end up on a cold slab at the crime scene
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kathleen's clothing was neatly rolled suggesting someone with military training dumped the body
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the only other military person around bill lipscomb's home that weekend was tony barrello
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months after the crime barello had been dishonorably discharged from the air force
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when questioned he was eager to talk he said he would go to church he could hear god telling him confess confess
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your sins and that's what changed tony tony barrello immediately acknowledged
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that he had dumped kathleen's body in the field just as dr mcdowell suspected
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and barello said that bill lipscomb was the killer he also confirmed something else
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that kathleen's body was stored in a cedar chest which explained why her legs
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were folded when rigor mortis set in surprisingly tony barrello still had the chest he said bill lipscomb asked him to
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dispose of it after the murder but for some reason tony kept it forensic scientists found a tiny stain
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on the bottom of the chest testing confirmed that it was kathleen's blood [Music]
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tony barrello met with bill lipscomb while wearing a hidden microphone but he didn't say anything incriminating
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so investigators devised another strategy this was an event that was a consequence
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of a marriage that went bad there was a tremendous amount of anger there was a tremendous amount of hostility i wanted
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to see if i could feel that hostility so i could understand it and understand his
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reaction to it and then develop an investigative methodology that would counter that and
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deal with his own psychology the osi made sure that bill lipscomb knew he was being investigated
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i wanted him to hear footsteps that weren't there i wanted him to have that feeling in the pit of the stomach every
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time the phone rang i wanted him to worry about whether today was going to be the day that he heard the knock on
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the door i wanted to raise his level of anxiety eventually bill's former girlfriend
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shannon gilbert admitted that bill once confided to her that he planned to kill kathleen
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and investigators let lipscom know that both gilbert and barello were cooperating
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bill lipscomb was playing mind games with us and we were playing mind games with him
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after weeks of these psychological tactics dr mcdowell brought bill lipscomb in for questioning
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dr mcdowell vividly remembers the exchange of all the ways this had to end i don't
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understand why it had to end the way it did why did you kill her and he said i don't know why i killed her
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but then he immediately caught himself and leaned forward and crossed his arms and said
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i did not kill my wife but we had him three of us within the sheriff's office
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tried to get in to get in on the same level as bill and get him to break and we couldn't do it we could not do it
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prosecutors believe kathleen threatened to expose bill's cheating on the military exams if he tried to get
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custody of the children and with that bill sought revenge the day of the murder bill asked tony barrello to take the
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children to dinner then he called kathleen asking her to pick up the children earlier than
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planned when kathleen arrived and noticed the children missing the two argued kids
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they wanted to go to mcdonald's so and at some point bill strangled her to death
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bill stored the body in a chest until nightfall kathleen's blood was found in the chest
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once the children were asleep tony barrello dumped kathleen's body in the field trying to make it appear to be
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a sex crime but the positioning of the body and the fact the body was uncovered revealed the truth
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that someone other than the killer was involved but what about the red hairs on kathleen's clothing
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i believe the hairs were planted uh by bill lipscombe or his partner one of the two to make it look
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throw naturally throw us off to go looking for someone else investigators later identified the woman
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who was seen leaving kathleen's apartment after her murder she was a co-worker who had gone to
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check on kathleen when she didn't show up for work bill lipscomb pled guilty to
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his wife's murder to avoid the death penalty he was sentenced to life in prison
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in return for his cooperation tony barrello avoided prosecution no charges were brought against shannon
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gilbert who changed her name and is now in the federal witness protection program
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prosecutors do not believe kathleen's boyfriend dr david pearl had anything to do with the crime
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forensic pathology forensic psychology and crime scene reconstruction helped solve
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a very complicated case one thing that you really do need to include is that this was a very complex
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investigation it involved a very large number of people and a tremendous amount of careful coordination and
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orchestration i feel kind of guilty because you're interviewing me people who commit crime think that they're very
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very bright and that the rest of us out here that try to solve crimes or work on crimes or
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involved with law enforcement are not very bright most often it's the other way around
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[Music] you