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it took a russian immigrant just seven years to rise from a janitor to one of the most successful stock brokers in the
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united states then he disappeared a dog hair a piece of plastic and the speck of orange paint were all that
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remained in a crime motivated by jealousy and greed [Music] [Music] in the 1970s and 80s people living in
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the former soviet union faced a life of hardship and despair some like 23 year old michael
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prosimenchikov wanted more he was living a life of deprivation of long lines for food you know of crowded
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buses michael actually grew up in an apartment with seven other families living in the same unit
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with little to lose michael and his family emigrated to the united states at first michael took a job as a janitor
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he worked hard perfected his english and waited for the right opportunity he grasped at the american dream in all
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of its incarnations he wanted to have material wealth he wanted to have recognition for being successful at a
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career this is a guy who was really driven who had goals and he really set out aggressively to accomplish them
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eventually michael earned a license as a stockbroker passed a test for securities
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dealers and got an entry-level position in a minneapolis firm when he started out he asked his fellow
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russian immigrants for business and they responded generously within seven years
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michael was earning well over one million dollars annually and he liked to make sure
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everyone knew it and tell you the truth a lot of people didn't like him because he was making such approach
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like i am you know big shot whatever i drive a mercedes big deal i drive mercedes too but who cares
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on january 28 1991 michael told his wife he'd be working late but he never came home
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i said michael didn't come home last night and my wife turned to me right away and
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she said i bet he i bet he's dead police found michael's car in the parking lot of lake minnetonka just a
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few blocks from his office a police officer actually saw the mercedes park there around midnight that
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evening also which was unusual it's an isolated beach a very cold january evening and here's
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this mercedes sitting there at the beach michael's briefcase was on the front
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seat there was no blood in the car or any sign of violence [Music] investigators found what appeared to be
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blood on the frozen surface of the lake a few hundred yards away but tests on the stain were inconclusive
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two days passed then a workman at a city compost pile saw a flock of crows hovering around some
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discarded christmas trees and i looked in there and it was quite obvious it was a bent section of a human
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leg all the way up to the hip you know just that while in this game it's a pretty big guy
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investigators also found a human torso the head and the hands were missing so it looked like someone was trying to get
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rid of anything that could be identified as far as identifying the body but they did find
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the end of a finger tip when police ran the fingerprint they discovered it matched the fingerprint of michael
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prozamanshikov's brokerage license law enforcement theorized that michael may have been targeted because he was a
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russian immigrant so they urged caution then the fbi called me and said please do not come to the funeral
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and i said well why well the word is that you're a friend of his whoever did
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this could shoot you at the funeral so don't come to the funeral and i thought
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wow investigators took this unusual step because they had no idea why michael was
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murdered but they did know he had plenty of enemies in the search for michael prosimanchikov's killer
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investigators didn't have to look far for suspects although michael made a lot of money for
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himself as a stockbroker not all of his clients liked the way he did it xena shirl says she gave michael twenty
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thousand dollars but told him to invest only in stocks that she chose i came to him and i said this is the
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deal you do not touch it this is whatever you do what i tell you what to do he said yes
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almost immediately xena realized michael was buying and selling stocks in her account without her permission
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i had a bill from the company that i own them almost like eight or ten thousand dollars
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for uh commission buying and selling so i went to his company and i said mike look this is one
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in the brokerage business that's called churning the account buying and selling stocks in a
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customer's portfolio for the sole purpose of generating commissions other clients allege that michael
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promised returns of 18 a year in order to get their business a practice that's
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illegal in many states michael he crossed a lot of bridges he it i mean a lot of illegal things
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towards them investigators also learned that michael didn't always pick good stocks for
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example he bought shares in texas air for many of his clients at 48 per share in a matter of weeks
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it fell to 15. i would say most of the people we had talked to that had lost money
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were really not that upset that michael had disappeared or that he had been murdered
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[Music] we even had several people that said they wish they could have done it on the night michael was reported
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missing his wife said he called her around 8 30 he said he was with a client and was working late
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she also said michael asked her for his supervisor's home telephone number in phone calls to his wife that night he
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spoke russian which she considered unusual michael did not like to speak russian in front of american clients he
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considered it rude you'd only speak russian in front of some other russian she just assumed that whoever he was
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with was some of the russian later michael called his boss at home with an unusual request
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he was asking for money two hundred thousand dollars that he said he needed to raise for a client that night
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this of course put everyone on their guard because to get a call from a broker at night seeking two hundred
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thousand dollars is highly unusual michael said his client was leaving town early the next day and needed the money
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immediately naturally michael's boss said no he just said it's not that we're
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unwilling to come up with the two hundred thousand dollars but we certainly aren't going to be able to
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come with it tonight and michael's boss said that he made a strange reference to a
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boat what he said was didn't you tell me that you that your father gave you 200 000
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to buy a boat to help you buy a boat well his supervisor hadn't told him anything like that
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and his supervisor later concluded and later told the police that he suspected that michael was trying to send an alarm
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of some kind by reminding him of a conversation that had never happened the medical examiner believes that
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michael was killed later that night it's difficult to be precise but because he wasn't completely frozen i
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didn't think he'd been out there longer police found michael's torso his legs
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and a piece of his finger on the tarp with the torso investigators found a single black hair
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it was very fine and had kind of a crimped appearance to it it's not indicative of a human hair
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microscopic examination revealed it was a dog hair the medulla or central core of animal
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hairs can help identify the breed in this case analysts determined the hair was from a bernese mountain dog
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which is tri-colored and usually very large the only other evidence that the scene
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was on the gate that led to the garbage dump it looked as if a car had hit it to
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force it open there was some brownish paint transfers on the gate at the compost site from the gate being pushed
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open by a car and there was a small plastic fragment that looked like a piece of the car's
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bumper a witness told police that he saw michael's black mercedes benz in the lake parking lot next to a
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small brown vehicle similar in color to the piece of bumper found at the compost
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site he also stated that the car possibly could have been a mazda626 it looked consistent
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with a mazda626 this narrowed the list of suspects considerably they were looking for
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someone driving a brown mazda who had a bernese mountain dog and was one of michael's clients
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while investigating the murder of stockbroker michael prasimanchikov investigators learned he had many
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disgruntled customers he had also been soliciting investors to build a resort in reno nevada to be
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managed by a company called omni financial quite a bit of money that investors put into this scheme
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and it ended up that actually the address for omni financial was in the middle of the desert it was an
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old deserted shabby motel vacant is really what the address was where this resort was supposed to be the
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investment was a scam and this created even more unhappy customers authorities believe that money was
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probably the motive for michael prozamenshikov's murder news of michael prossimenschikov's
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murder generated a number of potential leads including one from employees of a local
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car wash they said they had an odd encounter with the customer the morning after michael's
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body was found the customer requested we get some hunting blood out of his trunk
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which got us thinking a little bit a little you know a little strange they said it was a brown mazda
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and they gave police the license number pnn393 the car was registered to zachary
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persits a 39-year-old russian emigre who worked as a dam inspector for the state
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of minnesota he was a friend of michael's when he first met michael he was more
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established than michael was and then michael got into the brokerage business and michael's earnings eclipsed those of
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zachary they met in this country they didn't know each other in the old country their wives were friends
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persit was married had two children and was well known and respected within the russian immigrant community
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very nice very musical very intelligent i remember zachary is a good artist this guy was the greatest guy in the
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world he wouldn't hurt a flea if you interviewed them they'd say he was a
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great neighbor kept to himself never bothered anybody but pressets and michael were more than
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just friends michael was purseit's financial advisor their relationship was rocky at best
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investigators discovered that pursets gave michael 150 000 to invest but there were more losses than profits at some
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point percitz discovered his stock portfolio was worth less than thirty thousand dollars
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for the most part they weren't investments that were suitable for a guy that invested every
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nickel he had with michael when questioned by police persits denied any involvement in
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michael's murder and he willingly took a lie detector test arranged by his lawyer
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my investigator and co-counsel had developed a suspicion that he hadn't done this and so
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i called a polygrapher and had zachary tell him that he hadn't done it and he passed
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and forensic testing could not determine the origin of the blood in persit's
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trunk at the time dna testing wasn't as sophisticated as it is today back then the dna testing procedures
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that were used required dna to be what's called high molecular weight we needed
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dna that hadn't gone through any degradation processes at all but investigators did find
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some suspicious damage to percid's car it had damage to the front right end the paint was scraped and the bumper was
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broken the scratches on the bumper had what appeared to be tiny specks of orange
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paint which were removed with a small probe the samples we're talking about are
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perhaps the size of a period or a small dot with a pencil so we're talking microscopic sized chips
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paint the paint sample was compared to the paint from the broken gate using a process called a solubility analysis
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chemical solubility tests are a series of reagents solvents or reagents that may cause color reactions
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or cause it to dissolve or swell or do something color change and if they are similar that means that the paints could
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have had a common source the test showed that the paint on purseit's bumper could have come from
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the gate but the sample was too small to be conclusive but the piece of broken bumper found
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near the gate was of more value the forensic analysis revealed it could only have come from one source it was
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just a perfect match they were unevenly cracked so the odds of the pieces that they
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recovered from the compost site being a perfect even match to zachary's car the
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odds of coming from some other source were so amazing that they've they just decided
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this had to come from zachary's car and investigators learned that persits owned a dog with long black hair which
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proved to be microscopically similar to the single dog hair found with michael's body
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[Music] finally investigators sprayed the inside of persit's car with luminol
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it revealed evidence of a gun shot it looked like a stars there were hundreds of spots on the roof of the
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headliner of the car which would have been consistent with the high velocity missed
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if someone gets shot in the head this indicated that michael was sitting in the driver's seat of persit's car
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when he was killed investigators found a receipt in persit's office for a pair of handcuffs
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that could have been used in the abduction i mean they had the receipt they had the
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guy that he bought them from zachary persitz was arrested and charged with first degree murder
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even his lawyer acknowledged the strength of the prosecution's case trying this case was like being a human
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punching bag [Music] prosecutors believe that zachary persits was enraged by the way his friend
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michael prozamancikov handled his money he watched his 150 thousand dollars dwindle to less than thirty thousand
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dollars he came upon hard times he was not going to be able to pay the tuition for
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private school he was not going to be able to make his mortgage payments and that's
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where the dynamics of zachary pursets began to change he was unable to stand the pressure of
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seeing all of his dreams vanish at the same time zachary persit saw that michael was
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living quite well on the commissions generated from all the stock transactions zachary's wife oftentimes would compare
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their lifestyle to michael's lifestyle saying things like michael has a big house why
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don't we have a big house michael has a mercedes why don't we have a mercedes and on and on
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prosecutors believe wanted revenge the evidence suggests percit set up a meeting with michael after work they met
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in the parking lot at lake minnetonka [Music] once there percits threatened michael with a gun
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and demanded his money back with interest so michael called his boss at home asking him for 200 000
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but his boss refused [Music] persits handcuffed michael to the steering wheel of his car and ordered
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michael to drive to a deserted location [Music] [Applause] [Music] and then killed him
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persits put michael's body in the trunk and drove to the compost site about 60
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miles away percepts broke through the gate with the car's bumper leaving a small piece
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behind after dismembering michael's body presets wrapped the torso in a tarp
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unbeknownst to him a single black hair from his pet dog was on the top [Music] the rest of michael's body and the gun
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have never been recovered he thought he could pull off this homicide and not get caught because he
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had it all planned out and he didn't realize how tough it is to hide trace evidence forensic evidence
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it's always going to be there zachary persitz pled not guilty by reason of insanity
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the jury however rejected that and found him guilty of first degree murder he was sentenced to life in prison
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for michael prozamanshikov the american dream had turned into a tragedy but the trail of evidence left
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no doubt who was responsible the forensic evidence was the case the investigators
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did an overwhelming and professional job the old expression is if you think you know how to commit the perfect crime
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there are 50 ways to get up and you're a genius if you can figure out 25 of them
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[Music] [Music] [Music] you