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[Music] up next a restaurant robbery goes wrong there was no reason for this to happen stephen
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this was a vicious vicious attack and the evidence is contradictory there was somebody else bleeding at the scene
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of the crime that blood and the partial fingerprint were all investigators had i wasn't holding my
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breath for any real results until the money trail provides investigators with a vital clue
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[Music] jennifer holmes remembers super bowl sunday 2001 for one reason it was the day she
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first met her husband they were both at the same super bowl party and i saw him sitting
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there with the perfect hair and his leather jacket perfect smile so he stood there and he
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was like hi i'm steven it's like hi i'm jen a year later the two were married
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and 29 year old stephen became a father to jennifer's young son they also had plans to have children of
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their own as far as his career he was i noticed this about him he was always happiest when he was
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working in a restaurant steven was an assistant manager of a steakhouse in st petersburg florida he often worked long
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hours and some nights were longer than others he called me at 10 18 and said i'm just
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letting you know i'm gonna be later tonight because we had a late party and i
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just closed up i just let her let everyone out and lock the door around midnight an exterminator entered
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the restaurant with his own key that's when he saw the bloody footprints and he saw and
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found mr holm's lifeless body stephen holmes had been stabbed to death i've never seen a crime scene this
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horrific it was a pretty pretty bad scene in a clear case of overkill stephen was
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stabbed more than 40 times when you think of a murder you sometimes think okay somebody is
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shot or maybe they're stabbed i mean this was a vicious vicious attack it was almost
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decapitated it's not something that should happen to my son it's what no you can't believe
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you just can't believe that it's happening robbery appeared to be the motive about
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eight thousand dollars was missing from the safe in the manager's office this was much more than usual because
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the restaurant had been promoting 100 gift certificates as christmas presents that evening
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it's at a restaurant during the month of december generally speaking a fairly
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busy time of the year so we'd all piece together that that's what the motive was
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the exterminator who found the body was the first and most obvious suspect but was quickly written
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off due to his demeanor how he looked and not have any signs of violence or blood on his person
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they could see that he was nowhere near involved in this case fortunately for police the restaurant
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had several surveillance cameras when we saw the camera was present in the hallway
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our initial reaction was that we may very well have not only the attack on video
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but at least a starting point of what how the suspect was built and his race but there was an immediate
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setback all the cameras were hooked to a single video recorder and it was gone the entire vcr was
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the cords were actually cut and removed from the office there were no signs of forced entry
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was it possible that a customer hid in the restaurant until closing time in preparation for the robbery
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there's no reason to believe that the criminal might not have gone back to the
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restroom and hid in the bathroom until after they closed you know close the stall
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hit on top of the toilet that sort of thing if the killer was a customer that meant dozens if not hundreds
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of potential suspects [Music] friends family and co-workers had difficulty understanding
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why stephen holmes had been murdered the restaurant had never been robbed before and was located
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in a low crime area robberies usually don't result in this type of repeated violence
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very rarely in armed robberies does the victim sustain this many injuries steven's best friend and
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co-worker wilson santil was among the first to offer his condolences i heard whaling i came inside and it was
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wilson in the living room crying my wife consoled him and uh you know grabbed and grabbed his shoulders and
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just said you know think about steven's smile and you know he would forgive whoever
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did this and i think he started wailing more the day after stephen holm's murder
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a man working across the street from the crime scene contacted police this individual indicated that a white
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pickup truck with a horizontal stripe along the side of it raced out of the durango's parking lot prior to
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the police arriving the witness said this happened at about 11 o'clock just after the time police believe
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stephen was killed the description was so detailed i mean a loud muffler stripes on the
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side um you know a small pickup white i mean it was it was a very clear description
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of what type of a vehicle it was for two days police officers stopped dozens of trucks that fit the
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description checking the interiors for blood and the drivers for any fresh wounds then
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they got a devastating setback the witness now said he made the whole thing up he was trying to score points with his
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girlfriend is what it basically boiled down to he might have been a brick short too
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that's a week's worth of work and it's down the tubes and it's it's very disappointing as
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family and friends mourned stephen holmes police wondered who would want him dead nobody
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who knew him as far as i was concerned at that time could have hurt him especially like that
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we'd interviewed a lot of his friends a lot of family members some co-workers
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you could not find a single person that would say anything bad about him defensive wound showed steven fought his
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attacker to the end he had over 24 defensive wounds i believe and 20 wounds to his neck and his face
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it was obvious it was a very big struggle part of the struggle started inside the
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kitchen area and it made its way down that small hallway into the doorway of the office and then right
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there in the office is where the final struggle took place it appeared steven tried to make it into
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his office and shut the door there were actually stab marks on the door there was a large concentration of blood
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on that door there was a huge amount of blood on the floor the victim very well may have
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slipped on his own blood there were dozens of footprints made by the killer unfortunately there were no clear
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impressions for comparison it was someone that may have had a pair of galoshes or boots clean up type boots
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handy or actually had them on at the time they left the murder scene but it appeared the killer left evidence
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as he removed the surveillance equipment the suspect had to actually step over the victim that he had just killed
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the vcr was up off up off the counter area of the desk i believe that the suspect utilized part
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of that desk to reach up to get the vcr and cut it cut the cord and take the vcr
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on the floor underneath that shelf investigators saw a manila folder when they turned it over they found
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something we looked at it closer and we actually noticed the fingerprint in blood
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myself and mr carlisle looked at each other and said we got him was it possible the
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killer accidentally knocked it onto the floor as he was stealing the security system
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vcr the folder the fingerprint wasn't face up so the person who as they were leaving
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probably wouldn't have known that they had left that essential piece of evidence but it was a
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partial print and badly smudged the technician and i were going back and forth and i'm like well i think i can
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use it but let's see if we can make it just a little bit better and hand it back to him but enhancing it
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would come at a price that would actually destroy the dna profile of the blood that the fingerprint was left
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in investigators decided the risk was worth it the print was sprayed with a medo black a chemical dye that
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reacts with the proteins in blood he worked on it a little bit more and we decided that was
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as good as the print was going to get the result was the partial print of a fingertip
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investigators entered the print into the nationwide fingerprint database of known
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criminal offenders and the result was bad news i did do a knife search i was not able to come up with
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the match that's because the print didn't have enough points of comparison
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for the computer to process with no print match and now no dna investigators were no closer to solving
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this murder it's a situation where you basically uh take a deep breath and and keep on swimming
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in an attempt to find steven holmes killer investigators wanted to make sure they
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identified every piece of potential evidence in the restaurant the murder took place in steven's office
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in the back but investigators noticed small circular blood drops on the counter near the sink
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in the kitchen it was obviously close to the crime scene but far enough away that we were hoping
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that that was in fact the suspect's blood blood tests revealed it did not belong
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to the victim stephen holmes somebody had to be standing over the table and blood
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dripped off of onto the tape but if the blood was the perpetrator's why was it there
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and why didn't he clean it up these almost perfectly round blood drops called
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passive drops were made by someone standing still possibly while washing his hands at the
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sink a lot of times in a knife fight like that the knife may slip out of his hand and cut his finger or
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something similar to that effect the blood dna was possible evidence but investigators had no one to compare
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it to with no sign of forced entry the killer could have been an employee so investigators asked restaurant employees
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for dna samples and their fingerprints they also wanted to see if anyone had cuts or bruises
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on their hands they say you know what let's bring all the employees in and let's fingerprint everybody
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at least if we do that maybe we can rule everybody out with the fingerprint that we've got now but as police were
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fingerprinting the employees they didn't notice any with visible injuries authorities are thinking the killer's
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probably not here he's probably not an employee it was basically something that had to
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be done to further the investigation but i wasn't holding my breath for any real results
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nevertheless each employee was fingerprinted carefully this would be the front of the finger
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but the print i had was more off to the side so in order to make sure i got the area i needed i had to fully
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roll each and every finger of each and every employee and in a shocking development the print
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on the manila folder matched the last person anyone expected especially stephen holmes's family
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it belonged to wilson santeel stephen's best friend the restaurants maintenance
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man and prep cook steven's family couldn't believe it since the two often worked late together
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steven would bring in cds specifically that he knew was the type of music that wilson liked so that they could put them
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in and it would go through the whole store and they could be listening to that music while they were working
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wilson santil went to the ceremonies to honor the deceased he hugged family members cried when it
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appeared to be appropriate there was no flight issues there was no obvious signs that we needed to suspect
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him of anything but investigators naturally went further comparing santeel's dna to the blood droplets on
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the kitchen counter and faucet those six foreign male dna profiles found at the scene did
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match the suspect in the case the 51-year-old haitian national was arrested on suspicion of murder do you have
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anything to say at all they get a wrong guy that's why they got the wrong guy yes you didn't kill
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stephen holm i don't you don't know anything about it steve was my good friend
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although santil's blood and fingerprint were both at the scene police had a problem there was a
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plausible explanation for his blood to be at the sink in the kitchen the defense is pretty clear he's a
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maintenance worker he's a prep cook people cut themselves all the time and there was no proof
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santilla's fingerprint was in stephen's blood it could have been there previously so you find a fingerprint of
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my client here wilson santil inside the restaurant what's the big deal needing more
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investigators looked into a possible motive why would wilson santeel want to kill a
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man he called his friend people thought that wilson was a hard-working guy good family man good father until
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a background check revealed a secret past why was your your bloody fingerprint at
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the scene it's not my i don't have no blood in my sleep he was your friend yes he's my best
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friend wilson santilla insisted he had nothing to do with stephen holm's murder the father of
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three was active in his church and well liked by his co-workers he even considered the victim his best
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friend but a background check revealed santil had a violent past 20 years earlier santil
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served four years in prison for aggravated assault and concealing a weapon and despite
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working three jobs he had money problems he was paying child support from what i
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understand for two different children and the amount when i added up now it's
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probably the amounts like seven or eight hundred dollars a month it was quite a large sum of money
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the forensic evidence clearly pointed to wilson santeel as the man who killed stephen holmes
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inside the steak restaurant but investigators wanted to know what happened to the eight thousand dollars missing
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from the restaurant safe that's when they learned that santeel visited a local furniture store the day
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after the murder the furniture store had a security camera in the office which showed santeel
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paying off a twelve hundred dollar debt in cash with one hundred dollar bills much of the money stolen from the
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restaurant was in 100 bills from the gift certificates they'd been selling on the night of the murder we know that
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there are 100 bills that are stolen the fact that he pays off this debt at this furniture rental company so
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quickly after the murder is [Music] it's just bizarre and forensic testing found
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a connection between santeel's fingerprint in steven's office and his blood drops near the sink you
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had feet print leading to the manager's office and you had shoe prints leading
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from the office to the kitchen now the case is coming full circle prosecutors believe wilson santil was
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desperate for money and believed his only recourse was to rob the restaurant where
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he worked as the maintenance man he stopped by after hours knowing the cash receipts would be in
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the safe santil probably made some noise in the kitchen steven walked out of his office to see
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who was there no [Music] that's when steven saw the knife steven ran to his office and tried to
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close the door but santil was still able to get inside stephen was stabbed more than 40 times
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and died in his office as santil washed his hands and the knife his blood possibly from a bloody nose
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from the fight dropped onto the kitchen counter and faucet santio took the eight thousand dollars
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from the safe since he knew the surveillance cameras had captured the fight he cut the cables and removed the video
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recorder but as he did he left his partial fingerprint on the manila folder which fell to the
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floor upside down centil left the restaurant with the murder weapon video recorder
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and his bloody clothes prosecutors believe he returned later to clean up the blood but his plan fell
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apart when he saw the exterminator was there on an unscheduled visit nobody knew he was
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coming by that night except for stephen i feel that was a godsend steven's the only person that
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knows that this guy is showing up and again thank god that he shows up on that night
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because that narrows the timeline that preserves the crime scene at that point and that prevents wilson santil from
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coming back and cleaning up the crime scene when steven's family learned that wilson
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santil murdered their son they were shocked and angry because it was santil who came to their home
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hours after stephen's murder to offer his condolences you know to listen to all the lies and then to know that he
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came here it's just you know complete disbelief when we found out later it was him
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it's a weird feeling that he had the nerve to come here to our home to see all right
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it's still hard to comprehend that wilson santil was tried and convicted of first degree murder he was sentenced
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to life in prison without the possibility of parole santil left evidence behind some he might have explained having
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worked there as an employee but not all of it i think forensic science is amazing
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that's what solved the case it just puts that much more of my faith in the in the system
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and i'm just i'm glad that it's progressed to where it has and i hope it
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continues to to do so forensic science in this particular case is 110 it's the reason wilson santil is in
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prison and without it he would be a free man today