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[Music] up next a college girl goes missing and police suspect murder a cryptic text message provides a
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salacious clue and that was code for sex shenanigans and sex in the back of my mind i think i knew that something
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wrong had happened the victim's boyfriend had a shady past whether they had a relationship and he
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also had a history of a sex offense despite some blood evidence police can't find the girl's body
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which raises even more questions without anything pointing us to her i don't think we will ever find her
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many students at the university of nebraska work during the school year to pay for living expenses
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or even tuition nineteen-year-old jessica o'grady worked as a waitress in a local steak restaurant her goal was to
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pursue a career in child care she started out as a social studies major and then she worked at a daycare also
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and so the more she worked there the more she realized that she loved kids and had a passion for it and decided
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that she wanted to be a teacher as her sophomore year was coming to an end jessica celebrated with friends while
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making plans for the summer vacation jessica was with her friends that evening they'd ordered some pizza they'd
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been watching movies she got a message probably a text message of some sort and she indicated that
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she was going to go over and talk to chris i know people always do it um so i'm actually gonna go over to
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chris's really you're gonna go over to chris's place yeah and i was like you're going over to chris's and so then
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she went to her bathroom and took a shower and got ready and left to go over there everyone assumed
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that chris was chris edwards jessica's co-worker in the restaurant and a fellow student at the university
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we were actually in the restaurant she kind of you know like pointed you know so so nobody to be able
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to see her and so i caught a glimpse of him and she was excited about that jessica left
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her apartment around 11 30 p.m and that was the last time anyone saw her two days later when she
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hadn't returned home and wasn't returning phone calls her friends and relatives notified police
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you know 98 percent of the time when we receive a missing person report we're able to determine within the first
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24 to 48 hours that they're they're not really missing we've located them but this case was different police found
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jessica's car abandoned near the restaurant where she worked her family knew immediately something
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was wrong she wasn't blessed with cleanliness when it came to her car and there was hardly
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any trash in it and that was concerning to me that wasn't like jessica at all and jessica's friend chris edward said
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he didn't see jessica that night he claimed he was at a movie with his friends an alibi that checked out we did go to
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the movie theater located video of the movie ending and saw him when he was leaving the movie theater he
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told me he hadn't didn't know she was coming over that night here's a young girl
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you know attractive a college student what happened to her where did she go why would she just
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disappear and it was clear from talking to the family how passionate they were that she
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didn't just walk away from her life here then police learned two potentially disturbing pieces of
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information first a jessica might have been pregnant jessica at that time had believed that she was pregnant she
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had taken a pregnancy test at her friend's house and told her friend and her mother that she was
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pregnant and they also learned that there was another chris in jessica's life someone she'd been dating several months
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earlier could this be the chris she was going to see i'm going to go over to chris
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which chris was she talking about which boyfriend could it have been when police first learned that jessica
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o'grady was pregnant they thought the stress of this unexpected event may have prompted her
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to simply run off but as the hours passed and there was still no sign of her they
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began to lose hope i mean she didn't take any clothes with her not her personal items her personal
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hygiene items those kinds of things there's no activity on any credit cards there's no activity on a cell phone
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she's not talking with any of her friends she does that daily she's not talking with her aunt
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that she'd talk to on a daily basis the last time anyone saw jessica was at 11 30 p.m
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when she said she was going to her friend chris's apartment an hour later at 12 29 a.m jessica sent
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this text message to a friend it read no more shenanigans for jessica we knew that it was from jessica because
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shenanigans was a code word that jessica had for sex what did it mean exactly i don't know but that was
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the last text message that one of the friends received investigators first wanted to know where
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the text message originated which can be identified by the location of the cell towers
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that were used some of the phone companies only keep their text messages for 24 hours or a very short period of time
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and we were never able to retrieve the text message records next investigators wanted to know the
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identity of chris jessica's friends assumed it was the boy she'd been dating chris edwards
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he claimed he didn't see jessica that night and was at a movie with friends and he had a ticket stub and witnesses
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to prove it the other chris she knew was chris ryan a man she dated several months earlier
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chris had a past that required him to register as a sex offender and obviously that was a red flag he'd
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served two and a half years on a statutory rape charge and had been out of prison for 20 months
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but he also had an alibi there was no evidence from phone records from computers from friends
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that she'd had any additional contact with the other chris for several weeks investigators were
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running out of answers until they learned that jessica's co-worker chris edwards had been dating other girls
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while he was with jessica and one of those girls michelle was also pregnant jessica knew who
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michelle was and michelle actually knew who jessica was they had worked at the same restaurant but edwards told
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them both different stories chris was kind of playing both of these girls one of them
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he told her he wanted to be with her and they were gonna have a baby together and then
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the the other one jessica he indicated that the other girl was more like a fling kind of thing
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investigators learned that jessica had already informed edwards that he was the father
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of her baby and that she had no intention of terminating the pregnancy she seemed to be okay about it she
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seemed optimistic and thought things were going to work out when she learned that she was pregnant
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she went out bought prenatal vitamins you know things that you know that an expectant mother
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would start doing so she you know that showed us that she had every intent of you know keeping this baby
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investigators decided to re-interview chris edwards and as they spoke to him about jessica
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he said something unusual interestingly he talked about jessica in both the present and the past tense
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and we thought that we found that to be very interesting too chris edwards lived in the basement of
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his aunt's house in the suburbs of omaha his room had a separate entrance so he could come and go as he pleased
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when police came to question him he invited them inside this was just a knock and talk they
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weren't you know wasn't a search warrant at that point they just wanted to to just talk to him
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informally investigators asked if they could have a look around they asked them you know if there was
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any part of the house that he didn't want the investigators to look at he said well um i don't really want you
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to you know look at my bed or look at my camping equipment and they really you know obviously that's a red flag
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they kind of wanted to know what that was all about investigators asked edwards where he was
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on the night jessica disappeared and he repeated his alibi that he was at the movies with friends
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investigators found evidence that edward stopped at a walgreens store the day after jessica disappeared
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and bought some unusual items someone presumably chris had gone to walgreens and purchased three items there was
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poster paint white shoe polish and white out the type of white out they used for corrector
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fluid surveillance images from the drugstore showed without question that chris edwards
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made this purchase and not someone else using his credit card in edward's bedroom investigators
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noticed sections of drywall that were a different shade of white looking closer they noticed small stains underneath the
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paint in fact there was blood all over the ceiling and you saw so many blood droplets and you you you
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knew that there had been an attempt to try to cover that up they said chris you know there's some blood this
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is before he went upstairs there's some blood here he indicated he cut his finger
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there was a minimum of seven cast off stain patterns there was actually six cast off stains
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and you add one on for the first swing or for the first strike there was some paint that had been used and some
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shoe polish that had been used to try to cover up those stains but there was so much blood up there you
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had to repaint the whole wall or the whole ceiling several times to cover it up local television news crews found out
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about it and broadcast the search on live television we actually got a tip that the csi and investigators were
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going to be out there searching we could see the investigators working in the garage
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with the lights off special alternative light sources that they use spraying the luminal that sort of thing
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i probably had 15 phone calls from people are you seeing this are you watching this did you know this was
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happening investigators also turned over edward's mattress it was covered with a huge blood stain
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it went down within the bedding of the mattress and i believe it took up about approximately like eight square feet
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onto the mattress i believe he had stated that it was from menstrual blood on the mattress and i was looking at
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that going no oh my god definitely something happened here and it was not something that somebody could
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have survived from more evidence was found elsewhere in the house the garage was actually kind of a gold
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mine in the back of the car in the trunk we found some transfer blood in the back seat on the floorboard
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there were a pair of hedge clippers investigators found a dirty shovel in the back of edward's
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car but a geological analysis of the dirt was unable to determine where this soil sample came from we
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found some grass on the shovel they took it to the agricultural college and they determined
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that they believed it was potentially the kind of grass that would grow on a golf course
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edward's mattress and a four by four foot section of his bedroom ceiling were removed and taken to the forensics
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lab identifying the blood with dna testing wouldn't be easy since they didn't have jessica's
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dna profile law enforcement k-9 units and more than 150 volunteers searched the countryside looking for
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jessica's body but with so much open space in nebraska a body could easily be hidden and never
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found that is the big mystery what did he do with her where's her body [Music] to identify the blood found in chris
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edward's bedroom scientists needed jessica o'grady's dna profile but without her body they didn't have
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her dna the way we were able to establish jessica grady's identity based on dna was from
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items of hers that were collected at her house including her toothbrush a comb a razor that was
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that she used and a pair of her underwear from these items dna was collected and compared against
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each other the dna sample matched the dna sample of the blood in chris edward's bedroom i had to tell
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my daughter she started to cry but you know the resilience of kids she said mom i don't want you to worry
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i said okay i said why she said because jessica's an angel now and she's right here with us
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right now the next step was to attempt to identify the murder weapon the nature of the blood spatter made it
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apparent that the murder weapon was a large knife investigators couldn't find any such
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weapon when they first searched edward's home but when they returned a second time
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several days later they found something that wasn't there before a box containing two swords
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with 18-inch blades did he think he was out of the woods or and had put him somewhere else for a
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while knowing the police might search and then put him back in in this closet that's a possibility how stupid is this
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kid i just couldn't believe that he had if these were the weapons he had brought
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him back he probably didn't think that we would be coming back the swords called bangkok battle swords
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are often used in martial arts performances they could have caused the small elliptical cast off blood spatters
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in edward's bedroom that evening on the news they showed the detail of what a bangkok
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battle sword was it made me sick to my stomach you couldn't have prepared me for that
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a knife a gun you know any of those kind of things but it was a sword though the swords had apparently been
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cleaned analysts found traces of human blood along one of the blades the sample was sent for dna testing
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the blood was jessica's skin cells on the blades handle also produced a dna profile
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it belonged to chris edwards it didn't actually sink in until we got the dna results back that we realized
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this is her dna on the tip and it's his dna on the handle that was huge with that
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evidence chris edwards was charged with murder but he continued to deny any involvement
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many people even when they're confronted with as much evidence as you can muster in a
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case are still going to continue denying that they did anything until the end of time that's just the way it
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is we still have to prove that jessica was dead and not just missing and so we looked at common sense you look at
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the mattress and you look at the bloods better and the detectives and everyone in common sense tells us
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whoever shed this blood is not coming back this is a lot prosecutors believe chris edwards didn't
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have any serious interest in jessica o'grady so when she got pregnant that caused problems when jess
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originally told him he was somewhat upset about it they they argued about it and then
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later on as time progressed he seemed to calm down and they were going to have a meeting to talk
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to talk about it friends said jessica had no plans to terminate the pregnancy and edward's other girlfriend michelle
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who was also pregnant at the time was the more serious relationship of the two he was in love with michelle and wanted
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to marry michelle there were a lot of questions that came up uh from that relationship with michelle
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and obviously he's seeing jessica o'grady at the same time so certainly that would be a that would
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be a problem for him on the night of the murder prosecutors believe jessica and edwards talked by text
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message and set up a meeting that night around midnight according to friends jessica
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said she was going to chris's apartment although edwards did go to the movies with friends that night
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the movie was over early enough to meet jessica at his home around midnight prosecutors have no idea what transpired
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between the two but they obviously discussed the status of their relationship friends said that jessica knew about his
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other pregnant girlfriend michelle did you ask michelle more than likely they also discussed the
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status of jessica's pregnancy in any case edwards had to realize that no matter which girlfriend he chose
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he'd be supporting two children on his cook salary at 12 29 in the morning jessica sent a
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text message to her girlfriend no more shenanigans for jessica her code word for
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there will be no sex tonight the forensic evidence shows edwards hit jessica at least seven times with the sword
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while she lay on the bed creating the blood spatter on the walls and ceiling blood evidence shows edwards put
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jessica's body into the trunk of his car but no one knows where he took her at some point he took jessica's car and
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left it near the restaurant where they both worked [Music] he later tried to clean up the blood in
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his bedroom but there was simply too much of it he's tried to cover it up and he
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just gave up like come on man if you're gonna if you killed somebody do whatever you got to do to make sure
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that nobody can see this and he just didn't do that and that made our job really easy
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despite being offered a lesser sentence in return for disclosing the location of
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jessica's body edwards refused to talk from the human aspect we want to get her back for
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you know for her family um because they're good people uh you know they're concerned for
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and uh you know they need her back a jury found edwards guilty of second-degree murder
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and sentenced him to 100 years to life in prison is there anything you'd like to say to christopher edwards
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yes my my statement to christopher edwards would be it's over now please tell us where she's
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at we deserve that we've suffered through 10 months of this and it's time for us
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to know so that we can give her a peaceful burial that she deserves this smart the first ever no
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body conviction in nebraska state history i don't think there would have been any
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conviction if that if the csi and the forensics hadn't been there i think she was a girl in love
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that wanted to make it work and look what happened i mean for me it's at least once a month
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where i'll say you know where do you think where do you think she is where do you think her body's at
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the forensics told jessica's story plain and simple they spoke where she could not where her
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body could not tell the story her blood spatters that told the story you