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9-1-1 did you please fire medical an anonymous telephone call told police where they could find the body of a
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missing nine-year-old girl the recording of that call had too much static and background noise for voice
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identification until forensic scientists worked their magic which led investigators to a factory a
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supermarket and straight to the front door of a suspect [Music] [Music] on the friday before easter in 1996
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nine-year-old jessica knott spent the day playing reading and drawing the kids were home from school i spent
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the day packing up clothes and getting ready for a trip that we had planned to make to my husband's parents house to
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spend the easter weekend with them eventually jessica wanted to go outside to play and wait for her father to come
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home she said i'd like to go downstairs and wait for dad because my husband was out shopping for
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easter goodies i said fine you know don't go anywhere else a couple of hours later
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kevin not walked in the front door but without jessica and it was starting to get dark
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and he said where's jessica i said didn't you see her she was she said she
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was right out front he said no kevin and peggy not searched everywhere one neighbor said she saw jessica
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sitting outside reading a few hours earlier but hadn't seen her since police were notified of jessica's
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disappearance they instituted a parameter search of the area [Music] but their first real lead was an
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anonymous telephone call saying that jessica could be found not far from her home on montgomery road
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i have a message jessica from los alamos the call originated from a pay phone at
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a gas station on montgomery road [Applause] no one was there when police arrived
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crime scene investigator deanna tominski was called to the area while i was in route to the mobile gas
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station they called me and informed me they had found a body of a juvenile female
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the body was in a dark isolated area near a water system pomp house a quarter mile from where the telephone
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call was made she was partially covered with a dark plastic garbage bag and there were a couple of magazines a
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mirror around her it was jessica knott i think it was detective rodriguez i was sitting on the sofa in my living room
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and he came in he's and i just knew he said i found your daughter and i knew that she was gone at that
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point so [Music] that was uh that was the worst night of my life it was like a nightmare
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for any parent you know i still have a hard time accepting it deanna tominski searched the area for
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possible forensic evidence jessica's clothing was intact except for one missing shoe
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it appeared that she'd been placed there that she was not killed there because there were items underneath her
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as well as on top of her and there was a drag mark in the sand that corresponded
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with her left shoulder there was a tire impression nearby which police photographed then cast with
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plaster for future evaluation the body was carefully removed for an autopsy along with the plastic garbage
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bag in which the body was found the first thing you try to do is you try to eliminate people who know her how
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could she have gotten away from there without raising a ruckus you have to wonder how in the world did it even
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happen that no one could see it so the first thing to do obviously is to look at family
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when questioned by police neither jessica's mother peggy nor her husband kevin were able to provide an alibi for
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the time of jessica's disappearance kevin said he was shopping peggy said she was inside cleaning her house but
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neither could provide any independent corroboration in kevin knott's vehicle
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police found a roll of garbage bags which were confiscated for forensic analysis
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and there was something else suspicious an analysis of the anonymous call to police revealed the tone of the caller's
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voice as sympathetic suggesting that the caller knew jessica personally if investigators could identify the
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caller they most likely had their killer [Applause] the autopsy of nine-year-old jessica
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knott revealed bruising on her neck and the inside of her mouth indicating someone had cupped a hand over her mouth
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and suffocated her we couldn't be sure whether it was strangulation or whether it was
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suffocation because of a hand over the mouth probably a combination of the two actually
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and the contents of her stomach revealed she had eaten a fast food hamburger shortly before she was killed
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how can you treat a human life like a piece of trash i mean literally he put her in a garbage pick and dumped
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her on under a tree i think it was they found her i mean that really makes me angry
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extremely angry scott ryland analyzed the bag covering jessica he found no fingerprints on it and also
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determined that the bag was different from the type found in jessica's father's truck
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this eliminated kevin not as a possible suspect they asked to interview me right off the
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bat which i understood and it was pretty hard but it had to be done the trace evidence found on jessica's
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body hairs fibers and other materials were sent to forensic scientist max houck he immediately identified important
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information about the killer the foreign hair found on jessica's body was caucasian
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and there were two different types of fibers both were matte finished very thick and rough not the type used in
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clothing there's a certain look to carpet fibers and there's a certain look
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to automotive fibers and if you look at enough of them you can eventually get a hunch if you will that it may be
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in fact from an automobile either the carpeting or maybe the floor mats the fibers were from two different
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carpets suggesting that jessica had been in two different locations and there was another telling piece of
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trace evidence and then there was the overwhelming number of animal hairs the animal hairs
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were distinctive as to what type of animal they were from a dog dogs have what's called a spade shaped
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root it also kind of looks like a small christmas tree sort of folded up and triangular in
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shape hauck then compared that dog hair to reference samples from the fbi laboratory
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i knew it wasn't going to be a malamute or you know some alaskan husky so i went
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to short-haired dogs black labs sharpays boston terriers dogs like that that have very short sleek coats
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and then started comparing the characteristics all the other dogs dropped out except for sharpay
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all of this evidence told investigators that the killer was caucasian and that he took jessica in his automobile to a
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fast food restaurant later jessica was in another location where she came into contact with a
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sharpie dog police then turned their attention to the anonymous telephone call the 911 tape obviously a key piece of
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evidence everyone was convinced the person on that tape was the murderer and we wanted to be able to identify that
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voice the call had been made from a public telephone at a gas station and had quite a bit of background noise
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and static [Music] [Applause] [Music] police sent the tape to nasa asking scientists there to use the same audio
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techniques they employ to clean up audio transmissions from space after that was complete the tape was
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sent to dr harry holine a renowned forensic audio analyst who literally wrote the book on forensic audio
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analysis dr holin felt certain he could identify the voice on the telephone call all he
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needed was a suspect's voice for comparison the tone of the caller's voice sounded
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to investigators as sympathetic as if he knew jessica personally on a hunch police played the tape for
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jessica's mother and her reaction was immediate my first reaction was this voice is very
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familiar to me and i think i had to listen to it a few times before i realized this
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oh it it was like a bell ringing my head ah that's it it's the guy with the dog
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the guy with the dog was a neighbor she just couldn't recall his name [Music]
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in their grief friends and neighbors left lilies and toy rabbits where jessica knott's body
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was found on easter weekend meanwhile jessica's mother had provided police with a suspect
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she said the man who called police pointing them to jessica's body sounded like a neighbor who walked his dog in
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the area police identified the man as 35 year old james edward crowe who had no prior
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arrests crowe lived with his wife who was a nurse he was unemployed and spent quite a bit
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of time walking his dog pumpkin he stayed home and watched the house and the dog and walked the dog around and
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talked to all the kids now that's not the worst thing in the world in some situations but it certainly makes you
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wonder something about him made me feel uncomfortable but it's not a thought that i dwelled on
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pumpkin was a sharp pay similar to the breed whose hair was found on jessica's
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body a neighbor had seen crow talking to jessica outside the apartment building shortly before she disappeared
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crowe admitted talking to her but denied having anything to do with her disappearance
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investigators searched crowe's vehicle amid the debris they found a bag for a kid's meal from a
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nearby fast food restaurant remnants of a fast food hamburger had been found in jessica's stomach
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and crowe had brand new tires on his truck police discovered that crowe had replaced them just after jessica's death
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and in crow's apartment police found a box of black garbage bags the same size
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and brand as the bag found with jessica's body could they link the garbage bag from the
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crime scene to the garbage bags and crow's apartment there are a huge number of garbage bags
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produced typically on the order of nine and a half million bags in one month time
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so the question is how many of those nine million bags could be like this bag found on jessica
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knott's body to find out investigators turned to noel roberts as a quality control expert for the
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manufacturer he knows garbage bags robert said that the number stamped on the box indicated where the bag had been
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made the bags and crow's apartment had been made in virginia the goal of mass production is to
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quickly make an identical product over and over again but roberts knew that not every trash
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bag was truly identical he invited scott ryland and prosecutor chris white to the plant to understand
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how the manufacturing process worked how plastic is recycled melted blown into a huge tube that cools as it
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ascends and then made into rolls of thin sheets that are cut and folded into bags
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manufacturers use a variety of materials to make the bags including scraps you're taking a random amount of white
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plastic bags of yellow ties that have iron in them the white plastic bags are very rich in
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titanium dioxide so what you have depending on this random variation in the scrap that's
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being used a change in the concentration of the iron and the titanium and in fact
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it turns out from day to day to reveal the elements in the plastic scott ryland focused a high intensity
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x-ray beam on samples of the bags found in crow's apartment a fluorescent spectrometer reveals the
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elements in the plastic and their relative concentrations the bag found with jessica was virtually
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identical to the bags in crow's apartment indicating they had been from the same batch of plastic
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another characteristic was visible to the naked eye when the plastic is made bits of debris
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will get lodged in the machinery this produces imperfections in the plastic called dye lines
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because the obstructions causing the lines come and go the pattern on the bags is unique to a specific window of
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time and it almost gives you a fingerprint type identification where you can take
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one bag and really match it up with the next bag in a carton and be pretty sure that it is a consecutive bag and from
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the same batch the dye lines and the bags found in crow's apartment lined up with the dye
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lines in the bag from the crime scene meaning all the bags were manufactured within
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hours of each other often the bags are not folded evenly the amount of overlap in the edges called an
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offset varies over time and with each machine used the offset in crow's bags and the bag
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with jessica's body also matched i think most people would say wow we're
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not dealing with 32 to 34 potential boxes but it narrows it down to half that number it's probably realistically
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16 to 17 boxes of bags out there as potential sources of the bag found in jessica's body
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meaning that there was a 1 in 17 chance that the garbage bag came from crowe's
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apartment james edward crowe was arrested and charged with the murder of nine-year-old jessica knott
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[Music] forensic scientists were able to determine that the carpet fibers found on jessica's body were consistent with
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the carpet fibers in james crowe's apartment and in his automobile and the dog hair on jessica's body was
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consistent with crow's dog the garbage bags in crow's home had the same striations and offset overlaps as
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the bag with jessica's body this meant that crow owned one of the 17 boxes of bags that the bag from the
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crime scene could have come from finally dr harry hollen compared a sample of crow's voice to the voice on the
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anonymous telephone call and he came to a conclusion somewhere in the 90 percent
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range that this was in fact the same voice based on the forensic evidence prosecutors believe that crowe used his
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dog to start a conversation with jessica while she waited outside for her father
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do you like dogs yeah do you want to try to take them for a walk yes yeah it'd be really fun
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from there he coaxed her into his car with the promise of a fast food hamburger afterwards the forensic evidence
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suggests crow took her back to his apartment where she picked up the apartment carpet fibers and the hairs
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from his dog [Music] for reasons unknown crow apparently suffocated jessica in his apartment
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he then hid the body in a garbage bag and placed it in the back of his car without creating suspicion
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after dumping the body in the deserted location he placed a call to police probably out of guilt which dr holin
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matched with his audio expertise james crowe maintained his innocence and his defense attorneys challenged the
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forensic evidence in a separate hearing to determine the admissibility of this forensic evidence
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in the upcoming trial prosecutors had to prove that the scientific analysis of the garbage bags met general scientific
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standards in the end the judge said i find it admissible not only do i find it admissible i think it's some of the best
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forensic testimony that i've ever seen and the jury is going to be very very
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interested in this testimony well you don't get those kind of compliments from judges every day
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faced with the overwhelming forensic evidence james crowe decided to plead no contest to second-degree murder in
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exchange for a sentence of 40 years in prison with no chance for parole in so doing
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crow avoided a possible death sentence all i can say is the man upstairs is waiting for him
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but possibly the man downstairs too the family was spared the ordeal of a trial but in the courtroom
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they showed crow how much he hurt them when kevin read a poem he had written [Music]
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dare you to swift justice to meet your omega to face your guard until israel the sooner the better
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the knots never before realized the complexity of forensic evidence and the full measure of its power
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with all the dna testing that goes on and just all the science scientific technology that's available today
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i think just helps everybody get closer to the truth of crimes it wasn't available like say 20
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30 years ago and it pretty much cut to the core of what happened the forensic capabilities of our local
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department of law enforcement lab and the fbi lab are what made this case possible
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in the sense of made it possible for us to prosecute it successfully if we had not had the capabilities of those labs i
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think james crowe would still be on the street [Music] [Music] [Music] you