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[Music] up next a teenage girl goes missing this child had walked away into the darkness and
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disappeared was she the victim of foul play or did she run off to be with a friend
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it was horrible you know people just didn't know what to make of it for weeks there were many questions but
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no answers something's not right you know it's just too weird until police find evidence of an
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encounter gone wrong she would have put up a tremendous fight this is good science this is
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absolute good stuff [Music] teenage love affairs are notoriously passionate so when sixteen-year-old tara muncie
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fell in love with her high school classmate nick zaroba she expected it to last forever
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terry and nick was the strongest love that you could imagine but it was like the car show
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fast and furious it was sometimes it was really great sometimes it was really furious
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when nick graduated he joined the navy and was stationed at the great lakes naval base in illinois
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tara stayed in virginia to finish her last years in high school she was in love with him and she talked
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about him constantly they planned on getting married on the night of january 25 2000
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tara didn't return home after her shift at a local fast food restaurant it wasn't like tara to do that tara
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would always call in check in tara's parents called the local sheriff's office but this was a story they'd heard a
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hundred times before the team missing for a couple of hours is a very routine call
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typically a teenager or any missing person turns up within 24 hours her last known location was the fast
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food restaurant where she was seen leaving alone at seven o'clock carrying a container of food
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her car was still in the lot the car was unlocked and the food and hat was sitting on the
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front driver's seat like she had placed it there there was no purse nor keys found at the
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scene the main question is why wouldn't she have her car and now who she is with or where she is
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at is it someone that she doesn't want her parents to know she's with it was as if tara had dumped her
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belongings and just left but it was freezing outside so it didn't seem likely she would simply
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walk away but by the next morning tara still hadn't returned home both of us tara's mom and myself both
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knew deep down that something wasn't right some people thought she'd run off to be with nick
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if she headed for illinois and she headed for to meet the boyfriend there was no evidence of her purchasing
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a ticket at a bus station there was no evidence she had purchased an airline ticket
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investigators contacted nick at the naval base he said he hadn't had any contact with
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her he hadn't seen her she hasn't called him his commanding officer was able to confirm that he had
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been on the base the entire time 24 hours after tara disappeared police received some alarming
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information a co-worker said that the night before tara was working the drive-through
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window and got into an argument with two young male customers she had had a wordy conversation or a
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confrontation maybe with a couple of young men that came through the drive-through we're thinking that
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those are two potential suspects normally there would be video to identify these men
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[Music] but not this time big disappointment the restaurant i didn't have any video
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surveillance of any kind this also meant there was no video surveillance of the parking lot and none of the customers or
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tara's co-workers saw anything suspicious they didn't really pay attention who she left with
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or you know what transpired out in the parking lot this left terrace family and police
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without answers we knew absolutely nothing we had nothing the case was completely clueless from the start
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when tara muncie disappeared her friends thought she had run away to be with her
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boyfriend nick in illinois her parents however didn't believe it i think maybe one time
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tara decided she was going to run away i think she was gone for an hour she would not run away no
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when media outlets reported the story of tara's disappearance hundreds of volunteers joined the search
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everyone wanted to help find tara muncie it was cold there was snow on the ground
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and it didn't stop people they came out people poured out and searched neighborhoods searched parks
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looked everywhere they could for her in the snow in the cold i miss her so much i just i just want her back somebody's
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got her i don't know why but she just wouldn't run so something's not right you know
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it's just too weird tara's friends told police that the last time they saw her was after school on the day she went
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missing from there tara went to work at the fast food restaurant two long weeks passed and still there
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was no trace of tara the pressure at that time was extreme and it was all fueled by the
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thought that this child had walked away into the darkness and disappeared and it could happen to yours or mine
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then 17 days after tara went missing a hiker found a body near an isolated railroad track
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seven miles from tara's house my first thought is you know how fast can we get there is it tara
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or is it or is it something else you know the body was at the bottom of a 70-foot
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wooded ravine almost completely hidden from sight it's just a surreal feeling when you're
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standing out in the middle of the outdoors and you can see that it was a violent
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death the victim was naked from the waist up and had been shot to death some injuries were consistent with the
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body being rolled down the ravine post-mortem a driver's license in her back pocket
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confirmed everyone's worst fears it was terra muncie tara was quite a girl one of a kind
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and it's just too bad she never got to live to fight for all this to find out her full
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potential fortunately near freezing temperatures help forensic investigators her body
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appeared to be fairly well preserved i remember thinking at the time that i hope that means that we're going to have
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some some good evidence but the crime scene itself was another matter it was a dumping ground it was a ravine
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where people dumped their tires their stoves it was very difficult for investigators to separate out what
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was perhaps related to the crime and what was not at the top of the ravine was a single
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22-caliber shell casing as well as tara's car keys and parts of a cigarette the cigarette
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filter was right in the middle of the crime scene the filter was found separately from the cigarette very few
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people ever pull a filter off of a cigarette to smoke it in a bundle thrown to the side
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investigators found tara's t-shirt and on it a potential clue you could see a faint outline of an
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outsole of an athletic shoe on the front of the shirt you can make a positive identification
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of a footwear impression just like you can make a positive identification of a fingerprint but finding the shoe
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wouldn't be easy tara munsey's autopsy showed she was most likely killed the day she went missing she'd
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been shot four times at close range this child was executed i firmly believe that she was shot in the chest
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and while she was on the ground i think that the rifle was held next to her head and three shots were
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fired blood found under tara's fingernails showed she had fought her attacker what we had learned about tara muncie is
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that she would have put up a tremendous fight she would have resisted any type of assault
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there's many hours of crying just thinking how she felt what was going on in her mind it was
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hard to deal with yes it was very hard it was very hard to deal with even though tara's rape kit came up
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negative investigators found seminal fluid on her body all of the biological evidence was sent for dna testing
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the ballistic evidence provided a surprising clue the murder weapon left an unusual
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combination of lands and grooves on the fatal bullets only three types of 22-caliber rifles
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could have fired those shots you're looking for a sears a marlin or revelation and by
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the way marlin manufactures force years and revelation so it's only one manufacturer doing all
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three when you're talking hundreds of different firearms to narrow it down to three
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that's pretty unique and good information tara's ripped shirt also provided a possible clue
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using alternate light sources forensic analysts found a partial muddy shoe print on the front
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of her shirt investigators searched their database of thousands of known outsole
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designs and found the one they were looking for we were able to tell the police that we
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they need to look for an individual that has a pair of nike brand running shoes with a herringbone outsole design
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the print wasn't large enough to identify the shoe size but it was valuable information
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nonetheless then tara's friends told police something they had been reluctant to reveal earlier
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on the day tara went missing tara and her friends were smoking marijuana after school
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and an older man was with them the man who had provided the marijuana 30 year old
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jeff thomas it struck me out at that time that there was a 30 year old male there
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smoking marijuana with these teenagers after school we didn't have a regular employment and
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we're not even sure that he really had a had a regular place to live he stayed at times in his girlfriend's
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basement tara and jeff thomas knew one another tara often babysat for jeff's six-year-old daughter
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a background check revealed thomas had a criminal record eight years earlier thomas attacked a neighbor with a
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baseball bat and served two years in prison when questioned by police jeff thomas
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denied any involvement in tara's murder and said he had an alibi thank you for coming in today we found
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that there had been some holes in his alibi particularly where he'd spent the night
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jeff thomas denied owning a 22-caliber rifle but said his friend kevin williams of 32-year-old
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bricklayer owned one police converged on kevin williams house hoping to question williams and examine
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his gun but willian's story was significantly different from that of jeff thomas kevin williams
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told us that he owned a 22 caliber rifle and that he left it in the possession of
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jeff thomas and he has not seen that rifle or firearm since williams admitted he sometimes used the
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rifle for target practice in his backyard investigators knew this was their chance
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to find out whether kevin williams rifle was the murder weapon after williams had told us that he had
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fired this weapon off his back off the rear deck of his home it was a long shot to think that we would find any casings
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in the yard incredibly investigators found two shell casings under the porch ballistics
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matched the shell casing found near tara's body this is absolute good stuff this is good
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science which tells you you've just recovered cartridge cases from the murder weapon but
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where was the rifle and which man was telling the truth at this point we didn't really know who
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to believe we've got two different people telling us they gave the gun to somebody else
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the prime suspect in terra muncie's murder was jeff thomas the man who was seen smoking marijuana with tara on the
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afternoon of her murder but the murder weapon belonged to kevin williams a friend of thomas's both claimed
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the other was in possession of the gun at the time of tara's murder then something strange happened an
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unlikely witness came forward with a story of her own ma'am stop if you're going through a
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stop sign back there there was a lady who was in a vehicle that had been stopped for a traffic violation and
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she knew something about the case her name was barbara helton and when she was with police she told
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them something she had kept to herself for the past several weeks she said she knew jeff thomas and he'd
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been staying at her house at the time of tara muncie's murder on the night of the murder thomas
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returned home visibly agitated he was dirty he was muddy he was upset and he told her that he had messed up
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he said i wouldn't have heard her if she would have gave me what i wanted i asked him what he was
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talking about and he said that she wouldn't have sex with me he said she wouldn't have sex
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with him and she says that he told me i shot you know i shot her three times in the head he
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called it the execution crown whatever that question the number of shots fired was inside
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information police hadn't released those details to the media for these very situations
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no one knew but us the killer and the medical examiner but if helton's story were true
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why hadn't she gone to the police sooner she was scared of jeff thomas she was scared for her own safety
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it was only when she actually was face to face with a police officer at the traffic stop
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that she was willing to talk with the information barbara helton provided to police
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they now had enough evidence to get a want to search thomas's car in the trunk they found a pair of
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sneakers with a herringbone tread pattern transparencies of the treads compared to
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photographs from the partial prince on the front of tara's shirt we were able to say
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that the right shoe submitted by the police department could have made the two fragmentary
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footwear impressions present on the shirt collected from the crime scene also in thomas's car were three strands
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of blonde hair with the roots intact forcibly removed hairs this means they had a good
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chance of having dna material in the root of the hair it was determined that all three hairs
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from the car were consistent with terra muncie by dna and investigators also compared
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thomas's dna to the biological evidence on tara's body his dna was all over her it was on her clothes
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it was on her body it was on her inner thigh it was on the bottom of her shoe it was underneath her fingernails and it
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was on the cigarette that was found at the crime scene and so that was really the nail in the
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coffin prosecutors believe jeff thomas stopped at the taco restaurant as tara got off from work
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he may have suggested they go somewhere to smoke marijuana as they did earlier that afternoon
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[Music] once there thomas made a sexual advance tara refused there was a fight tara's shirt was torn she scratched his
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face at some point thomas dragged tara out of the car shot her once in the chest
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and three times in the head leaving his shoe impression on her t-shirt he pushed her body down the ravine
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then smoked a cigarette after ripping the filter off you always break the photos off the
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cigarettes [Music] it's just a habit i've always done it three of tara's hairs forcibly removed
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during the fight fell into his trunk as he was getting rid of the evidence the rifle was never
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recovered in march of 2001 jeff thomas was tried and convicted of capital murder
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and was sentenced to death to hear the clerk of court say not all are you guilty but you are
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sentenced to death death death it sends chills of us by literally but tara's mother opposed the death
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penalty and asked that thomas's sentence be commuted to life in prison in 2002 the virginia supreme court gave him life
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without parole tara's family realizes that without science her case might never have been solved
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in the beginning you know we thought how in the world you gonna solve a case like
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this and i don't think it ever been if if it hadn't been the pedestrian police force
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i don't think it ever solved at the end of the day we had a lot of circumstantial evidence but it was the
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forensic evidence that was the most powerful young high school student just uh taken such a short time in life
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here it's tragic it's tragic and if we can help find the truth and justice in that
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that's what we're here for you