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what can a skull tell you about a person's life and can their bones reveal how they
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died a forensic artist an anthropologist and a global positioning satellite would
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tell more about this victim than anyone could ever imagine [Music] [Music] [Applause]
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] Yellow House Canyon is 200 Acres of very rough terrain just outside the city
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limits of lck Texas in 1870 it's where the kamanche Indians exchanged their prisoners for
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[Music] horses 125 years later the area became known for something else when some Hunters found what looked
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to be a human skull you treat it as a crime scene making the assumption that it is going to be a
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homicide nearby by were bits of clothing and a woman's shoe police sifted through the dirt and
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found some smaller bones and a strand of hair forensic anthropologist Dr Harold Gil King estimated the bones had been
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exposed to the elements for over a year one piece of bone at the bottom of the spine called the sacrum indicated the
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victim was female the shape of the sacrum in females is distinctive it's much more
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flared it's all part of the birth difference between uh females giving birth and males
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not the shape of the skull suggested the victim was Caucasian and the cranial sutures were not yet closed meaning the
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victim was young between 18 and 24 the Anthropologist also found evidence of knife wounds I think we had
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one to the shoulder blade six to the vertebrae and then another four or five so 12 or 13 injuries that we discovered
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and mapped uh into the cut map Dr Gil king ruled the manner of death to be homicidal
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violence when word got out that a young woman had been murdered in yellow house Canyon call started to pour in one woman
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came up said that she knew her husband had done it because he was a KN freak and said oh by the way we're having a
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custody battle tomorrow can you give me a copy of this report from a lawyer so investigators checked the dental records
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of 64 young women reported missing throughout the United States and none of them
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matched so investigators asked forensic artist Karen Taylor to try to put a face
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on the skull granted it's a sort of a last ditch effort when the forensic artist is called in the job of the
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forensic artist is to to trigger interest to create that link I often refer to it as being the middleman at
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that point she was my best hope in fact she was about our only hope we were just
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about out of things to do Taylor pioneered a technique called two-dimensional facial reconstruction
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which is part science and part art each race has facial skin which is different than other races using known
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scientific data Taylor applied rubber markers to approximate the facial tissue thickness of a Caucasian the tissue
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thickness varies on our faces it's if you feel on your own face it's much
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thicker down in this cheek or chin area and much thinner up on the forehead so we cut and and apply rubber markers to
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those landmarks and that helps give a a guideline as a starting place to create the The Contours of the
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face Taylor then photographed the skull and placed a piece of translucent Vellum
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on top of the picture she then used her talent and forensic expertise to illustrate her most prominent features
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the average human eyeball is about 25 mm in in diameter just so happens to be the
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size of US Quarter so I in drawing will will lay a quarter down within the aperture and Trace around it the nose
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and ears are more difficult to approximate since they are made of cartilage and have
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decomposed but research shows that a Caucasian female's nose has skin that extends roughly 1 fth of an inch to each
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side of the nasal cavity the nose particularly struck me because I could see a marked asymmetry at the base of
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the the nasal aperture the the nasal opening it's slanted to one side at the
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bottom and I learned through experience of previous cases that that would probably show up in life investigators
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found a single red hair in the soil near the bones which Taylor used as her guide
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that was a very good clue for me but I made it interpretable it not blonde blonde and
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not dark dark but somewhere in the middle and I I made a similar decision with the eye
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color when finished the drawing was released to the media throughout the state of Texas investigators hoped
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someone would recognize [Music] her it was like most other days in Beverly tillery's life having her
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morning cup of coffee and scanning the newspaper before going to work but the forensic drawing of the
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unidentified woman found in yellow house Canyon immediately caught her eye if you
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look at the pictures of my children you see that they all have practically the same jawline and same cheek structure
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it's kind of a square type thing Beverly was convinced it was her 17-year-old
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daughter Belinda who had been missing for more than a year she showed me the paper and she asked me if if I thought
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that looked like Belinda you know and I you know the more I sat there and looked
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at it yeah it's got a lot of her characteristics dental records confirmed what the family
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suspected the skull was Belinda's at the time of her disappearance Belinda worked as a dancer
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at a local nightclub owned by a gang called the Bandidos they're an outlaw motorcycle
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gang they're into everything the people that frequent their clubs are generally
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the same type people so the fact that Belinda Tillery was working there would would not be a good thing after I heard
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Belinda's name I drove down to the bar where she worked to see if anyone could
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talk to me about who she was so I could have more than just a name to go 6 Ines of
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newsprint but no one at the club was willing to talk the man selling tickets he certainly didn't know anyone name
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Belinda and this wasn't Bleak enough an old woman came from the back also a staff member at The Establishment and
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and began to say the same thing he had said just in a much more emphatic way according to Belinda's family
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Belinda danced at the club on the night she disappeared her brother had given her a ride
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home last time I spoke with my sister she wasn't feeling well I just assumed
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she would went to sleep so I just went upstairs and I'd had a couple drinks myself ear there in the
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evening so I was feeling kind of good too so uh so I went upstairs to down but the next morning Belinda was
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gone and hadn't left a note Belinda's family told police why she hadn't been feeling well lately she
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kept getting sick and we took her to the doctor and found out that she was pregnant and in the very beginning you
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know like the first week or so she was kind of you know stunned about it but like I said that's what caused her to to
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change and want to to settle down and be the daughter her mother wanted to raise
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you know Belinda had plans to return to school get her diploma find a better paying job so she could raise her child
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properly Bel Linda's family believed the baby's father was her ex-boyfriend Troy
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Armstrong drank too much that he he was much older he was 10 years older than her I I wasn't really infused with him
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he was older than me I'm like this this C be right and uh you know of course I
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didn't want to openly criticize binda said W what are you thinking he had a long history of just small Petty crimes
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very transient lived in his cars lived with friends uh had a narcotic habit when police tried to interview
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Armstrong they discovered he had left town months earlier he was reported to be living in Roswell New
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Mexico I drove to Roswell spent two days looking for him was not able to find him but they were able to track down his
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current girlfriend Angela Allen she said she loved him as they stayed together a
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while he became more and more abusive and eventually he beat her up a couple of times best I
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recall Angela said she knew all about Belinda I'd heard a couple of uh messages on an answering machine one one
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of them was that she was pregnant and uh she needed to talk to him about it Angela told police that she and
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Armstrong ran into Belinda in a local bar shortly before she disappeared and there was a
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confrontation she wanted to see him to to clarify the fact that she was going to raise this child herself and it was
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hers no matter you know who it belong to Angela told investigators she ended her
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relationship with Armstrong when she learned Belinda was pregnant I told him that he needed to go talk to her if she
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wanted an abortion he needed to pay for it if she wanted to have the baby he needed to support her in that you know
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no matter what her decision was that he needed to be a part of it and help her take care of you know the problem that
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he was involved in or else I really didn't want anything to do with him he needed to get the hell out of my life
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Angela gave police several items Armstrong had left with her before he left the area among them a large
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knife police asked forensic experts whether this was the murder weapon the answer was maybe in my experience people
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who attempt to match a particular knife to an injury Venture a little too far from the shores of Sanity over time the
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bones tend to warp and the the wounds change a little bit nevertheless investigators needed to
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find Troy Armstrong to ask what he knew about Belinda's [Music] disappearance forensic artist Karen
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Taylor was able to put a face on the skull found in yellow house Canyon which in turn led to the discovery that it was
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17-year-old Belinda artillery her ex-boyfriend 27-year-old Troy Armstrong was the Prime Suspect but investigators
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had no idea where he was Angela Allen had dated Armstrong after Belinda did and was initially reluctant to help
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police I had to talk to Angela two or three times and every time I'd talk to
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her I'd get a little more information I knew the second that I started helping
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the police that was you know I was putting myself in danger eventually Angela told police that when
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Armstrong learned about Belinda's pregnancy he invited Belinda to go camping with him in Yello house Canyon
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so the two could discuss the pregnancy Angela said Armstrong acted suspiciously when he returned from
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Yellow House Canyon he showed up on my doorstep on his return trip and he had blood on his hands and there was a cut
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on his hand Armstrong said he accidentally cut his hand during the camping trip there was no reason for me
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not to believe it you know telling somebody else uh without using the exact words that he killed her
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you have the location where the body was found you have the a method that he had
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blood on his hands which obviously means that she wasn't shot it means it had to
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be a close physical attack as with a knife he was pretty cocky about the whole thing uh pretty much did not make
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it any big secret that he had killed her when Angela learned that Belinda's body was discovered in yellow house
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Canyon she knew the truth I think it was one of the first things that came out of
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my mouth was uh he really did kill her didn't he that was whenever it all hit that everything was real and he
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really could have done something you know to me my family anybody as the circumstantial evidence Mounted
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Police issued a warrant for Armstrong's arrest but they didn't know where he
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was Angela Allen told police that Troy's best friend worked in California for a
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trucking company and suggested they look for him there I wanted to make sure he was caught I was uh very much up on that
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police asked Trucking Company officials for the location of Troy's friend fortunately they knew exactly where he
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was because every one of their trucks was equipped with a global positioning system or
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GPS when detective Watson heard that the truck had a GPS in it back then you know
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he's like me she GP what what does that do 24 satellites orbit the earth tracking Vehicles boats and even
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airplanes that are equipped with the GPS receiver it's just like leaving a trail
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of breadcrumbs behind so that when you look at it on a map you see a trail of dots representing the path of travel of
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that vehicle the GPS satellite tracked the moving truck driven by Armstrong's
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friend as it made its way through Nebraska they were giving me the information in real time kept them on
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the phone I notified the Nebraska highway patrol what I was doing asked them if they could attempt to locate
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this truck as it was approaching the uh York Nebraska within a few hours Nebraska police set
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up a roadblock and stopped the truck they asked the driver if he knew of Armstrong's
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whereabouts much to their surprise they found Armstrong hiding in the truck sleeper compartment I had no concrete
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evidence I just knew that he was an acquaintance of this driver and that he had been riding with him for at some
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point Troy Armstrong was was arrested and charged with Belinda's murder he's
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got these bitty little eyes that makes you feel uneasy looks like a rat smells like a rat you know pretty much going to
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be a rat and he's you know he had rat written on him from the beginning Armstrong insisted he had
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nothing to do with Belinda's murder but among Armstrong's possessions was the key to a storage
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locker inside that storage locker were items armed Armstrong couldn't possibly
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explain why they were there when Troy Armstrong was arrested for Belinda tiller's murder he had a key
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to a rental storage locker in New Mexico inside were Belinda's personal belongings there were the type of
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personal items that she most likely would have been carrying the night that she was killed a driver's license and
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other things that she would have had in her possession after leaving her employment at the
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nightclub what are you doing here prosecutors believe Troy Armstrong had no interest in supporting Belinda
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tiller's baby they say he was angry that his new girlfriend Angela Allen ended
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their relationship when she learned of Belinda's pregnancy prosecutors uncovered evidence
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that Armstrong borrowed sleeping bags and camping equipment from a friend then asked Belinda to go camping with him so
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they could discuss her pregnancy later that night Troy picked up Belinda at her home and went to
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Yellow House Canyon once there prosecutors believe they argued and the situation turned
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violent the forensic evidence suggests Belinda was stabbed over a dozen times in her
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[Applause] back and left for dead in yellow house Canyon later Armstrong went to Angela's
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apartment telling her he had cut his hand Troy Armstrong extremely violent individual somebody that had no regrets
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in stabbing a teenage girl that was pregnant 12 to 15 times with a large knife leaving in a field
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at the trial Angela Allen revealed a devastating piece of information he told me that he'd killed her if I ever said
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anything about it and about the blood on his hands all that stuff that uh he'd
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kill my dad he'd kill my kids and my dad too after a 4-day trial a jury deliberated for only 2 hours before
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finding Troy Armstrong guilty of first deegree murder my final argument was was give him a life sentence unless you can
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find anything decent about him you know in less than an hour they came back with
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a life sentence I think that says a lot about Troy Armstrong even Angela thinks he got off
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too easy because Armstrong killed two people that day I believe that he should have gotten the death
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penalty because uh nobody considers that baby little man with a big ego and he's
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violent um that's really him in a nutshell he's a violent little man she wasn't famous it wasn't a
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high-profile case but it's a case that took a lot of people to put together it
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took a lot of effort and it's something that you sometimes don't see in somebody
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that uh is forgotten about Belinda tiller family still Mourns the loss of their daughter but because
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of forensic facial reconstruction and forensic anthropology they know the truth when
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Karen Taylor put the face on the skeleton that's what broke the case no doubt forensic art is Art SL science we
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use all the scientific inputs possible but there is a point where art kicks in and supplements science the forensic art
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allowed the dead to speak and and I think that's a really good thing [Music]
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[Music] [Applause] [Music]