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a driveby shooting on an Alaskan Highway and a bomb sent through the mail two apparently random acts of
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Senseless violence until forensic science discovered an important link [Music] [Music]
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[Music] on an October night in 1990 Rob Chamberlain and his friend were driving along Glenn Highway in Anchorage Alaska
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headed to a local restaurant as he approached the exit ramp Chamberlain heard a loud
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crack he looked back and saw a hole in his rear window then he saw his friend 20-year-old Jeffrey Caine slumped in his
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seat and covered in blood the bullet entered the back of his head exited out the front of his head uh death was
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instantaneous Kane's parents were called to the scene I couldn't understand why Jeff had to be
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the one that was shot maybe I'm just you know like there's other people why not
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shoot the bed people Jeff was a computer programmer with no known enemies the driver Rob Chamberlain said he had no
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idea why they were targeted our first impression was maybe it was uh a drug deal gone bad and somebody was following
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this young man and something had happened we really pressed the issue were you targeted for some apparent
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reason were you involved in something do you know do you have any enemies have you
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been involved in anything that would have led somebody to Target you not far from the sight of the
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shooting police found a shell casing on the side of the highway people it probably came from another vehicle uh
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that was traveling uh in the same direction as our our victim vehicle the casing was from a high powered assault
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style rifle a Heckler and Coke or HK91 police wondered whether the shooting was intentional or a random act they were
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concerned that somewhere there was a shooter out there not knowing what had happened or what led to it they just
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knew that there was somebody out there who randomly shot a teenage boy on the road it's kind of scary to think that
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you could be driving down the road and get shot it was very tense at the time they knew there was a shooter out there
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still and somebody who had just killed somebody with little else to go on police asked the public through local
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media outlets for any witnesses to come forward I would not think it was a stray
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bullet I would think somebody was aiming at that car why that particular car we don't know but no one reported seeing
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anything unusual so there wasn't a lot of traffic on on the freeway incoming into
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Anchorage at the time so there was nobody else in another vehicle who you know called the police and said wow I
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just saw a guy fire a shot out of a vehicle the investigation had barely started and was already stalled it is an
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unlimited pool of suspects you know at that particular time we have no idea who would have done this we have no idea why
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they targeted that car so it's just wide open at that [Music] time Jeff Kane's family and friends
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tried to make sense of the highway shooting that took his life kids driving speeding maybe a car accident but never
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ever just sitting in the car and getting shot there something you read about in Los Angeles not
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Alaska the shell casing found on the highway LED police to believe that Jeff had been hit with a bullet fired from
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another car it looked like the shooter waited until the car exited the highway and
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reduced speed before firing the Fatal shot I believe what happened was that the suspects in this case uh were pacing
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the victim vehicle until they can get the best shot possible the next morning news of the
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shooting appeared in the local newspaper and when 19-year-old George Kerr saw it he felt he had no choice but
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to call police can I explain my situation here sure I mean these guys are these guys are friends okay friends
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I would say I mean and I usually wouldn't rat out my friends but this is just so severe I got to do it KR said he
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and his two friends Rd Chile and Doug gustaffson bought an assault rifle earlier in the day later when they were
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driving home a car cut them off on the highway just pissed Rd off so he turns to gon he said shoot that
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mother he claimed that gustofson raised the rifle and fired a single shot towards the
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car Kerr claimed he didn't know anyone had been hurt until he read the newspaper did he actually aim it like a
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rifle uh it was really quick I don't know I was sitting in the back and I was
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telling them you don't want to do that I still didn't think he'd do it George
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Kerr's story of the shooting it's very credible because by that time we had
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worked this uh crime scene and the highway all night it was uh very consistent with what we had and he
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definitely had information that hadn't been released to the media Kerr claimed
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he didn't know what Guston did with the rifle after the shooting investigators
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weren't entirely convinced that Kerr would testify against his friends in open court I'll be honest with I never
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trusted George you know he's one of these that he's going to flip on you
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he's going to flip-flop because on the one hand he'd to go oh how terrible this
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was and this kid didn't deserve to die to the other turn talking about these
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are his best friends you know and we would die for each other there wasn't any proof that all this happened other
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than what George was saying see what I'm saying so they couldn't just run in and
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make an arrest at that time to confirm Kerr's version of events police asked
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him to wear a hidden microphone and meet with Chile and gustaffson the meeting took place in a
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restaurant at the Anchorage International Airport two undercover policemen sat nearby the recording device was in a car
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outside George ker said words to the effect of you know Doug why'd you have to kill that guy and gusterson responded
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with words to the effect of well I didn't mean to George and uh absolutely corroborated what Kerr had just told
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told the uh told the uh the the detectives but Guston wouldn't say where he hid the
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gun nevertheless police arrested Rd chiley and Doug gustofson and charged them with Jeffrey Kane's
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murder George Kerr accepted a plea bargain and agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for immunity
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without the murder weapon he was their entire case George KR was very important to the prosecution without George CT
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would have been very difficult I think to put them at the scene and to actually have an eye witness who witnessed not
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only the shooting but what happened before and after but as the trial was about to
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begin George Kerr changed his [Music] story police had two men in custody for the shooting death of F Kane based on
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information provided by their eyewitness George Kerr Kerr initially said that Doug
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Guston fired an assault rifle at Jeff Kane from approximately 10 yards away which killed him
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instantly but soon Kerr changed his story it wasn't like the aim thing it was just pointed in the general
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direction of the car he now claimed that Guston pointed the gun out the window and fired a shot from 200 yd away which
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hit the car I believe that this was done so as to throw a bone to his friends that is to give them uh an out to say
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that it wasn't first-degree murder that maybe it was something lesser than that
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like a criminally negligent homicide or manslaughter uh basically something to try to appease his
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friends the shell casing at the scene indicated the weapon was an HK91 assault rifle receipts from a local gun store
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supported George Kerr's claim that Doug gusterson had bought an HK91 the day of the
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murder Kerr also said that he Chile and gustofson had been shooting the gun earlier that day and they used a road
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sign as a Target investigators found that sign with three bullet holes to test K's story investigators
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turned to forensic analyst Robert Shem he test fired an HK91 into a piece of metal the same thickness as the road
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sign then using a rubberlike casting substance called microsil he made impressions of the
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bullet holes in the road sign and those produced by his test firing of the same type of gun
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the castings were compared under a microscope once I removed the rubber I was able to establish that the holes in
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the sign were indeed 30 caliber and they possessed the same rifling characteristics as an
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HK91 the test prove kurr's claim that the boys were using an HK91 that day but could investigators prove the
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shooting was in [Music] intentional the Fatal bullet entered the car through the back window hit the
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victim and exited through the passenger side window here investigators got a lucky
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break there was tinting film on the Windows of the victim's car had the vehicle not had tinting film The
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tempered glass that was on the back window of the vehicle and on the passenger side window would have
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shattered and probably been completely lost the tinting film held the glass together as a result The Bullet Hole was
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still visible Shem took what was left of the passenger window and made a cardboard template
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then recreated The Bullet Hole he placed the template in the victim's passenger side
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window and then he conducted a simple test he ran a string from The Bullet Hole in
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the back window through the hole in the headrest to the hole in the passenger side
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[Music] window what we found was that after stringing the trajectory that the angle
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was approximately 47° off the back of the vehicle if the shot had been fired from
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200 yd away as George Kerr now claimed the trajectory angle would be approximately
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95° but the 47° angle placed the shooter's car very close within 7 to 15 yards away this then put the vehicles in
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such a close position that it rendered a very easy shot for Mr guers when he shot
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at the victim vehicle at the murder trial George Kurt testified against his two friends but
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continued to insist their car was 200 yard away from the victim's car when the
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shot was fired because I think it's just not a first murder and you base that on
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what cuz you shooting at the car not to kill but the forensic evidence proved they were less than 15 yds away which
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meant the shot was intentional based on this evidence the driver Rd Chile was convicted of second degree murder Doug
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gustofson the shooter was convicted of first deegree murder both were sentenced to life in
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prison since George Kerr had immunity from prosecution he left Alaska soon after the trial
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ended but the story didn't and [Music] there about a year after the highway shooting a package was mailed to George
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Kerr in care of his family's address in euta Alaska [Music] [Music] since George was out of state his father
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decided to open [Music] it 44-year-old David Kerr was killed instantly George's stepmother Michelle
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was barely alive every bone in her face was broken her eard drums shattered police questioned her on the
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way to the hospital convinced she would not survive there's some police officers
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here just repeat what you think happened go ahead well we got a package for George from the state of
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Alaska I know it was from Doug how do you know that it was from Doug Michelle cuz George put him in jail okay George
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testified Michelle thought the bomb had to have come from the two men her stepson put in jail Doug gustaffson and
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RD Chile the bomb was not meant to frighten someone to intimidate someone This was meant to kill and it succeeded
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killing the wrong person but could the forensic evidence prove it at David Kerr's
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autopsy investigators found a tiny metal Post in his chest the kind used in a switch ultimately our crime lab was able
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to determine the type of switch that that post would be a part of a manufacturer and to whom did the
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manufacturer provide the circuit or the switch Radio Shack well there are lots of Radio Shacks but at least we knew
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there were Radio Shacks in Anchorage but both ch ke and Guston were incarcerated at the time how could they
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have done it from jail how could they do this how could they do that you know which was all of our qu all of our
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questions you know how could somebody do that from jail since prisons routinely record all inmate
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conversations investigators found this coded conversation between gustaffson and his sister Peggy it took place
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shortly before the bombing yeah now this is to fix your car remember as soon as you find out which
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way is on which way is off on the the sliding one glue it in place like I describe right below the surface uhhuh
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so that when it's pushed towards the side it's on and when it's pushed
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towards the center it's off right okay superficially just sounded like the Doug
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giving his sister some some help fixing her car but had too much connected with it to to be just that so as you listen
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to it over and over again you you know it became clear that they were talking about Doug was giving Peggy instructions
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on how to create a circuit for an improvised explosive device those audio tapes were the Smoking Gun other
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conversations revealed Peggy didn't have the technical ability to build the device so she brought in another member
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of the family their elder brother Craig who was a mechanic Panic apparently both
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Peggy and Craig Guston believed their brother was innocent in the highway shooting death and that George Kerr was
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responsible to give some idea of the depth of her emotions and her feelings of Revenge Peggy
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Guston is 9 months pregnant she is in fact within 3 days of delivering her second child into the world when she
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delivers the bomb package to the post office Rock Phelps was in prison with Doug Guston and RD Chile when the
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bombing occurred and he knew they wanted Revenge Rd didn't give a [ __ ] who who
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got killed as long as a George ker got killed he was wanting to kill George little George is what we called it we
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had actually a number of inmates who told us that they had seen a list of names that Raymond chiley had with him
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at the jail and that chiley had told them that in fact this was a hit list it was a list of of people that he wanted
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to kill and uh they were able to describe the list that the first person on that list was George Kerr other names
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on The Hit List included the judge and prosecutor at their trial when Peggy and Craig gustofson
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were brought in for questioning and they heard the taped conversations from prison they immediately confessed when
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Peggy cooperated Peggy was able to tell us which store she went to to purchase those switches we were able to find
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through an old receip uh at that store didn't have Peggy's name on it but it
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did show a transaction it right during the time frame that would be very relevant to our case of those types of
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switches being purchased this bombing could was totally preventable it never should have happened the Department of
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Corrections failed Dave and faed K me their job is to protect the public and not simply house prisoners Michelle Kerr
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sued the state of Alaska and won more than $1 million in Damages Peggy and Craig gustaffson were
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both convicted for their role in Mr Kerr's murder and will serve a minimum of 22 years in jail Rd Chile and Doug
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Guston received additional life sentences they should even have wasted a trial on them they should have took them
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out let the family shoot them in the back of the head it's the way I feel about it but that's Alaska Justice you
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know we do things a little different up here used to anyway in the end a half dozen families
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were destroyed and prosecutors believe there would have been more victims if forensic science hadn't ended chiley and
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guston's killing spree you can't just take science by itself and build a case or rare
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occasions can you you use a combination of what are people telling you what do you know about this person that person
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and you use your science and it all just meshes right together and it builds your
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case you but without that you know we'd still be back in the dark ages of of
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investigating crime why [Music] [Music]