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[Music] up next a bullet riddled car a missing driver and no witnesses it would seem she was still
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alive when she was removed from the car who would do such a thing like this on a
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public roadway was it an ambush or a random attack this is my defensive little girl who i'd
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been shot at it was a head scratcher from the get-go some tiny evidence provides the answer
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it was on her skin on her jacket you can't get rid of this stuff [Music] in southern california like elsewhere in
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the united states virtually everyone celebrates independence day some celebrate a little too much
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that's what police thought when they found a deserted car around four o'clock in the morning with
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the engine still running off route 118 just north of los angeles a lot of people thought that maybe somebody was
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drunk and they had abandoned their car alongside the road but a closer look revealed something
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more serious we had several bullets that had went through the windshield into the vehicle and two additional
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bullets that had went through the side of the vehicle a woman's shoe was inside the car
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another was outside blood was on the steering wheel the driver's seat and floorboard
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police fanned out all over the area there was no blood trail no victim it was highly unusual for us to have a
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violent crime scene like that where the victim was missing the car was a rental and had been leased that day to megan
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barroso a 20 year old college student who lived nearby her purse was covered in blood
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her cell phone was inside it looked as if she had tried to use her phone to call for help
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she had gone to a fourth of july party with her best friend and some other young people i believe in
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the beach area according to friends megan left the party alone at 2 45 a.m a little more than an hour before her
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car was found police checked local hospitals but no one matching megan's description had
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checked in we didn't know if this person was either dead or alive at that point
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there was a significant amount of blood in the car not enough to suggest that the person was in fact dead
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my daughter was out there somewhere and i was hoping that i would get a call from her
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any any day in a minute no call came [Music] investigators found five shell casings
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at the end of the exit ramp and another about 200 feet away our forensic people were able to tell us
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that most likely was an ak-47 type rifle an assault rifle knowing that megan had been assaulted
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with this ak-47 again yes just send shields of of agony through my mind investigators
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also noticed a fresh scrape along the driver's side of the car it looked as if megan's car had been
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sideswiped then investigators got a huge break they learned that megan's rental car was
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one of the first to be equipped with an event data recorder the event data recorder is a huge step
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forward in traffic safety it's like the black box in an aircraft that gives us an opportunity
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to better understand how crashes happen the recorder a small on-board computer is always on
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in the event of a crash it automatically saves the previous five seconds of information
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when megan's car hit the median it activated the data recorder it revealed that five seconds earlier
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megan's car was at a complete stop i think he started shooting at her she was probably
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ducking um but at some point she realized i better get out of there the recorder showed megan floored the
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accelerator she went to 100 open throttle she jammed that gas pedal to the floor and she
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tried to get out of there blood inside the car showed megan was wounded and possibly still alive but
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where was she we knew he had a body somewhere we just couldn't find her as police searched for twenty-year-old
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megan barroso they tried to reconstruct her activities on the night of her disappearance
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her friend said she left a fourth of july party at 2 45 in the morning and was alone
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her abandoned car was found at the bottom of an exit ramp off a deserted stretch
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of highway about an hour later we found that megan didn't have any boyfriend problems
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she didn't have anyone that was upset with her in fact it was the opposite everybody liked megan
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[Music] someone had fired multiple shots into megan's car with what investigators believed was an
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ak-47 assault rifle to recreate the shooting analysts used lasers to determine where the shooter
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was standing we use a laser beam because it's a nice straight light beam that we can just project
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through a number of holes and it makes a good display it allows us to see where the bullet is passed through what
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it's interacted with the laser analysis showed the shooter stood 60 feet away from megan's car when
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he started firing and he closed the distance with each shot one shot hit the hood three hit the
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windshield another hit the driver's side door investigators concluded the shot fired
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through the passenger side door happened somewhere else it came in from a completely different direction it
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couldn't have been part of the same series of gunfire without a dramatic change in the position of the
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shooter this gunshot along with the sideswipe on megan's car led analysts to conclude this
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altercation happen on the highway with the laser information and event data recorder investigators
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put together this animation of what they thought happened it was clear someone tried to
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force megan off the highway by side swiping her car then megan's attacker moved to the
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passenger side and fired into her backseat as megan drove off the exit ramp her attacker must have sped in front of
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her blocked her path and started shooting there were four shots she floored the accelerator
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a fifth shot went through the side door and hit megan the blood evidence shows megan tried to
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reach for her cell phone possibly to call police her car hit the median the assailant apparently dragged her
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into another vehicle and drove away you have to assume that the person who carried out this crime
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was very very bold very much a risk taker there were questions about who would do
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such a thing like this on a public roadway and 118 is a very public roadway the blood inside the car meant megan was
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wounded but was probably still alive when she was abducted at that point i i realized that my
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daughter was in horrible trouble that this is was not you know not a good situation and
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this was a real big bad thing that was happening the sheriff's department along with
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other law enforcement agencies offered a reward for information leading to an arrest
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but three long weeks passed with no leads on megan's abduction a simi valley
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resident called police with some information he said he found a homemade videotape in his
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roommate's trash showing sexual acts so horrifying he knew it needed to be reported to
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police lo and behold here's this guy raping these women the man said he had no doubt the rapist
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on the tape was his roommate 30 year old vincent sanchez an electrician who worked in the local film industry
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the tape showed sanchez raping numerous women on camera it was quite horrifying to
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actually see a woman being raped and sexually assaulted when investigators asked sanchez's
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roommate whether anyone in the house owned an assault rifle he said he did i'm sitting on the bed
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and he tells me well yeah the gun's right here it's underneath the bed and as soon as i looked at it the hair
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on the back of my neck stood up it was an ak-47 detectives also found something near the
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trash outside the house i excused myself from the interview to take a phone call and i walked
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outside the residence and over by some trash cans i saw a garment of clothing on the ground and
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walked up to it and i saw that it was a green jacket it was a green gap jacket with an orange
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line it was fairly distinctive and he saw what he believed to be a bullet hole on the side
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it was the same color jacket megan barroso wore on the night she was abducted was it possible megan was still
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alive just days after investigators found megan barroso's green jacket in the
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trash outside a simi valley home a search team with a cadaver dog discovered some skeletal remains in a ravine
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10 miles from the abduction site dental records confirmed it was megan barroso i was devastated oh you know i mean
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i'm thinking this is wrong i'm drowning now you know this is this this is it was absolutely terrible oh
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you know it was like the lights are out now you know this is bad the medical examiner recovered bullet
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fragments and determined that megan died from a single gunshot wound to her abdomen
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but there was not forensic evidence who conclusively say that she had been sexually assaulted it
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looked as if megan was still alive when she was left in the ravine she was in a fetal
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position with one arm bent be under her head like he'd in a sleeping position
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that wouldn't be a position that a body would land in then the medical examiner noticed something
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unusual red glitter what they call pixie dust in megan's hair and on her clothing and
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it was red glitter in essence megan's green jacket was found outside the home
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of vincent sanchez a part-time electrician who came to police attention when his
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roommate found a homemade videotape of sanchez sexually assaulting several women
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when police studied the videotape in detail they discovered the women were the victims
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of the simi valley rapist 15 unsolved rapes police had been trying to solve for the past five years the perpetrator
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would break into the home of the victims primarily in the evening some of the victims were young teenage girls
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15 16 years old with parents sleeping in another room within the household when questioned by
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police sanchez admitted he was the simi valley rapist but denied having anything to do with megan
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barroso's murder very hesitant to answer didn't want to talk anymore said he didn't know her didn't know what
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i was talking about had nothing to do with that investigators search sanchez's pickup
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truck for possible clues it was clear the truck had been thoroughly washed and cleaned
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but tape lifts of the upholstery found something very difficult to get rid of tiny specks of red glitter
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investigators also found red glitter in the green jacket found outside sanchez's home they even found
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one microscopic speck on the ak-47 rifle sanchez's roommate turned over to police
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to find out if all this glitter was from the same source investigators sent it to edwin
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jones a forensic scientist with one of the largest collections of glitter in the world
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with close to 1 000 specimens i have an unusual hobby of collecting micro things
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and i've been collecting glitter for many years before this case i've been
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collecting glitter since this case under a microscope jones discovered that this red glitter was a hexagon
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shape approximately 250 microns jones knew immediately that this was unlike any of the red glitter samples
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he'd ever seen i found out that the glitter had one layer of aluminum for reflection
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so literally the particle was asymmetrical meaning that it's not the same on both
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sides it's red on one side and silver in the other it was a very unique type of
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glitter that just as one company had made jones discovered that this glitter was not a best-selling
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item only ten thousand bottles had ever been made investigators learned that during the
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fourth of july party megan attended the host threw red glitter on everyone including megan
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i said do you still have the bottle she said yes i do so we then went and recovered the
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remaining portion of the glitter scientists confirmed the glitter in megan barroso's hair
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came from megan's friend and it was the same glitter found in sanchez's truck on the ak-47 rifle
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on megan's jacket found in sanchez's trash and in megan's own car it was the only
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piece of evidence that tied sanchez to everything investigators also searched sanchez's truck for blood
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when the tech put luminol on the inside of the vehicle it lit up like a christmas tree dna
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testing revealed blood on the passenger seat was megan's there was a horizontal apparent
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blood stain right in the area where megan's wound was to her side indicating that she had been sitting
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upright in the passenger seat of that truck at one point so she wasn't dead she was sitting forensic tests on the
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scrape mark on the side of megan's car matched the paint from sanchez's truck
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investigators test-fired the ak-47 and compared the bullets to fragments found with megan's body
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we tied that rifle to the crime scene and to the body both with the fragments that were taken
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from the car from the crime scene certainly that helped to tie the rifle in to mr
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sanchez and mr sanchez then to the crime scene then police discovered that sanchez's real target that night
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wasn't megan barroso at all but someone else [Music] investigators learned that on the 4th of
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july vincent sanchez had an argument with a former girlfriend and he was angry because she hadn't
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invited him to her family picnic we theorized he took that at ak-47 he got in his truck and he was
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probably out looking for his girlfriend whether he planned to use the weapon on his girlfriend or her family
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is unclear but along the way investigators believe sanchez saw megan at an intersection
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changed his mind and decided to follow her instead [Music] the evidence shows sanchez tried to get
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megan to pull over he then fired into megan's back seat again megan refused to stop
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sanchez pulled ahead of her cut off her path and started shooting [Music] megan tried to get away she was hit by
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the shot through the car door megan may have reached for her phone to call for help
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lost control and hit the median barrier sanchez then abducted megan and drove off
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[Music] the whole time she shed the distinctive red glitter into his truck onto his rifle and on her
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jacket medical experts believe megan was alive when sanchez left her in the canyon ravine
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he left her there without her pants and probably took her jacket as a trophy i couldn't get away from the
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idea that this this was this had happened to my little girl that beautiful little girl who
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always had a smile for me who always gave dad a big hug i miss her hugs to this day i miss her hugs
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in october of 2001 sanchez pled guilty to being the semivalley rapist and was sentenced to life in prison he
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also pled guilty to megan's murder sanchez claimed he didn't sexually assault
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megan the defense in this case their main objective was to save him from a death sentence but given sanchez's past
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jurors concluded he did sexually assault megan and sentenced him to death he has no conscience i hate to say he's
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a an animal because it's just it's it's too nice of a description for
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him it was just so amazing all the the detail and the amount of effort that went into
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each little piece of the puzzle of the forensic science of it all no one doubts that sanchez would have claimed
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more victims but a strange combination of evidence ranging from laser ballistics to
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analysis of a car's onboard computer to something as seemingly insignificant as glitter
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proved his guilt it was just amazing what the kremlins were able to do and the experts were able to say
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to put together a very vivid picture for the jury as to what happened out there i would say the most compelling science
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was the blood the blood found in vincent's vehicle and also the pixie glitter that was
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amazing that they could put those pieces of pixie glitter together and show that we had been located in all
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those different areas and it was consistent amongst each [Music] other