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[Music] up next a little girl goes missing our kids just don't disappear her name's cynthia and
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she's nine years old searchers spend weeks looking for her they did a search basically on their hands and knees
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looking for evidence but a psychic told them where to go i don't know any other way to explain it
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but she described as having a vision some sort of religious experience where she saw something in her in her mind
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some dead plants give investigators a vital clue but will it be enough to find the killer it's difficult to conceive of
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an individual who would do that to a nine-year-old girl it was a normal 4th of july as residents
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of lakewood washington celebrated with the usual parade and picnics for rhonda heberson it was time to spend
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with her three daughters brittany ashley and cindy [Music] cindy basically was in and out of the
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house all day playing and i was doing chores around the house and thought maybe later on that day we would go down
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by the waterfront and watch the fireworks but nine-year-old cindy didn't come home
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at dinnertime as she usually did so i started walking around the neighborhood asking people if they had
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seen her they hadn't seen her as night fell hundreds of people gathered for the fireworks display
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that's when cindy's mother called the sheriff's department yes my daughter is missing she came home yet where was she
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going when you last started she was going over to a friend's house and she's not there
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sheriff's deputies searched the neighborhood and found no trace of her by morning it had become quite serious
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she still had not returned and there had been no phone calls by her or anyone else
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over 100 volunteers helped in the search you've got brushy areas and in this part
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of the country you have these blackberry bushes with these just nasty thorns on them so these searchers they were going
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through these weeds in these bramble bush and they were coming out just scratched and bleeding i'm just really
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amazed how many people have been coming together and helping me out and praying for cindy
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48 hours passed and police focused their attention on cindy's parents who were divorced
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cindy's father had an alibi for the afternoon of her disappearance but during the call to report cindy
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missing investigators thought her mother sounded vague she didn't seem to show a lot of emotion
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about her daughter being missing she didn't seem concerned or very worried police interrogated ronda for hours
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they brought her in there one night about 9 00 pm and they kept her there until six in the morning the next day
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that was really horrible that was uh it was a nightmare i thought i was gonna go to jail
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rhonda denied involvement in her daughter's disappearance but she failed a polygraph test
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during the mother's polygraph she was asked questions about whether she had any knowledge of cindy's whereabouts
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and that was the question that she failed she had said she did not i hadn't been sleeping i had been eating
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i was a mess neighbor's prayers for the child's safe return went unanswered [Music]
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even the promise of a five thousand dollar reward didn't produce results [Music]
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her name's cynthia and she's nine years old [Music] two weeks passed then police received a call from a
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member of ronda's church she said she saw something in a dream [Music] she described it as having a vision
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some sort of religious experience where she saw something in her in her mind the woman said she had a vision of a
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young girl lying in a field who was either asleep or dead she even drew a map of where the body was
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the spot was a half mile from cindy's home an area volunteers had already searched
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they did a search basically on their hands and knees looking for evidence and they didn't find her
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the first time but this time they found cindy allenger's body she was under a water heater
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and wrapped in some carpet it'll never be the way it was all the kids it won't you see them walking in twos
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now still and i think it'll stay that way because the kids now know that it could happen
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to anybody police now faced an unusual situation a mother who failed a polygraph test and
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a psychic who mysteriously knew the location of cindy's body i thought this was so bizarre
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that they would have found the body this way [Music] nine-year-old cindy allenger was buried
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amid a community stunned by the brutality of her death [Music] her autopsy revealed she had been
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sexually assaulted and beaten i think it was just shocking and scary to imagine what's out there
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cindy's body was found next to an abandoned house in a large field the body was wrapped in four layers of
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thick shag carpet this neighborhood was known to be the highest gang area in our city
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there were approximately 64 sex offenders registered in that area so the area was pretty well saturated with sex
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offenders before police could interview them they needed to know when cindy was murdered
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for that they looked at insect activity on her body after death insects will in fact find the body and then
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begin to exploit the body as a source of food but in this case dr goff needed to know if the carpet
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that covered cindy's body hindered the insect activity so dr goff wrapped a dead animal in
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several layers of carpet and placed it outside then he monitored the insect activity
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he worked backwards and then you determine approximately when the egg was laid and this is going to be an estimate
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of the minimum period of time since death the test showed that the carpet prevented insects from getting to the
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body for a full day this proved that cindy was murdered on her about the day she went missing
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july 4th [Music] police interviewed all 64 sex offenders in the area to ascertain their
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whereabouts for the 4th of july all at alibis i didn't know that there was that many
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sex offenders in that area i heard about that i was like i'm moving [Music] it was cindy's sister ashley who was
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seven years old at the time who provided an important clue i do remember we were playing together
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and then she told me she was going down to raz's house i know she liked going down there a lot
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razz was a guy that lived down the street from us an older man [Music] rez was guy rasmussen
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a 30 year old musician i actually went over there with her a few times she just played with his dog
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and go and he had a drum set in his shed and she'd go in there with him and play the
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drums guy rasmussen stood out in the neighborhood because he looked like a hippie with his tie-dye shirts and he
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seemed out of his time zone cindy's mother originally thought raz was the same age as her children when
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she learned he was an adult she put her foot down i thought it was a kid and then she said it was a man and i
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said well you can't go over to this man's house he i don't know him and you're not supposed to play with grown
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men when police questioned rasmussen he denied cindy had been to his home on july 4. he also claimed to have an
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guy rasmussen told us that he was picked up from the store by his friend at approximately 4 15 that afternoon and
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then they went to rock festival in thurston county pay phone records confirmed this 415
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call cindy's mother said she last saw cindy at 4 30. if she had last seen her at 4 30 then
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guy rasmussen would have had an airtight alibi but like cindy's mother rasmussen also failed a polygraph test
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it is probably the most frustrating case of anyone's career but in rasmussen's trash
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police found a torn drawing of rasmussen's dog that cindy had given to him several weeks earlier
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it was interesting that he had torn up this picture and this was after he knew that
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she was missing but did this mean anything cindy allenger's mother rhonda and the
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neighbor guy rasmussen both failed polygraph examinations when questioned about cindy's murder
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but then a new suspect emerged ronda's boyfriend chris doyle he had a history of domestic violence he
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had hit ronda it was not clear whether or not he had you know physically assaulted the kids
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but he but he did have a temper during police interrogation doyle admitted he once threw cindy off of the
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porch during an argument but denied any involvement in cindy's murder when he was questioned there were things
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that he didn't want me to know about that he admitted to hurting cindy i didn't know about that i thought it
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was an accident the whole time the mother's boyfriend was given a polygraph exam as well and he did pass
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that polygraph exam police also questioned the psychic who had led police to cindy's body she would
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never go on the record in terms of you know going agreeing to an interview we spoke on the phone
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but the psychic had an alibi and was eliminated as a suspect so police turned their attention back to
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guy rasmussen a background check revealed rasmussen served six years in prison for raping a
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teenager and assaulting a ten-year-old girl he had also been a suspect in two previous murders although wasn't charged
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because of a lack of evidence he had been polygraphing both those homicides and had failed
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in cindy's case rasmussen claimed to have an alibi for the time of her murder he had called his friend at
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approximately 4 15 on the pay phone to come pick him up and telephone records confirmed it
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cindy's mother told police she last saw her daughter at 4 30 on the afternoon of
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july 4th but investigators replayed the 911 call cindy's mother made to police and
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discovered a discrepancy how long ago was it that you'd lastina i saw her last about three o'clock we were
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able to determine that basically rhonda's sense of what happened that day was simply
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not accurate cindy's mother said it was a simple mistake this information provided a window
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from about three o'clock to 4 15 when rasmussen could have committed the crime armed with this new information
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investigators searched rasmussen's home and confiscated the clothes he was wearing on july 4th the clothes his
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friend said rasmussen was wearing at the concert guy rasmussen had been keeping his
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unwashed clothing in the bathtub in the home and so it was just all strewn in there
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of particular interest were tiny bits of plant material on his shoes and socks so police sent the samples to forensic
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botanist dr larry dennis johnston her first task was to identify the different plants on rasmussen's clothes
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to see whether they were the same as those at the crime scene the samples were mostly
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seeds very small i checked them out with my hand lens ended up putting them under a microscope
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there were a couple of species of brome grass hocus lonatis which is velvet grass
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more than a dozen plant species were identified on rasmussen's clothes they weren't only the same species as
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those found at the crime scene they were also at the exact same stage of development
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this led to only one conclusion if he said he wasn't there and the plants are showing that he was then
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they can say he was there but rasmussen continued to maintain his innocence during a radio interview
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he told the audience he met cindy only once animals i didn't know her really you know
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and i didn't know her parents or anything when she come over me and my girlfriend
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said you need to go home and tell you about where you're at what rasmussen said was one thing
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but something scientists found on his shirt was quite another [Music] the chief suspect in cindy allenger's
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murder was guy rasmussen who had a history of sexual violence his credibility was shattered when
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police learned he had lied about his relationship with cindy guy rasmussen told investigators and he told me
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that he'd only met cindy once but later it came out that he'd actually met her a few times
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we learned from the younger sister ashley that guy rasmussen had given them a stuffed animal
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a rabbit with a carrot is what he gave her but the only evidence linking him to the
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crime was some plant material on his clothing but then investigators found something
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else a stain on rasmussen's shirt when we initially collected the items from guy rasmussen's home we didn't
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realize right away what we had the clothing was dirty unwashed and the shirts were multi-colored so it
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was hard to see what was on it a preliminary test confirmed the stain was human blood
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a dna test found not one but two genetic profiles they confirmed that the stain on his shorts was the
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blood from cindy allenger and the semen guy rasmussen and they were a mixed stain
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it was dna positive that he had committed this crime i can't describe how disgusted i am when i think about
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him rasmussen was arrested while on stage playing a concert at a local club he wasn't on the county sex offender
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list because his last conviction came before the law went into effect charging the defendant with aggravated
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murder first degree kidnapping and first degree child rape guy rasmussen is a monster
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it's difficult to conceive of an individual who would do that to a nine-year-old girl
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the man who appeared in court was a far cry from the long-haired musician of just a few days earlier
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but prosecutors painted a different picture of rasmussen for the jury they said that on july 4th
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cindy went to rasmussen's home as she often did hey sandy yeah i'm gonna go buy a new place soon you want to come
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check it out with me but this time rasmussen somehow lured her to an abandoned house several blocks away
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possibly telling her he was thinking about buying it to fix it up once there he raped and murdered the little girl
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then he wrapped her body with a carpet from the house he left her in the field picking up the
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plant material on his shoes and socks then he walked to a nearby pay phone and called a friend in order to create an
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alibi [Music] the insect activity established an estimated time of death and the plant material on his shoes and
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socks proved he was in the field but his clothes stained with cindy's blood left no doubt
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he was a killer we needed science to guide us we needed things like the botanist and the
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entomology studies and the dna especially to get us in the right direction during his trial
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rasmussen's lawyers claimed the forensic etymology report was incorrect and that
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rasmussen was innocent because the crime occurred during the time he had an alibi
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that argument failed to impress the jury [Music] we the jury having found the defendant
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guilty of premeditated murder rasmussen was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to
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life in prison without parole i like to see him get executed he don't deserve to live
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he killed my daughter she was only nine years old she didn't have very much of a life
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it was important to show the jury how painstakingly the police built the case that it wasn't a rush to
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judgment anything of the sort that it was done very professionally and deliberately
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it's kind of like losing everything you got somebody just takes everything away from you like including your insight
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it's just like your heart's been ripped out if i could talk to her i just tell her i
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love her very very much and that she was a real sweet loving little girl many believe
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rasmussen would have continued on his crime spree but a combination of evidence bugs
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plants and dna ensured he would never again prey on little girls if they didn't have forensic science
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it would be kind of hard to pinpoint the killers it's amazing what they're able to do
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these days with just the tiniest little things piece of grass you have to remain scientifically
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objective and neutral you can't adopt let's get the bad guys mentality you can't take sides in all instances
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you have to remain impartial about the only thing science couldn't explain was how the psychic knew the
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location of her body the searchers didn't find her but for the tip from the psychic it may well have been a long
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time before she was found [Music] you