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There were many eyes on Lana Long as she walked out on stage for her nightly routine.
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[Music] She was a popular performer at the Sly Fox Lounge, a club well known for
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beautiful exotic dances. Sometime after the performance, Lana Long had an unexpected encounter.
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The crime committed that night might have gone unsolved had it not been for a common thread.
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Yeah. [Music] It's going to be great. One Sunday afternoon, two boys were playing
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together on an abandoned highway. >> Ready? 3 2 1. [Music] >> As they ran through a field chasing a
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parachute, they discovered a horrible sight. The nude, decomposed body of a young
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woman. She was lying face down with her hands bound behind her back. A cord was wrapped three times around her neck like
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a leash. Under her body lay a white silk scarf tied in a knot. >> This killer was trying to make a
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statement. He could have killed this woman with a lot less trauma. But the uh the deepness of this bruise
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uh the the the prominence of this bruise uh indicated that uh that he applied a lot more force than it was necessary to
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end this woman's life. He was violent. >> The victim was identified as 20-year-old
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Lana Long, an exotic dancer who worked at the Sly Fox Lounge in Tampa. Detectives found some faint tire tracks
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near the body, but little else. Homicide investigators interviewed Lana Long's
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boyfriend, John Corkran. Cochran hadn't reported Long missing, even though they
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lived together, and he hadn't seen her for 3 days. >> He had an explanation of why he didn't
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report her missing. It was kind of vague. We were concerned about that. Cochran admitted that he argued with
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Long on the day of her disappearance about the number of men who were calling her at home, asking her out on dates.
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Two weeks later, a second body was discovered in a deserted location. I can vividly recall getting in the car,
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driving to the crime scene, saying to myself, "Please don't let her be bound.
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Please don't let her be tied up." It felt like a ton of bricks had just
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fallen upon me cuz here we go from rarely having a victim bound to now two within two weeks of each
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other. >> The victim was identified as 22-year-old Michelle Sims, a former beauty
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contestant who had turned to prostitution to support a drug habit. Neared the body, police discovered some
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fresh tire prints in the soft sand. But there was something unusual about the tire impressions. The vehicle had three
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different tires. Detectives made plaster molds of the tire impressions for analysis, hoping
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they would provide some clue to the identity of the murderer. Because of the similarities in these two
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cases, investigators believed that both murders were committed by the same person. This time, however, John Cochran
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had an alibi and was no longer considered a suspect. In the forensics lab, when Michelle Sims clothing was
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analyzed, they discovered a tiny clue, a mysterious red fiber. It was similar to
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a red fiber discovered at the Lana Long crime scene on the white silk scarf found under Long's body. On September
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18th, 1984, the nude body of a third woman was discovered. The victim, 18-year-old Chanel Williams, who had a
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prior arrest for prostitution. This particular case, it was a black female. Her body had been dumped on the
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roadside. She was completely nude. She was not bound in any way. Uh there was some clothing found next to her tied in
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a knot. She had suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head. So when you look at this case, it it's
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totally different than the other cases. Or is it? The forensics lab found the answer. Tiny red fibers were discovered
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on William's clothing. Fibers similar to those found on the other two victims.
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While detectives launched a full-scale investigation, they hoped that these mysterious red fibers would lead them to
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their serial killer before he struck again. The Hillsboro County Sheriff's Department wanted to know all they could
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about the mysterious red fibers found on the three murdered women. Each of the tiny fibers was
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microscopically analyzed and compared under a scanning electron microscope magnified more than 1,000 times.
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Scientists noticed an unusual size and shape to the fibers. Instead of being round or square, the fiber looks more or
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less triangular, but like a triangle. It's been pinched so that you see the three legs sticking out from the core of
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the fiber. The fibers from the three women were all triangular or trilobyl. The next task was to identify whether
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the fibers were natural or man-made. Since man-made fibers are made from chemicals, scientists use what is called
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a melting point apparatus to determine the temperature at which the fiber would break down. The results revealed that
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the red fibers were nylon. And by microscopically measuring the light reflected through the fibers, scientists
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determined that all three trillobal nylon fibers were dyed the exact same color and were from the same dot. The
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conclusion, the red nylon trilobyl fibers found on the three victims were all from the same source. Nylon trilobyl
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fiber is used mostly in carpet, high durability, inexpensive carpet. Since this fiber masks dirt, it's often used
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in automobiles and hotels. Next, homicide detectives turned their attention to the tire impressions found
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near the bodies. Tire tread experts noticed that there were three different tires on the vehicle. The impression of
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the front tire was simple to identify. It was an extremely common model made by the Goodyear Tire Company. The right
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rear tire was manufactured by the Goodyear company as well. It was a lowpriced model called the Viva. But
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there was something unusual about the tread. It was a white wall tire and was on the rim with the white wall side
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facing inward. The left rear tire could not immediately be identified since it was not among the
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thousands of known tire treads in the FBI's computer database. So investigators sent the tire impression
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to the Goodyear Tire Company in Akran, Ohio to see if they could help identify it. Goodyear's tire expert recognized
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that it was a specialty tire and a very expensive one, not sold in retail stores. It was a model called the Vogue,
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made by the Vogue Tire and Rubber Company and was used exclusively on Cadillacs. The tire impression showed
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that it too was a white wall tire which was placed on the vehicle with the white
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wall side facing inward. If the detectives could find the vehicle with this unusual combination of tire treads,
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they would have the vehicle which left the tire tracks at two of the murder scenes. They also suspected that this
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vehicle would have red nylon trillobal carpet. Gary Terry decided not to release this important information to
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the press. >> Serial killers watch the news, read the newspaper just like anybody else. We
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were aware of the experience up in Atlanta, Georgia with the Wayne Williams case. I had personally talked with the
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investigators up there. He changed his pattern after he saw it described in the newspaper.
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He began reading about trace evidence. So he began dumping the bodies in the rivers to wash the bodies and destroy
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latent or trace evidence. Deputies believed that the killer was cruising for victims along Nebraska Avenue, where
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prostitutes usually congregate. Female police decoys walked the strip dressed as prostitutes in an attempt to
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lure the killer. The number of patrol cars in the area also was increased. Author Anna Flowers described the search
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for the killer in her book, Bound to Die. I've talked to a lot of uh uh officers who say, "I have to think like
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the killer in order to catch him. I worry what it what would it take for me to become the killer?" Interesting
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thought. >> Despite police efforts, a fourth nude body was discovered in a deserted area.
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The victim, 28-year-old Karen Den's friend, who had turned to prostitution to support a drug habit. Deputies knew
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that the serial murderer had struck again when they found red nylon trilobyl fibers in Din's friend's clothing. The
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pattern that we saw here, uh, the way that these bodies were left, uh, the way that they were
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strangled, uh, the way that they were tied indicated that we had a serial killer.
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>> Despite leaving behind the fiber and tire track evidence, the killer was
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smart, but his next target, a 17-year-old girl, outsmarted him. 2:30 a.m. After working the night shift
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at this doughnut shop in Tampa, Florida, 17-year-old Lisa McVey rode her bicycle
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home along a dark, deserted street. Suddenly, a man jumped from behind a parked van, knocked Lisa off her
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bicycle, grabbed her by the hair, and forced her into his car. >> God, help me. I was thinking I was going
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to be killed. Oh my god. Just just just help me. >> He drove McVey to an apartment.
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Over the next 24 hours, she was repeatedly raped and sodomized, blindfolded, petrified, and convinced
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she would die. Lisa McVey made an important decision. >> I had the life of God in me. I wanted I
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had the willingness to live, to survive. That's it. the survival part. Um, when
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you're in something like that, you would be surprised yourself what you're
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capable of. >> While still blindfolded, McVey was permitted to use the bathroom. She left
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her fingerprints everywhere she could under the toilet seat, around the sink, on the haird dryer.
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If I had died, if I was killed, I want them as far as the police or whoever found me to know that I was there and I
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tried. Lisa was a very sharp young lady. I personally feel what saved her life was her actions. And those actions were
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to say yes sir and no sir to every demand that the suspect made of her. At 3 in the morning, after 24 hours of
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captivity, Lisa, still blindfolded, was forced back into the car at gunpoint. She was very street smart. Although she
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had been blindfolded, she could see under the blindfold enough to give police very important data.
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>> I was trying to get a good clue idea of what area I was in. I wanted to know
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where I was coming from. And I remember leaning back in the chair. I can see in the blindfold that I saw two hotels side
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by side each other practically I then the 275 goes in between them and said Howard Johnson equality in
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>> Lisa noticed the word magnum on the dashboard saw that the seats were white and that
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the car had red carpet. Her abductor stopped the car for a few minutes and Lisa heard a familiar sound.
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[Music] a 24-hour bank teller machine. >> I heard the sounds of the keys of the
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buttons on the machine. A short drive later, he stopped the car, opened the door, put Lisa on the street
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along with her clothes, warned her not to remove the blindfold for another 5 minutes, and drove away.
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freedom. Wow, I'm alive. I'm here. What do I do now? I looked both ways and I fell to my
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knees and I started crying. >> Lisa McVey was taken to the hospital and her clothing sent to the forensic lab
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for analysis. But before it could be analyzed, detectives were called to another
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homicide. Another nude body found near a highway overpass. >> And you could tell it was him. There
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were actually no liatures on the body, but you could see ligature marks where he had removed the liatures.
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>> When the forensic lab analyzed the clothing from Kim Swan and Lisa McVey,
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they discovered a shocking piece of information. Kim Swan's clothing contained the same
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red nylon trilobyl fibers as the other victims and the same red fibers were found on Lisa McVeyy's clothing.
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>> It was disbelief. We couldn't believe that we have for some reason the killer has not killed
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he's let a victim survive. Lisa McVeyy's courage and determination made her the first known survivor of the
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serial killer. Could she provide enough information to find him? When police realized that Lisa McVeyy's
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rapist was the serial killer, the clue she provided took on a new importance. She saw the word magnum on the dashboard
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of his car. Only one car had the word magnum on the dashboard. The 1978 Dodge Magnum. A computer search of Dodge
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Magnum owners in the area revealed a list of 486 names. McVey also told investigators that her abductor used a
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24-hour bank teller machine shortly before she was released. When the records of all bank machine transactions
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for November 4th were compared with the list of Dodge Magnum owners, only one name was on both lists. Robert Long.
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Robert Bobby Joe Long was a 31-year-old part-time X-ray technician. Separated from his wife, he was the
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father of two children. Since Lisa McVey was blindfolded during most of her captivity, she could not positively
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identify him from photographs. So, Bobby Joe Long was immediately placed under 24-hour surveillance.
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Long was followed to this movie theater, and when he went inside, deputies inspected the tires on his car. On the
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right rear side was a Goodyear Viva. on the left rear side, the expensive specialty tire, the Vogue. Both tires
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were inverted with the white wall side facing inwards. They were the same tires and in the same position as the tire
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impressions found at two of the murder sites. When Long walked out of the movie theater, deputies immediately arrested
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him and confiscated his car for further analysis. The tire treads matched the plaster impressions taken from two of
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the crime scenes. Long's blood type matched a seaman stain found on one of the victims. But it was the carpet
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inside the dodge magnum that linked long to all of these crimes. The red nylon trilobyl carpet fibers
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inside Long's Dodge Magnum matched the fibers found on the murdered women and
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they also matched the red fibers on Lisa McVeyy's clothing. How was he getting so
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much fiber evidence on this the clothing of the victims? Well, he was stripping his victims down in the car and he was
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throwing the clothes in the floorboard of his vehicle and the victim was kicking the clothing kicking it kicking.
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It was picking up the fiber evidence out of the floorboard of his vehicle. Fiber
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evidence is often referred to as a silent witness. It doesn't say a thing, but it just speaks volumes.
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>> When told of this evidence against him, Bobby Joe Long confessed to the rape and
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abduction of Lisa McVey as well as the murders. He also confessed to two additional
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murders the police knew nothing about and led them to the bodies. In all, he confessed to 10 murders.
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>> It's sad what happened to him and that I could do something like that
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to somebody. All the victims. All of them. You know, and you're talking about a lot of them.
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A lot. A lot of lives just gone right down to twos because of me, you know, in one way or another. And
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it's not a good feeling. It's not a pleasant feeling. I'm not proud of
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anything I've done. And the worst thing is I don't understand why. I don't understand why.
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>> Yes, it was bad. Yes, it's very traumatic to my life, but it's made me
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who I am today. the challenges in my life, the weaknesses that I had then has made me stronger and better person
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today. And that's how I'm able to survive. >> I'm a firm believer that this is not all
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the homicides Bobby Joe Long did. You don't start killing the way Bobby Joe Long started killing. Have we found all
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the victims? No. Are we going to find all the victims? I doubt it. Not unless someday he decides to give us the rest
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of the information and the rest of the story. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat.
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[Music]