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[Music] she worked behind the scenes in a television newsroom but one day instead of covering the news
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she became the news where you live this is nbc 12 news first at 4. the crime scene told a terrible tale of
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violence but it would take dna a behavioral profile and a computer to solve the case
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[Music] [Music] in july 1994 22 year old hope denise hall and her three-year-old son robert lived in a
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suburb of richmond virginia in this apartment complex hope had just graduated from virginia
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state university at the top of her class her focus was journalism and she wanted
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to work in the highly competitive television news industry her big break came at the nbc affiliate
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in richmond she was very eager she was very focused she was very mature for her age hope
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really wanted to be an honor reporter and an anchor at the time she was working for us she was editing tape and
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so she pretty much gathered the material for the broadcast and put it together hope gained her maturity through
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adversity at age nine she was diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer after five years of treatment hope was
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cured at the age of 19 hope became pregnant while still in college she and the baby's father shared custody of their
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son but decided marriage would have been a mistake i think we realized that we needed a lot
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of growing up we had to grow up in order to really take on that whole responsibility of of marriage
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and i think that was the bottom line by all accounts hope was a devoted mother and a determined career woman
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that's why on the afternoon of july 11 1994 co-workers in the newsroom became
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alarmed when she did not report to work calls to hope's home went unanswered
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we had a crew in the area so we sent them by to find out what might be going on and did knock on our door
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they went in and when they got there there was police tape set up around the apartment complex
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you could actually smell death if that's something that you can imagine when you walked in you could see the
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blood on the door hope was found dead on the bedroom floor she had been stabbed to death
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it was one of the worst crime scenes i've ever saw because it was blood everywhere
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[Music] hope's apartment door had been locked and showed no sign of forced entry
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no valuables were missing there was a bloody handprint near the door but it was too smudged for analysis
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[Music] kitchen knives from hope's apartment were used as the murder weapons
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[Music] two bent knives were on the kitchen counter a third knife lay on the bed a
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fourth was on the bathroom sink with water still running in the kitchen police found a broken
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blood stained drinking glass dried blood droplets formed a trail from the kitchen to the bedroom
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the phone was on the bedroom floor ripped from the wall hope didn't deserve this no human being
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deserved this as officers combed the crime scene they realized one key item was conspicuously absent
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her child [Music] as police rushed to find the child and the killer hope's co-workers rushed to
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put her story on the air a young woman involved in producing the news was now the central figure in the day's top
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story [Music] investigators had two mysteries to solve who killed hope hall and where was her
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three-year-old son police contacted the baby's father robert kinney i remember i was
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at home at my mom's house and i just walked in the door and a mommy told me that a detective had
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called kenny told police that their son young robert was with him in northern virginia
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about a two hours drive away the child was spending the summer there police asked kinney to come in for
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questioning my father rolled down with me i couldn't feel anything i i i just
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i was in a zombie-like stage police believed hope knew her killer because her front door was found locked
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somebody had a key the only way they could have locked that deadbolt was to have a key on the outside and lock it
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we have to find this person no one can stab someone repeatedly and cut their throat three times and
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leave them to rot on the floor without them hitting again this crime was eerily similar to the
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ones committed by richmond's south side strangler who raped and murdered five
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women in their homes that was a case that terrified absolutely terrified the community
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people were boarding up windows and just changing their life plans the south side strangler timothy spencer
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was executed for those crimes shortly before hope paul's murder spencer's case made history
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he was the first person put to death in the united states based on dna evidence timothy spencer's case
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brought awareness to law enforcement certainly in this area to what dna can do spencer's case prompted virginia
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lawmakers to establish the country's first dna data bank which put the dna profiles of all
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convicted felons of virginia's prisons into a computer so many felons have a tendency to commit crimes again
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once they are released from the from the system back at hope paul's apartment
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scientists found unidentified blood presumably the killers on the broken drinking glass in the kitchen
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the knife on the bathroom sink also had the killer's blood testing also found signs of sexual
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assault from the crime scene evidence forensic scientists performed a dq alpha and poly marker dna analysis
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polymarker consisted of five different areas of the dna dq alpha was a sixth area of the dna so these were just six
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areas of the dna that we were looking at for differences between individuals when scientists entered the dna of hope
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paul's killer into their database they could find no match so investigators looked elsewhere
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most homicides are committed by people where there is some level of relationship
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it can be very close or it can be not very close at all police spoke with the baby's father
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robert kinney he had an alibi he was at his home over a two-hour drive away at the time of the murder
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even with this alibi kinney voluntarily submitted a blood sample for dna testing
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i was you know more than happy to assist them in any way i can to you know eliminate me so that they can focus on
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whoever is responsible um so that didn't bother me but his dna did not match blood found at
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the crime scene so kinney was cleared relieved knowing one thing in scientific data
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proving another is two different things my gut said he did not do this next investigators looked into hope's
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lifestyle for possible clues i knew how careful she was about her own safety i just couldn't believe that she would
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be anywhere where she'd be at risk for being murdered we didn't see anything that indicated
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that she was out running around or anything else it would make us say oh maybe she ran into somebody in a bar or
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something like that that she could have brought home but investigators found two potential
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witnesses two neighbors saw a man without a shirt running from hope's apartment building
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on the night of her murder they said he had a tattoo on his arm and chest which looked like greek symbols
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the brand was of the shape of a horseshoe with a lightning bolt going through which is the emblem of the
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omega sapphire [Music] omega sci-fi was a local college fraternity hope's friends and co-workers told
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police that this description sounded like a man hope recently dated hope allegedly told friends the man got
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abusive when she tried to end their relationship the ex-boyfriend's name was leroy quick
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police discovered he too had an omega sci-fi tattoo on his arm and chest both witnesses identified quick in a
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police lineup as the man they saw running from hope's apartment police were convinced they had their
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killer but they were shocked when they got the results of kwik's dna test [Music]
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in the search for hope hall's killer police turned their attention to hope's
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ex-boyfriend 29 year old leroy quick witnesses claimed they saw him running from hope's apartment building on the
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night of the murder this is nbc 12 news first at 4. police made a break in this case just
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before sunrise around 6 a.m they arrested 29 year old leroy d quick iii all of us were surprised because it was
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someone that she had not even mentioned to us hope's co-workers told police the couple
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met that summer quick denied having a key to hope's apartment he denied being at hope's
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apartment the night of her murder and he denied any involvement in the crime it was a roller coaster we felt that
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everything was about to come to an end we're about to find out exactly what happened
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and that wasn't the case [Music] investigators were dumbfounded when they heard that leroy quick's dna did not
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match the crime scene evidence i was somewhat surprised we have the witnesses that identified him
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coming out of the apartment running without a shirt on jumping in a car taking off in a brisk motion
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god help leroy quick if it hadn't been for the dna because they'd they'd have made a case
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on him police re-interviewed hundreds of hope's neighbors friends and family to see if
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any clue had been missed nothing nothing at all and believe me when i say we interviewed
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a lot of people i think i can go on record to say we practically interview everybody in how
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commander apartments now nearly a year after her murder the trail of hope paul's killer grew
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cold but hope's parents refused to give up they maintained constant contact with
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police and wrote to dozens of lawmakers pleading for help in finding their daughter's killer
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not just because he had murdered hope but because he was a threat and a menace it was very frustrating for everyone it
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was very heartbreaking for her mother and we saw the anguish that her mother was going through
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as she tried to find an answer to this after clearing the two most obvious suspects
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forensic scientists performed a second more discriminating dna test of the killer's dna
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using rflp restriction fragment length polymorphism at the time rflp was the most discriminating dna
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test available rflp measured various sections of the killer's dna to determine the lengths
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unique to that individual means that there is a much better chance of telling my dna apart from yours
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this newer more complete dna profile of hope paul's killer was once again entered into the virginia dna data bank
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the computer compares the unidentified dna profile to the dna of 8 000 convicted felons
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i'd been working on it for a long time so it had become like my case you know
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of all the cases that i'd worked on this was the one that i really wanted to get
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a hit on two years earlier there had been no match but this time was different the blood and semen evidence in hope
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hall's apartment matched that of shermaine johnson his dna profile was put into the
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database because of his recent conviction for two other rapes johnson lived in hope hole's apartment
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complex and was just 16 years old at the time of her murder and it was a big eye-opener for me i
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always thought criminals had scars and and looked like criminals this guy did not look at all like a
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criminal this was the data bank's first cold hit in a homicide case an innocent face like cheraine johnson
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you would think someone that innocent looking that young would not have committed this type of crime but he did
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investigators thought they finally had the break they desperately needed but if sherman johnson was hope's killer
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why had witnesses identified hope's ex-boyfriend as the man running from hope's apartment
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[Music] a computer database identified shermaine johnson as pope paul's rapist and
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murderer jermaine johnson's dna was in virginia's database because of two convictions for
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rapes that were strikingly similar to hope paul's case when questioned by police johnson
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claimed he was innocent he admitted knocking on hope's apartment door and asking her for a drink of water
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but johnson said another man opened the front door with the key pulled out a knife and ordered johnson
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to leave this was consistent with the eyewitnesses who saw not charmaine johnson but another man running from
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hope's apartment later that same night was it possible chermaine johnson wasn't the killer
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investigators asked fbi behavioral profiler mark safric to compare johnson's past criminal behavior to the
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hope paul case i mean is he relatively criminally unsophisticated yes that's
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not uncommon with younger offenders but my job wasn't to look at germaine i wasn't asked to look at germain i wasn't
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even asked to consider the offender i was simply asked to look at behavior safric went to hope hall's apartment to
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better understand the crime scene he also examined photos and reports from additional rapes johnson was suspected
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of committing suffrage found many behavioral links in all five crimes all of the victims were young and lived
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close to shamane johnson's home there is a dynamic that connects all of them contrary to many sexual assaults
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where the offender assault contacts and captures and assaults the victim all in the same area here we have a guy who
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wants to capture and then subsequently move all of his victims to another location to engage in the sexual assault
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in each case johnson used some kind of rules to gain entrance to the victim's
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home and once inside threatened the victims with one of their own kitchen knives
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when he has the option for lots of different knives even larger more threatening knives butcher knives longer
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bladed knives he he chooses a shorter bladed knife he's more comfortable with
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that type of weapon prosecutors were now convinced that johnson went to hope's apartment that
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night asking for a drink of water i hope it's cold enough once inside there was a struggle the
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glass fell to the floor johnson grabbed a knife the trail of blood indicated the attack
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started in the kitchen then led to the bedroom johnson returned to the kitchen numerous
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times for other knives after each was damaged at some point he picked up the broken
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pieces of glass cutting his finger and leaving his dna behind after the murder the evidence shows johnson washed his
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hands in the bathroom sink but he didn't remove all of his own blood he was trying to clean up he may have
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been injured maybe that's why the water was left running in the bathroom or it
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may have just been that he was just trying to clean the knife he just didn't
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clean up good enough but one nagging question remained if the witnesses were correct in their
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identification why was leroy quick running from hope's apartment that night prosecutors don't believe quick had
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anything to do with the murder but there is speculation that crick may have gone to hope's apartment that night
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used a key to get in and found hope dead then fled fearing he would be blamed and
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locked the apartment door behind him quick however denies this regardless germain johnson was tried and
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convicted of hope paul's murder and this time was sentenced to death i think the guy is an animal
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i don't know whether i want to push the needle but i certainly would like to
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witness the pushing of the needle and if nobody else would do it i would certainly do it
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investigators say it was the confluence of dna evidence computer technology and the foresight to
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collect and catalog the dna profiles of all convicted felons that brought tremaine johnson to justice
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we interviewed everybody in that apartment complex and charmaine johnson's name never came up without um
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the dna data bank without that forensic evidence i unfortunately i would say that this
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case would not have been solved we are trying to push international debt databasing we feel very very strongly
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that criminals don't stay put they move from city to city state to state countries to countries
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and we want to make sure that the clear message is sent out that no matter where you go no matter what
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you think you've gotten away with your dna and law enforcement will be waiting
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for you [Music] [Music] you