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[Music] a high school teacher mysteriously disappeared did she go on vacation without telling
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anyone or was she taken against her will could forensic science find the answer [Music]
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[Music] not all students do well in traditional schools for teenagers in san antonio texas the
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robins academy is an alternative for high school students who need extra help well robbins takes two kinds of students
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students who just simply don't do well in in the sort of traditional high school environment and also
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students who have failed out of disciplinary issues attendance issues behavioral issues
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58 year old diane tilley was one of the school's founders her success with troubled students earned her the
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nickname the miracle worker diane tilley was the kind of teacher who really believed in her students and saw
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potential in them and they responded to that and she had something about her that she was able to work with
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these individuals and get the most out of them motivate them raise their self-esteem
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the day before thanksgiving in 2004 diane tully wasn't at school at her usual time
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so her co-workers drove over to her home to check on her they knocked on the door there was
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nowhere so they looked in the window they saw that the place was just in a state of disarray they became alarmed
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police were called to the scene and they knew immediately there had been a robbery it's ransacked things scattered
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all over the place the house looked like it had been turned inside out even the linen closet was you know had
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completely been gone through i just started thinking to myself okay what could have happened here what
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happened to this woman and where is she and why is her home like this electronic equipment was missing from
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the home as was diane's 357 magnum pistol she kept for protection the most ominous
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clue in the very beginning was the bullet hole through the couch that had lodged in the floor in the front room so
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there was a threat of violence from the very beginning police technicians found no foreign
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fingerprints in diane's home and diane's car was missing the lack of blood evidence raised the
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possibility that diane might not have been home when the crime occurred so i was kind of also still waiting to
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see if maybe she would come through the door and say hey why are you all here you know what happened to my house
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but there were other clues that signaled trouble in the bedroom detectives found an empty
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condom wrapper on the floor and a pair of tennis shoes with one of the laces missing
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diane's purse was still in the home but her atm card was gone on the kitchen table investigators found
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three atm withdrawal receipts time stamped around 8 p.m from the night before interestingly
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all three withdrawals were unsuccessful but who would forget their pin number three times
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and still have a transaction receipt come out there's something something's not right with this
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so investigators decided to set a trap they asked diane's bank to keep her account open
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a lot of banks wouldn't have been this cooperative upon notification that this
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that this card was very likely being used in in uh fraudulent uh criminal transactions a lot of banks would just
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close this thing down and so i was like please use that card please use that card so that we can zero in on you and
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we can find you and hopefully we could find diane tilly as well the disappearance of diane tilly made
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headlines in san antonio texas she had helped many students with learning problems and in the process
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made many friends most students don't talk to their teachers about their personal problems
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but almost all the students talk to her about theirs diane was a divorced mother of two grown
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children she lived alone which explained why no one seemed to know where she was
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investigators spoke to her boyfriend a municipal court judge who lived in dallas 300 miles away
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he told police he was in dallas the previous night and he'd spoken with diane at 6 p.m
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phone records confirmed his story this was a serious relationship this was not someone who was
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you know vindictive or out to to harm her in any form or fashion he was overly concerned
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for her welfare police checked the airlines and found no evidence that diane took a flight to
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dallas or anywhere else for that matter and they had to consider whether any of diane's students might
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have wanted to harm her that was something that we really looked at carefully her students were troubled
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kids troubled use like i said some of them with with background gang member backgrounds and
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things like that while investigators looked into that possibility they had only one sure lead
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to follow the atm receipts found on diane's kitchen counter a code number on the receipts identified
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the atm that rejected diane's card it was inside a shell gas station just a mile from diane's home
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fortunately there were high quality security cameras we were able to actually see an
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individual walk up to the atm attempt to use the atm card and then leave the store with the three declined
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transaction receipts in his hand the man was black or hispanic tall and thin twenty minutes later
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a young girl used diane's atm card at another location and that one showed a hispanic to black
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female they couldn't really tell at the time a little heavy set in probably mid teens
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with a striped shirt on on this attempt the girl used the correct pin number and successfully
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withdrew four hundred dollars from diane's account i thought wow how gutsy or
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just how dumb you know but then again i was thinking great this is a criminal at work doing
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their thing and this is what's going to lead us to them and the two were driving what appeared
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to be a fleetwood cadillac which looked like diane tilley's car a few hours later
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a motorist found diane's car on fire in a deserted field when i got to the scene and saw them
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extinguishing her car i remember thinking god please don't let her be in that trunk of that car
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fortunately she wasn't another witness saw a white pickup truck leave the scene but he didn't get the
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license plate number they gave the same descriptions of the suspects that we had in the surveillance videos
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back in diane tilley's home investigators were able to find a partial fingerprint on a liquor bottle
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i think that he wore gloves through most of the most of what was going on in diane
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tilley's house he apparently took the gloves off long enough to enjoy a drink from some scotch
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the giant until he had in her kitchen thus leaving the the fingerprint on the bottom of the bottle
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investigators desperately wanted to find the man and young girl using diane's atm
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card they knew that diane tilley's life might depend on it we're just all holding our breath and
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there are many prayers going up i can assure you today for her i'm angry and i
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want to know where she's at and i just i just miss her afraid to go outside i have not found a body
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we have not found substantial amounts of blood something's not right the prime suspects
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in diane tilley's disappearance with the middle aged man and young girl who were
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last seen driving a white pickup truck every policeman in the area was on the lookout
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and it wasn't long before a patrolman stopped two people in a motel parking lot who fit that description
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they were identified as old pearl crews and her 33 year old father ronnie neal both denied any involvement in diane
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tilley's disappearance but they admitted stealing her car he said i was at a car
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wash and i found diane tilly's car and he said you're not going to believe this
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but the car was was running and the door was open and there was all this stuff in
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it and i just couldn't resist it and how did he get diane tilley's atm card
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well what he said was in the glove box of this car he found diane tilley's atm
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card and he was a little piece of paper just below it with the pin number i knew
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he was lying i mean there's you could tell by his body language by just just everything that that came out
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of his mouth was a lie neil said he was following diane's disappearance in the news and didn't
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want to be linked to it so he got rid of diane's car his story made no sense whatsoever
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this was just a man who was just grasping at straws a background check revealed ronnie neal
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had multiple convictions for robbery and had recently been released from prison for a weapons violation
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and police discovered a link between diane tilley and ronnie neal ronnie met diane first through his lawn mowing
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business diane had apparently hired him to do some work in her yard ronnie neal's fingerprint matched the
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partial print found on the liquor bottle in diane's home and a check of neil's cell phone records
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indicate he called his ex-wife on the night of diane tilley's abduction he gets on his cell phone he calls elisa
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stanley proliant cruises mueller and we actually have this cell phone bouncing bouncing off a tower
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the area was about 15 miles from diane tilley's home an area encompassing hundreds if not
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thousands of acres it did however lead to speculation i believe you're standing over the body of
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diane tilly when he called lisa stanley when questioned alisa stanley confirmed the call but
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claimed she knew nothing about diane's abduction according to ms stanley neil told her he
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came into some money and asked her to go shopping despite this evidence ronnie neal refused to cooperate
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so police focused on his daughter pearl she too refused to cooperate at least initially
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i recall being very angry with pearl anne over what happened with diane tilly and telling her that
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there wasn't a day that was going to go by that she wasn't going to think about
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this and after 10 days in custody pearl led police to diane's body it was the area where ronnie neal made
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his cell phone call a deserted field under a pile of brush 15 miles from diane's home
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although the body was badly decomposed it was clear that she'd been shot several times
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her hands were bound with a dark blue polyester shoelace that looked like the missing shoelace from diane's tennis
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shoes both laces had the same tiny specks the lustering agents added to synthetic
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fibers to reduce the shine and there were other similarities the plastic pieces on the end of the
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shoelaces are called aglets the aglets were the same size and the same color on both shoelaces
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dental records confirmed the body was diane tilley everybody had a tremendous emotional
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reaction it was very very depressing it really was it was very sad there seemed to be
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no good at all to take out of this story no good that could come out of it [Music]
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inside neil's motel room investigators found diane's 357 handgun her luggage
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and electronic equipment the bullets recovered from diane's body were badly damaged
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but the bottom part was relatively intact i didn't have the whole bullet but that at least had the entire
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circumference of the base that i could examine ballistic experts could discern the
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lands and grooves on the bottom of the fatal bullets the bullets test fired from diane's gun
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were the same as those that killed her you're looking for these matching scratches they have to have the same
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type of character in other words depth or the width of them and the spacing between them
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despite the amount of decomposition scientists recovered a biological sample from diane's body which matched
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ronnie neal's dna profile proof of sexual assault eventually pearl told investigators the entire
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story of what happened to diane tilly one very difficult to believe [Music] after finding diane tilley's body
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police arrested 33 year old ronnie neal and his 15 year old daughter pearl cruz and charged them both with kidnapping
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and murder investigators discovered that ronnie neal had done some landscaping work for
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diane and she even gave him a swing set she no longer needed diane took a little bit of care to engage
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pearl when they went over to pick up the swing said she mentioned something to pearl about you
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know i like your your nail polish it's pretty and i think she asked pearl where she
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went to school pearl crews told investigators that she and her father planned almost from the
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start to rob diane well it's a very disturbing story it's disturbing on many levels
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it's not an easy story to digest at all on the night of the murder pearl knocked on diane's door
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and told her their truck broke down a few blocks away and asked to use the telephone
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once inside pearl pulled a gun then opened the side door for her father neal tied diane's hands with a shoelace
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from one of her tennis shoes then stole her gun and atm card neal took a drink of scotch leaving his
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partial print on the bottom of the bottle then asked diane for the pin number for her
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atm card while pearl guarded diane neal went to the atm to withdraw money from diane's account
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that's when he discovered diane had given him the wrong number so he returned to the house and
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threatened to kill diane's cat unless she gave him the correct pin number at some point neal fired a warning shot
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into the sofa diane gave him the correct pin number and the cat was unharmed neal left the rejected atm receipts on
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the dining room table packed diane's car with stolen belongings and sexually assaulted her
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then all three people ronnie pearl and diane drove away in her car they found a different atm machine
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and this time pearl successfully withdrew 400 from diane's account from there
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they took diane to the deserted field and diane's final words were about forgiveness
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the last thing pearl said she heard diane say was bless this child according to cell phone records
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neil stood over diane's body and called pearl's mother telling her he had
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recently come into some money and suggested they all go shopping later neil ditched diane's car and set
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it on fire thinking they had destroyed all the forensic evidence but they still left plenty behind
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if ronnie neal is not executed by this state then it will really be a travesty we the jury find the defendant ronnie
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o'neill guilty of capital murder in april of 2006 ronnie neal was tried and convicted of
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capital murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection pearl's life was spared in exchange for
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her testimony she was sentenced to 30 years in prison if you're looking for a teenager who's
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going to get right well incarcerated i'm afraid you're going to have to wait
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in pearl's case she's a deeply disturbed and abused uh individual psychopaths are not born they created
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and pro-ann cruz was certainly created people who knew diane tilly are struck by the irony
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pearl was exactly the type of child diane devoted her life to diane would have connected with her
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and she could have turned her around in the end pearl cruz's eyewitness testimony helped
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but investigators say they could have gotten the conviction without it we didn't have to rely on anybody's
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independent testimony to to convict ronnie neal we wouldn't have put one person except for the scientists on the
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stand to convict this guy not knowing science the way we know science you know these criminals just don't
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think and that's that's an advantage for us [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
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you