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there were lots of suspects in the murder of a millionaire oil man and many salivating over the man's estate
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and that fact alone helped crack the case [Music] [Music] [Music] ron and rosanna shaw had just moved into
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their luxurious new home in youngsville louisiana but they still had some things to do
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before the birth of their new baby on this night ron helped his pregnant wife by doing the grocery shopping
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ronnie put two bags of groceries on my arms we started walking towards the house
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and all of a sudden three men jumped from behind the garage i was in shock i was just waiting for
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them to shoot me they put the guns to my head they told rosanna to open the safe in
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the master bathroom [Music] i tried to open the safe and i just couldn't and i was so nervous i was
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shaking then he said you better open it this time or i'm gonna kill you rosanna finally remembered the
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combination he was disappointed i guess he was expecting a lot of money a lot of cash
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in there but it wasn't a lot the men took seven thousand dollars in cash and a box of jewelry
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i thought okay now he's gonna kill me in desperation rosanna begged for her life
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i got on my knees and i told him i'm pregnant the killer backed off but left her with a warning
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he said if you come out of here i'm going to kill you the men left and rosanna called police
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52-year-old ronald shaw was pronounced dead at the scene police knew right away that this was an inside job
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whoever was responsible for the death had to know the layout of the home or certainly at least that there was a safe
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contained inside the bathroom of the home rosanna was unable to give a detailed description of the killers because
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they were wearing masks i could tell they were young they were black males and they
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the first one was wearing a red ski mask with some black around the eyes he's the one that was very close to me
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he had some gold teeth ron shaw was a successful oil man he had developed the concept of placing
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global positioning satellite chips in his drill bits which improved accuracy when drilling for oil
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although the shaws were a wealthy couple police weren't sure the motive was robbery they left jewelry in the safe
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they left an additional fifty five hundred dollars in the safe gold coins that were valuable he had eleven hundred
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and thirty three dollars in his pocket he had a rolex watch on his arm and none of these were taken
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and police found the box full of jewelry several hundred yards behind the shaw's
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home we had considered that the motive may have been a murder for hire as opposed to a
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robbery the question was who wanted ron shaw dead ron shaw's merger was a major news story
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in louisiana and the entire gulf coast region it was huge it was characterized as a
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well-organized home invasion of people who the police believe laid in wait for the shaw family
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the victim was portrayed as a very wealthy business executive and then to have him
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killed in front of his wife certainly hit a nerve with society in general the shaw's home was only a few months
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old not all of the landscaping had been completed and this produced the first piece of
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evidence it's a new construction there was builder stand in the back of the house
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so as the suspects stepped in that sand in the back of the house and and went through the house they left real nice
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shoe impressions down the hallway the outside print was preserved with the substance called
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dense stone kind of like pancake batter and you're able to lift those impressions and bring them back to the
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crime laboratory [Music] inside the home investigators lit the hardwood floors from various angles
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and saw two more sets of shoe impressions criminalists lifted the prince with gelatin strips
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you roll the gelatin with the black side down onto your question shoe impression and
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when you peel it off the adhesive and the gelatin adheres to the dust particles on the
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floor with some research investigators identified the prince outside as a pair of size 10 nike air
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jordans the perpetrators inside also wore nike shoes one wore the air metal force model
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the other the shocks trainers when police interviewed the neighbors several of them said they saw a
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burgundy-colored car parked a short distance away from the shaw's home the vehicle was occupied by black males
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either they observed these black males within the vehicle or standing outside the vehicle
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but it was parked in front of a vacant lot in this particular neighborhood so it did stand out
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and about a mile from the crime scene search dogs found a potentially crucial piece of evidence
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while they were walking around on the roadway they discovered a red ski mass with blue outlines on it next to the
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roadway which was in direct line of sight to the rear of the victim's property
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this ski mask red with dark trimming around the eyes was similar to the one described by
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rosanna shaw at ron's autopsy the medical examiner confirmed that ron shaw was shot three times with a 38
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caliber weapon there were two torso shots one of those torso shots the bullet remained the other torso shot the bullet
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went all the way through his body in the yard investigators found the projectile that passed through shaw's
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body this along with the two bullets from inside shaw's body were sent to the forensics lab
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under a microscope firearms expert chris henderson discovered that the lands and grooves on two
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bullets were the same the third bullet was different we determined that we had two different
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shooters based on the class characteristics of the bullets in their search for potential suspects
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police had to consider whether rosanna shaw had anything to do with her husband's murder
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ron's grown son from his first marriage certainly thought so he had distrust for her he
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wondered what her motivation was for marrying his father had she married for money
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we got along fairly well while ron and i got married but right after ronnie died
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he just turned against me he just doesn't like me and there were others who had a
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potential motive a background check revealed ron had shifted funds from one oil drilling
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research project to another one was successful the other wasn't which created substantial losses for
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investors there were a couple of them that had actually lost hundreds of thousands of
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dollars it didn't surprise them at all that the victim had met such a violent
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death because they felt that his business practices were dubious and unethical with so many potential avenues to
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explore investigators focused first on who knew that the shaws had a safe the people that knew about the safe was
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the safe company my family ron is family people at the office the architect the construction
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workers friends there was a lot of people that could have known about the safe the general contractor who built the
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shaw's home fully cooperated with authorities ernest touchette revealed the names of several disgruntled
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employees that he felt might play a role and later added that he also had two grandsons
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that had worked on the home and that had also recently had several run-ins with the
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law but investigators dismissed that idea the perpetrators were black yet ernest
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touchette and presumably his grandsons were white and ronshaw knew these boys personally
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ernest touchet came to my husband and asked to hire his two grandchildren to keep them out of trouble you know they
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needed to do something so my husband said sure he my husband really appreciated the grandfather ernest touchet
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so he said of course bring your two grandchildren and i'll hire them police didn't believe the touchette boys
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would repay ronshaw's kindness in this way or would they the owner of the construction company
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who had built the shaw's new home ernest touchette told police he feared his two
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grandsons might have been involved in ron's murder initially police thought little of it
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since the perpetrators were black and ernest touchette was white until they looked at the mug shots of his
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grandsons shannon toucher was a black male and was a product of a interracial marriage
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that his mother had had during her earlier years seventeen-year-old shannon touchette had
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worked on ronshaw's home and would have known about the safe hidden in the master bathroom closet
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investigators went to shannon's home he wasn't there but his mother was and she was very helpful
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she reported to us that she had found some bullets in a black bag a black bag that she recalled had
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at one time also contains ski masks and drugs police found the bag in shannon's
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bedroom the drugs and ski masks were gone but they did find 13 unfired 38 caliber
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bullets investigators wondered whether these bullets matched the ones that killed ron
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shaw firearms expert chris henderson examined the knurls on the fatal bullets knurls are the ridge-like protrusions
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that hold the lubrication needed to fire them henderson then compared those knurls
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with the knurls on the bullets in shannon two shet's bag we had the same number of knurls same
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width and those knurls look kind of like railroad tracks going around the outer surface of that bullet all the physical
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characteristics everything that we could physically see and measure were indistinguishable for one another we
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could not tell the difference between one and the other police brought shannon to shut in for
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questioning he insisted he knew nothing about ron shaw's murder he said he was
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with his girlfriend that night she did verify his alibi and stated that shannon touchette was in fact with her
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in lake charles but looking at shannon's shoes investigators noticed he was wearing
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nike air jordan basketball shoes similar to the shoe impressions at the crime scene
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[Music] scientists took casts of shannon's shoes and compared them to the cast from the
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impression in the sand outside ron shaw's home we concluded that the the shoe
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impressions at the crime scene were basically indistinguishable from those of shannon touchette's shoes they
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had the same wear the same physical characteristics their nike air jordan same size
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shannon's own mother disputed his alibi she told investigators that shannon was
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out with two friends on the night of the murder reggie basil and ronald benson and they were driving a burgundy car
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similar to the one witnesses saw near the murder scene when questioned both reggie basil and
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ronald benson denied any involvement in the robbery and murder police obtained a search warrant and
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confiscated all of the shoes belonging to the two men but none matched the shoe impressions found
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inside shaw's home it's frustrating to believe that your investigation is focused and it's going
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in the right direction but there's no certainty that you're in fact looking at the right
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folks and for these type of charges you don't want to make a mistake either so investigators decided to look for
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genetic material inside the red ski mask that had been discarded after the murder
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the forensic scientist turned the mask inside out and swabbed around the mouth area
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hoping to pick up cells from saliva we're using the entire surface area of the swab to collect as much
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of the potential cellular material that's there and then basically we just let the swab air dry and hopefully we'll
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have some dna on those swabs using a dna test called str or short tandem repeats
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scientists found dna from three different individuals inside the mask but investigators needed to know who was
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wearing the mask before it was discarded to find out they analyzed the swab from the ski mask
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to determine who left most of the saliva behind and the results of this test were clear
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in this case the major contributor dna matched that of ronald benson the red ski mask was very important
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because it corroborated the story that we were able to receive from miss mrs shaw mrs shaw indicated that the
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person with the red mask was the most aggressive in the robbery the identity of the other two dna
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profiles in the mask was inconclusive the ski mask implicated ronald benson the shoe impression outside the shaw's
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home implicated shannon touchette but there was no forensic evidence linking reggie basil to the crime
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as an investigator that's a little hard to swallow you know that's a little hard
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to leave in the end of the day with knowing that there's nothing else you can do and you
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feel fairly certain of who's responsible for doing it investigators hoped that would change
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[Music] shannon touchette reggie basil and ronald benson were all arrested for the
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murder of ron shaw it was decided that the only way was to arrest all three suspects simultaneously
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and interview them in the same building at the same time going from room to room
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until we got the confessions from all of them shannon touchette the individual that
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was the ringleader the one that had the information about the location of the safe he ultimately turned on his two
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associates shannon admitted that benson and basil both participated in the murder
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president was gonna go in the house when she opened the door i was gonna stand outside
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and wait for him shannon said that the motive was robbery this was how shannon repaid ron shaw for
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giving him a job at his grandfather's request well i was talking about my job
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it was mr shaw he was paying me good i was telling about about that and how he had money and stuff
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we started planning for like two weeks before and then we finally did it prosecutors say the three men drove to
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ronshaw's neighborhood and waited for the shaws to come home witnesses saw the three men
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loitering in the area when the shaws arrived they were ambushed ronald benson fired twice
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reggie basil fired the third shot shannon touchette stayed outside leaving the shoe impressions in the sand
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benson and basil took rosanna inside and forced her to open the safe for reasons that are unclear
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they didn't take all of the valuables inside the safe [Music] but they spared rosanna's life
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i think my daughter saved my life that night when i told that man that i was pregnant
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he just did something to his mind that decided not to kill me and yes my daughter saved my life
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while running to the getaway car they dropped the box full of jewelry as they drove away
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benson threw his ski mask out of the car unaware that it contained his dna [Music]
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shannon touchette left ammunition matching the fatal bullets in his gym bag the murder weapons have never been found
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nor the shoes that left the impressions inside the shaw's home shannon touchette
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and reggie basil both pled guilty to first degree murder and aggravated robbery and were sentenced to life in
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prison ronald benson chose to go to trial the jury found him guilty he got the same sentence
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life in prison investigators point to the case as a classic example of basic police
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techniques and forensic science coming together to get a conviction the forensic efforts on the part of our
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crime lab were invaluable to a final conclusion in this case without them there would have been no
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conviction for any of the three defendants it was amazing to me the about the dna the the shoe prints
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all the evidence they can gather from the cream crime place you know that can help find out who who did it
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there's a lot of technology if things are done right everything falls into place and sometimes a little bit of luck
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helps [Music] [Music] so [Music] you