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in 1980 4-year-old Vicky Lions was found in a parking lot unconscious and near death there were no Witnesses no one
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knew what really [Music] happened but Vicki's mother was determined to find out
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[Music] [Music] [Applause] West Texas is far removed from big cities like Dallas and
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Houston the land is flat and dry dotted with the occasional oil well or cotton field at the crossroads of Interstate 20
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and Route 87 is a little town called Big Spring out here when the local high school marching band is invited to the
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state tournament it's front page news that front page belongs to the Big Spring Herald newspaper which Chronicles
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all the town's activities no matter how big or small I worked in circulation
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department and it was very nice I knew all the people there I'd known them for
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a long time in 1980 Crystal Lions was living in Big Spring with her husband Bill and four-year-old daughter Vicky
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very quiet baby she didn't like getting her hands dirty or her feet dirty she if
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you took her shoes off she would walk and take one step dust off her foot dust off her hands and take another step she
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was very very into being clean like all working mothers Crystal was often pulled in two
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[Music] directions one day when the babysitter didn't show up Crystal's supervisor gave
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her a tough choice I told my boss that I didn't have anyone to take care of Vicky
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that day and she he told me that if I didn't bother to come in I didn't have a
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job since Crystal had taken Vicki into work before she decided to do it again hi Vicki how are you today
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good her co-workers liked the little girl and Crystal kept her eye on Vicki as best she
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could while Crystal was moving papers to the loading dock for afternoon delivery
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Reverend JB Cardman drove up I go up there every day when I was in town I'd go there
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every then pick me up with the paper here to be there when they started running them as the delivery vehicles
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were preparing to leave the loading dock Crystal heard her supervisor tell Vicki
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to go outside and play in the parking lot and I was just fixing to tell him you know I don't feel comfortable about
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any of this so I'm just going to go home and you can make your decision but before she could say
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anything the supervisor saw Vicki lying on the ground not moving she could tell from even the
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distance that you know she'd been hit oh God when Crystal got there Vicki was unconscious and not breathing
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no one else was there and there was no indication what happened where are they Vicki was rushed by ambulance to the
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adessa hospital about an hour away Crystal followed in her car as if Crystal and Vicki hadn't already been
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through enough the ambulance broke down along the way we almost hit it we were right
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behind the ambulance and we almost hit the ambulance because it just slowed down and to such a point that we had to
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get out of the way eventually the ambulance got to the hospital and Vicki was rushed to intensive care that's when
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it really hit me that her condition was pretty severe that she may not make it she was mine and
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Bill's only child it was hard they finally took me and Bill in to see Vicki uh she was in a
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[Music] coma and then she started what they thought throwing up blood and uh so they asked us to leave
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we hadn't even been in there maybe 2 minutes as they left the room they noticed unusual marks on Vicki's face so
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those are ti marks on her face and he said yes they're yes they are Crystal had the presence of mind to get her
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camera and take pictures of these marks on Vicki's face before they disappeared had she not taken this
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important step the story that follows might never have happened while Vicki lay in a coma with
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her mother by her side police questioned everyone at the newspaper but no one had
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seen the incident police issued an all points bulletin for JB Hardeman the man seen
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leaving the parking lot in a hurry just minutes before Vicki was found I was late leaving hadn't had no my wife
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didn't fix no lunch and I went by the chicken plate and got me a box of chicken come back down there they were
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running the papers I got me a paper and take off Hardman was a minister but made
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his living pedling fish from the back of his truck police caught up with him in the nearby town of
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Snyder well we got a re for your arrest so for what for running over a girl in be spring leaving the scene of the
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accident no girl in big spr Snider police put Hardman in a jail cell where he overheard officers talking on the
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phone I heard him talking to Big Spain he told I went that chuck with a scientif com and I can't find nothing
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but one little spot I did find one see one little spot of blood and I that kind of shook me up when he said that after
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almost 3 weeks in a coma Vicki regain Consciousness she suffered severe damage to her skull and one eye she could not
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walk or even speak as time went by Vicki's condition slowly improved [Music]
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hi Crystal one day Crystal took Vicki to the newspaper office to see everyone who
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had been concerned about her when are you coming back still not talking when one of the employees leaned into the car
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to say hello Vicki reacted violently be a couple times a week it was the first time Vicki had
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spoken since the accident and Vicki just started kicking and screaming you know um what little
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voice could come out you know that was a first sign of a voice actually was just
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this um um it wasn't even a clear voice it was just more of a screech type thing
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but Vicki was not well enough to explain her reaction Crystal decided to conduct her
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own investigation Crystal believed the answer to the mystery of what happened to
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Vicki were those marks on Vicki's face marks which hospital employees identified as tire
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marks I just started thinking you know what would the police do crystal made a list of all vehicles
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she could remember seeing in the newspaper parking lot prior to Vicki's accident then she needed to find a way
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to compare the marks on Vicki's face to the tires of those vehicles Crystal rub black shoe polish on each
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[Music] tire and then pressed plain white paper against it she kept careful records of which
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Tire impression came from each vehicle in all she took nine Tire Impressions from two Vans and a pickup
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truck then she showed detective work to the police I said you arrested the wrong
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person I said you've harassed a black man who was just a sweet harmless old man who never done anything wrong to
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anybody and I said you need to you know fix this the grand jury questioned Reverend
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Hardeman but did not indict him the spot of Blood on the truck turned out to be fish
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blood Crystal did not believe Reverend Hardeman was the one who ran over ick but police refused to investigate
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further saying it was a civil matter not a criminal one at the time the newspaper's parking
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lot was unpaved and bumpy it was possible that a driver may have driven over Vicki and mistaken the bump for a
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pothole by the time they got out there all they had was an empty parking lot uh they didn't really have any eyewitnesses
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in in fact there were no eyewitnesses and for the next 3 years as she nursed Vicki back to health no one
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in the small town of Big Spring was willing to help her one day while reading a magazine
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crystal saw an article about a man known as the Sherlock Holmes of tire marks this was the break that Crystal
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had been praying for Peter McDonald literally wrote the book on P impression evidence he was formerly
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the chief designer for the Firestone Tire Company he also assisted numerous police agencies and taught at the FBI
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Academy after reading the magazine article about McDonald Crystal lions called him in
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Ohio she explained the case as best she could and told him about the pictures had taken which appeared to show a tire
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mark luckily for the Lion's family McDonald was no stranger to Tire impressions in human flesh uh my heart
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went out to her with this almost like tattoo on her forehead with the evidence Crystal had
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gathered McDonald thought he could help I think it's amazing that she had the
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foresight to make rubbings of suspect tires I don't always get that sort of work from police on a major homicide
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case Crystal had labeled each of the tire Impressions with the date and its position on the
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vehicle two of the vehicles I could eliminate very quickly one was a big snow tire type design another was a
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passenger design but it had major grooves that were kind of lightning shaped which was different than the
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imprint on Vicki's forehead but the last three imprints were interesting they were golden Sonic
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78s a relatively rare tire no longer manufactur the imprint on Vicki's face looked similar but McDonald wasn't sure
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that the size matched the same tread pattern appears in as normally about 12 different sizes so it's important to me
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to confirm that it's not only the same manufacturer the same brand but that it has exactly the same
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size but crystals photographs did not contain a size reference how could McDonald determine
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the size of a tire impression on Vicki's face Taken 3 years earlier another photograph was taken
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this time with a scale reference the human skull grows most rapidly in the first 3 years of life but between the
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ages of 4 and seven the distance between the eye sockets and mouth usually remained the
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same this knowledge helped McDonald to compare these two photographs with a scale of reference
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on Vicki's forehead McDonald saw tiny lines made by Tire cyes which are narrow
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Cuts put in the tire to improve traction and they are a forensic scientist greatest tool because I can help
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determine the wear of the tire cyes are made by small metal blades placed in the tire mold to make the tire
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stronger the blades sometimes have a small indentation creating a raised area of rubber called a tie bar as the tread
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wears the tie bar is exposed and the tire's imprint changes in Vicki's skin McDonald found
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interruptions in the cypes caused by the exposed tie bar he determined the tire had worn down about 51 100s of an
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inch two of the Sonic 78 m imprints could now be eliminated since they had very little
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wear but the last imprint showed the same degree of wear and matched in size McDonald believ that the right
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front tire of the newspaper truck driven by an employee we'll call Bob Jones had
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run over Vicki Jones was the man who said hello to Vicki after the accident when Vicki
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had reacted violently in 1985 Crystal Lions filed suit against the Big Spring Herald claiming that
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Jones hadn't taken the proper precautions while backing his truck out of the parking
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lot the unfortunate accident would mean a lifetime of neurological difficulties for Vicki and Crystal wanted
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Justice Vicky lions needed dozens of surgical procedures because the accident damaged her hearing vision and sense of
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balance but she was able to attend school they just um asked me if I'm like mentally
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or if I had a stroke but I don't mind people asking give me cuz I'd rather them ask me what
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happened than like sit there and stare at me there was no way to just do what the
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doctors had suggested which is put her in a wheelchair and just forget her I couldn't do that she's my child I love
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her Christal lion says she didn't sue the Big Spring Herald just for financial
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motives she wanted them to take responsibility for the accident that left her daughter permanently
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disabled I wanted everybody to know the truth and it came down to the point where uh in order for Vicky to get the
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the appropriate medical attention and to stay where she was at and get good medical attention and and have a life
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that money was going to be involved Vicky Lions tries not to think about the accident
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but she remembers it I remember my mom's bus tell me to go play in the parking
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lot and I had some toy dishes with me and I went behind this truck I was just playing in the
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sand on the day of the accident the driver of the vehicle in a rush backed out over Vicki in the unpaid bumpy
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parking lot apparently without realizing it I saw him like look in this rivy mirror but
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but I guess well I was four years old I didn't know what to do even before the lawsuit Janes suspected
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he might have been the one who ran over Vicki the driver made comment to Crystal that he did not think he did it
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but if he did it that he was sorry that it happened all I can say is it's done it's over
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with I don't like they did that but but I'm willing to forgive him cuz I'm no person to
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[Music] judge so and he's got to live with way done the herald wanted to settle the
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case the newspaper offered to pay $750,000 towards the care Vicki would need for the rest of her life Crystal
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accepted but demanded one more thing 15 minutes in the judge's Chambers for her
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and Vicki to meet with a representative of the herald alone Vicki I asked her if she had
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anything to say to him and uh she told him you destroyed my life that was pretty much well the end
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of the lawsuit right then and there the Big Spring heral did not report the news
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of this settlement the paper now has new owners and a completely different staff Crystal had the insight to take
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the photographs she had the insight to get the tire imprints she had the insight to tear out this uh piece of
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paper in the magazine that had Peter McDonald's uh name on it uh without her
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having done all of that obviously I don't think any any of this would have gotten
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done Peter McDonald is is more than a forensic specialist he's also an artist
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and his paintings and sketches cover the walls of his home some of his works are inspired by
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the many cases he has helped to solve one is based on the photo of a young girl he never met over the past 20
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years he has wondered what happened to her in a case like this you do get emotion
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involved Crystal was able to arrange for the best medical care for Vicki and Vicki has learned to speak and walk
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again although Vicky tries to put the accident in the past she lives with its Legacy every
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day I like getting out but I don't always get out that much because I don't like how people make me feel
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when I go out somewhere but Vicki is thinking about getting out more she's finished high
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school and is considering College her mother now divorced is already attending college in Denver
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studying forensic science I really applaud that I bet she'll be really good in the ction on
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how to make imprints [Music] [Music]