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[Music] up next a young aspiring singer disappears a telltale sign of you know someone who
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was running away from something she had a history of running away she's always come back
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surveillance cameras tell at least part of the story when i saw the video i started feeling
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very confident that we were focusing on the right guy all they had to do now was to find him
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[Music] i wanna love someone that would stand by my side sixteen-year-old yoshan ashbrook had
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dreams of stardom her sister and yoshan used to write songs all the time different little lyrics and and things
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and they wrote one song called wanna i wanna love you but could you love me too i i feel so safe
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when i'm with you i wanna love you and yo sean sang this song and they um really wanted to to get it recorded and
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to do something nice with it and she just didn't get the chance to finish that and if a singing career
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didn't work out she had a backup plan yes sean wanted to be an entertainment lawyer she could
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make deals and make everybody happy like many teenagers joshan had her share of conflicts with her parents
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but they were usually resolved yoshan did have a history of running away normally she would run away spend the
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night somewhere else and come home the following day or maybe two days later but after an argument with her parents
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about smoking marijuana she left this time for good yoshian's parents were very concerned
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about her they were aware that she had substance abuse problems her parents notified the police called
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all her friends and went to all of her known hangouts towards the end of the evening
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it was more frustrating because it was like we had no other leads we had nowhere else to go
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we couldn't think of any other places or any other people to talk to the next morning electricians working
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for the power company spotted a woman's body off the side of the road outside of tampa florida
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the body was identified as joshon ashbrook you could see that her throat was cut
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blunt trauma to her face her head there was cuts defensive wounds on her hands yoshan's pants weren't found at the
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scene looking at her body being nude from the waist down you cannot help think that maybe she was sexually
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assaulted gosh i don't know how to describe that feeling i'm never going to see my
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daughter get married or have babies [Music] i'm never going to hold her first child
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and i'm never going to see her make her dreams come true investigators found a single hair in a
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defensive wound on yoshan's thumb it appeared that this might be the hair from her attacker
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like if she went to grab him and when she was fighting him and she grabbed him and it just got embedded in
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there the hair had the root intact about 30 feet from the body refreshed tire tracks
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it was obvious that whoever was driving that vehicle backed into the area and then dragged
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her body into the woods the tire tracks were in the sand a surface ideal for making
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plaster casts these were so clear i could say that there was not any rain or had occurred or any damage in the
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environment at that time because they were such nice clear quality impressions no one knew of
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anyone who wanted to harm your sean but for investigators these clues were a very good start
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as police search for joshon ashbrook's killer the medical examiner learned that the
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knife wound to her throat was not the cause of death the medical examiner explained that the
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suspect may have put her in some type of wrestling move like a half nelson and turned or put extreme pressure on
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her which dislocated which broke her neck an autopsy found no evidence of sexual
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assault in a search for suspects yushan's family suggested police interview john hanson a 60-year-old family friend
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who lived nearby john was an older gentleman he hung out at the house all the time with us
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but in my opinion he seemed after a while to get too close to the children he always wanted to be their friend more
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so than the friends of an adult within 24 hours of finding yoshan's body investigators went to hanson's trailer
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to question him but he was gone we've talked to the park manager and some of the neighbors and
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they said they hadn't seen him in a day or two there was no sign of violence in his
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trailer a background check revealed hanson a day laborer estranged from his wife had no history
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of violence a 60 year old man having teenagers visit the house and hang around i think it
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does lead to suspicion as to what is going on so now he is somebody we really want to
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talk to while police searched for hansen criminalists measured the tire impressions found near
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yoshan's body those measurements and tread patterns were entered into a computer database of
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20 000 different tires manufactured around the world there was then seven different
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manufacturer models that could have made that entire impression at the crime scene different
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manufacturers sometimes sell their mold to other manufacturers so therefore you would have
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the same mold but yet under different manufacturer model names all seven of these tire models were for
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larger vehicles which meant your sean's killer was driving either a truck or an suv
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then police got an important lead from a woman who saw yoshon the day she ran away
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[Music] hi it's yoshon she received a phone call from yoshan about 8 30 in the morning on july 31st
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she wanted to know if her son was there could she stop by sure you can stop by yoshan's asked if she could come by and
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drop off a letter within minutes a red ford pickup pull-up yoshan gets out runs to the door the
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note was for the woman's son max who was yoshan's boyfriend it was i miss you i love you i'll call
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you later that type of note she just appeared to be in a hurry and wanted to leave the woman said the
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driver was a middle-aged white male but she didn't get a good look at his face she did however
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provide a valuable piece of information max's mother provided us with the cell
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phone number that was on her caller id when investigators called the number a man
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answered the phone we were able to get a person on the phone he said his name was phillip thompson
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and he was asked if he knew anybody of the name of joshon ashbrook and if he had picked up anybody or knew
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this female philip thompson confirmed he and his daughter had picked up yoshan when she was
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hitchhiking took her to her boyfriend's house to leave the note and then they dropped her off at the
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local walmart and that's the last that he had seen of her philip thompson agreed to meet
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police later that day but he failed to show up for his appointment investigators looked at that as possibly
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you know a telltale sign of you know someone who was running away from something
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but police received some troubling news the cell phone wasn't registered to philip thompson
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it was registered to philip parton a convicted killer phillip hardin was convicted of a
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murderer that he committed in 1987 in which he strangled a man with a phone cord or some kind of
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cord short version was that phillip hart was what they call a hustler a male prostitute he had picked up this
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gay math teacher at a local club they went back to the teacher's place something happened there
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parton beat him strangled him to death with a telephone court once he killed him he took his wallet
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money credit cards got into the guy's car and drove off parton was convicted of second-degree
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murder served six years in prison and was released in 1995. police believed that it was partner they'd been speaking
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to about yoshan parton said he and his daughter dropped yoshan off at this walmart the morning she
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disappeared but that's not what store surveillance tape showed the walmart surveillance video
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shows them pulling in at around 8 48 you see the suspect you see yoshan and you see
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the suspect's little girl they spend 5-10 minutes purchase a couple fishing items
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and then they leave get back in the vehicle and drive off the videotape left no doubt joshon was
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with parton a convicted murderer just hours before her body was found when i saw the video i started feeling
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very confident that we were focusing on the right guy there was only one problem where
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was he police searched nationwide for philip parton a convicted killer who had already
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admitted to police during a phone call that he'd picked up joshon ashbrook while she was hitchhiking
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investigators learned that parton and his daughter were living in newport richie florida with a friend
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he'd met in prison he agreed to let him live in one of the rooms at his house
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hardin had his daughter patricia with him so they move in there when questioned parton's roommate said he hadn't seen
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parton or his daughter since yoshan's murder was covered in the local news he also said he'd never seen joshon
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ashbrook at his house either with a search warrant police examined the room parton and his
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daughter had been using and initially found nothing suspicious we lifted up a throw rug that was in
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between the two beds and when we pulled the throw rug back there was a huge discolored stain
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the stain was about four feet long and smelled of bleach it looked like someone had recently tried to clean it
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so criminalists lifted the carpet and found traces of blood underneath which they collected for dna
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testing forensic analysts also went over every inch of the room they started searching
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and on the wall they found a speck of blood that looked like it might have been a
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cast off a little teardrop the blood on the wall and underneath the carpet yielded
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a genetic profile and it matched your sean's dna we can say that yo sean was killed in that bedroom
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parton's roommate insisted he had nothing to do with your sean's murder but wouldn't cooperate further i did not
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want to cooperate with the investigators nor the state attorney's office very
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belligerence this hated authority despised us meanwhile the search for philip parton
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wasn't going well even though he was in constant contact with police via his cell phone detective philip
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liked to talk he would question detectives as to what do you have on me why do you think i'm the one that did
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this he was seeking answers you have nothing on me the problem was parton would make a call and then drive away so
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it was impossible to pin down his location one call came from across the country in
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washington state this was just another way of mr pardon taunting the detectives finally the phone call stopped
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completely but then two months after yoshan's murder police found an abandoned red pickup truck in a
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walmart parking lot 50 miles away from where your sean's body was discovered
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the license plate showed it was parton's truck but on the truck were four bald tires
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that didn't match the tire impressions at the crime scene was parton trying to show he wasn't the
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killer by using decoy tires and he's got to know we were going to take tire casts and we're going to know
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what kind of vehicle he was driving was pretty smart but if that were the case parton made a colossal mistake
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in the glove compartment investigators found three rolls of film when developed one picture showed his truck with
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different tires one of them was a wild country brand tire i was able to determine that the tire
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impressions made at the crime scene was made by one of seven and one of them being the cooper wild country tire
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this became a crucial piece of evidence for us in this case with the help of an informant police
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found pardon's seven-year-old daughter parton had dropped her off at a friend's home
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after the murder and never came back pardon tells her you don't know where i'm at you know
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where i'm going and and don't tell anybody take care of my child i'll get back with you later on
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he's never seen again parton's daughter confirmed yoshan's whereabouts on the
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night of the murder and said yoshan never left the bedroom she remembered that they went back to
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the house where they live went into the bedroom and that she and yoshan played video games and watched tv parton's
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daughter said she was asleep in the living room while her father and your sean were in the bedroom
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when she awoke dushan was gone we asked her at what time did yoshan leave and she didn't remember
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probably after she went to bed she had no knowledge of when they left and she couldn't tell investigators
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where her father was hiding this guy's pissing me off all the evidence in the joshua ashbrook
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murder pointed to one man philip parton he was the last known person to see your sean alive his truck
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once had the same brand of tires that left tracks just feet from her body his own daughter
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put him with the victim the night of the murder and perhaps most tellingly of all
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when police went to question him he went on the run but he couldn't control his curiosity about the case and called
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detectives from all over the country he was pumping detectives as much as we were trying to pump him
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for information he ultimately thought he could beat the system well in doing that we were able to trace
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his phone calls with a warrant investigators tapped his roommate's phone just to see if parton would eventually
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call him and that's what he did when parton called his roommate the police were listening in
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they traced the call to a pay phone in fayetteville north carolina we knew that mr parton
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was involved in the air conditioning business he had a general area where the phone
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call came in from so we concentrated our search in that area and that's exactly where they found him
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mr pardon was quite shocked to see detectives he was taken into custody on a warrant
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upon questioning by detectives he refused most of the questions that he didn't confess
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remember yo sean if i showed you a picture you don't know how many girls i've made
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you know so i'm talking about the one i am talking about the one that uh was at fritz house
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you two were together i'm listening to you but i i still don't know but dna finally told the tale
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parton's dna matched dna on the hair found on yoshan's body this dna just sealed the deal to see
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whether parton's roommate was involved investigators searched his suv and on the front seat found a blood
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stain but a test on the blood stain didn't match joshon ashbrook it was dna from the man's son
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the roommate also claimed he was at work in tampa on the night yoshan was murdered
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an alibi corroborated by his employer he was obviously in pinellas or tampa with these people he couldn't have been
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involved in her murder believe parton picked up yoshan while she was hitchhiking
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pardon gained your sean's trust by having his daughter with him and by helping her with her errands
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the security tapes show the three of them went shopping later that morning bought
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some fishing gear and according to parton's daughter went fishing later that afternoon parton's daughter
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said they returned to their rented room sometime late in the day after dark parton's daughter fell asleep on the
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sofa parton may have made a sexual advance towards you sean which he rebuffed there was a fight
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desean grabbed some of his hair and parton used a knife to cut her throat blood spatter got onto the wall but
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it was a broken neck that caused yoshan's death parton took yoshan's body to the woods
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15 miles from her home she had in her hand his dna parton left his tire impression in the
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sand later parton attempted unsuccessfully to clean the blood from the bedroom philip parton is an opportunist who
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preys on young victims and vulnerable victims i would consider him a sick individual
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it's hard for the defense to look at this evidence and take off in a different direction
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saying hey my client's not guilty philip parton went on trial for first degree murder he was found
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guilty and sentenced to death i held a lot of anger in and so that's what got me through the trial
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was my anger he would stare at me and he would wink at me and um just be as cocky as he could be
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the forensic evidence was the case it was the case her dna in the bedroom and his dna his hair found in her
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finger that's the case everything else was circumstantial mr pardon had a tattoo on his body that
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said live free or die and that was his motto that he he went by either either let me free or
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kill me and ultimately i think it speaks for [Music] itself