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in 1981 a witness claimed she saw the brutal murder and cremation of a woman underneath the tree on a stretch of
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deserted farmland but there was no trace of the remains anywhere nearby and investigators were stumped
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for answers they turned to the science of forensic geology [Music] [Applause] [Music]
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[Applause] so marshall illinois is a small farming community just across the wabash river
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from terre haute indiana the rich soil feeds vast fields of corn and acres of soybeans
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the biggest landowners in town were the grabby family fred and charlotte grabby were very
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prosperous both worked the farm with their daughter son and daughter-in-law the gravies had a lot going for them i
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mean they they had substantial resources uh inheritance on charlotte grabby's part
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uh you know and well into the six figures so these were not poor small dirt farmers
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fred grabby was easy to spot at six foot four inches tall and close to 300 pounds he dwarfed his petite wife
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well when i i first got into the family i thought fred was very nice very polite he was
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fun to be around he really seemed to like me they worked a lot charlotte worked from
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daylight to dusk the grabby marriage had its ups and downs like all marriages but this one
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had some unusual twists fred grabby had an eye for younger women and shortly after he married charlotte
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the couple divorced later they reconciled and married again but in 1981 charlotte again asked for a divorce and
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fred moved out of the main house into a smaller cabin on the farm the reason for the divorce this time was
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that fred was having an affair with the pretty 24 year old bartender vicky mcallister
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not exactly the most successful person in that part of the world she attended bar
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um she uh her reputation was not of the of the purest on july 24th 1981 charlotte grabby left the house to
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cultivate soybeans on the farm her children expected her home by dinner time but she never returned home
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when her children couldn't find her they contacted the local sheriff fred told the sheriff that he had spoken
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to charlotte earlier that day near a storage shed on the grabby's farm and their conversation got heated they got
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into an argument he left the machine shed charlotte pursued him in her car she got
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in her vehicle drove off and was last seen i left the last saw driving up the interstate last that was his story and
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consistently over time that's what he said in the shed authorities found charlotte's uneaten
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lunch on her tractor her purse was also in the shed along with her migraine medication and
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driver's license and the neighbors said she saw charlotte's car drive by earlier in the
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day but the driver did not appear to be charlotte they saw fred's pickup go by and then
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they saw charlotte's car right behind it with a blonde curly haired woman driving
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it charlotte grabby has dark short hair straight hair a few days later charlotte grabby's car was found across
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the indiana state line outside a bar in terre haute police found no blood no evidence of
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violence but they did recover a fully loaded handgun under the seat investigators learned that charlotte had
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written a letter shortly before she disappeared and that letter contained a warning
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[Music] charlotte grabby disappeared from this remote field on her illinois farm
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just prior to her disappearance she asked her children to make a promise if she wasn't home by 4 30 4 30 p.m we
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were supposed to come and look for her the reason she was afraid of the man she was trying
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to divorce fred grabby [Music] dad would have fits of rage for seemingly no reason at all
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directed mainly toward my mother but sometimes toward my brother or myself more my
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brother than than me actually one particular instance i heard yelling so i ran outside my brother and my
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my dad were fighting physically and my dad even took my brother by the side of the head and beat his
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head into the fender of the pickup just 10 days before she disappeared charlotte left several notes in a safe
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deposit box in the local bank in the notes charlotte accused her husband of stealing some farm equipment and said
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she didn't think she would live through a divorce she said she was afraid of fred and also
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his friend and business associate dale kessler when police interviewed dale kessler he
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said he was home on the night charlotte disappeared and that fred grabby had been with him
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when a grand jury asked fred grabby about his whereabouts on the day charlotte disappeared he invoked his
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fifth amendment rights and refused to testify with no evidence of a crime the official investigation stalled
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charlotte grabby became yet another missing person despite a 25 000 reward posted by the
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grabby children charlotte's disappearance remained a mystery for the next three years
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it's all i thought about from the time i got up to the time i went to bed every
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night how am i gonna find my mom she could be alive out there somewhere probably not but she might be and i had
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to go on that possibility and i kept thinking you know if it were me she would never give up with nowhere else to
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turn in 1984 charlotte's daughter hired a private detective charles pearson pearson discovered that fred grabby had
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recently broken up with his long-time girlfriend vicki mcallister and pearson tracked her down in indiana
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almost from the start vicki mcallister seemed anxious to talk about her life with fred grabby
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he was able to to play on her emotions and to draw from her a horrible secret it was the secret to charlotte grabby's
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disappearance and the story was so horrific it was difficult to believe vicky claimed that she went to the shed
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to borrow a steel drum from fred to haul some trash when they heard charlotte drive up fred
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told vicky to hide behind a tractor [Music] charlotte and fred immediately began to
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argue and soon turned violent from what vicki mcallister told us fred actually choked charlotte several
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times and then would let up on the pressure and let her regain consciousness and then would choke her
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again making comments to her the whole time vicky said that after grabby choked charlotte to death
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he sodomized her afterwards he used a grease gun to fill every orifice of her body
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to make it more flammable he then put her body in the trash barrel and headed towards the river
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[Music] vicky drove charlotte's car and abandoned it over the state line in indiana
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later that night fred doused the body in diesel fuel and while vicki watched fred
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burned the body the fire lasted throughout the night eventually only charlotte's skull
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remained grabby threw it in the wabash river saying that it would make good fish food
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he then rolled the barrel into the river the story when you hear the whole thing
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it's really kind of hard to believe mcallister's tale horrified charlotte's
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daughter it was almost overwhelming of course i cried a lot and [Music] over the course of the next few days
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it had to sink in because there just was so much to it you know and it was so horrific as you say
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i just kept praying that my mom didn't go through any pain mcallister had plenty of motive to tell
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a story that would put fred grappy in prison there's no greater wrath than that of a
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spurned woman she may have originally been concerned with a long-term relationship with him it lasted for a
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certain period of time and then it ended and i think she was angry vicky came to
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expect if not be told that she would share in the dynasty the financial dynasty of the grabby family that she
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would become a part of everything and that she and fred would live happily ever after i mean that's the story that
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guys tell girls and girls often believe in exchange for her testimony vicki mcallister was offered total
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immunity relocation and a new identity and if grabby was convicted mcallister could claim the 25 000 reward offered by
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the grabby children [Music] anytime you have just one person's word against another
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it's always better to have some type of physical evidence but there was another living witness to
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the events of that terrible night three years earlier and that evidence would tell if vicky
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mcallister's story actually had the ring of truth [Music] fred grabby's ex-girlfriend vicki
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mcallister took police to the scene of the cremation which she says took place on the banks of the wabash river
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just underneath this mature maple tree but after three years there were no remains found anywhere in
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the vicinity i was with one of the attorney generals that was assisting our state's attorney
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in the prosecution of the case and i made a comment to him just wondering if at this burn site if there was any
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possibility that petroleum products from the diesel fuel that was used could still be recovered in the soil
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around the site since the wabash river frequently overflows in the area of the maple tree
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any traces of the diesel fuel in the soil would have long been washed away we took some soil samples and they were
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negative for our petroleum products but one piece of potential evidence survived
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the maple tree under which the funeral pyre allegedly burned trees make excellent history books
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because they show us when events occurred nearby the tree they can explain to us
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exactly when different events happened in this photo sheriff crumrin is standing on the spot
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the barrel was allegedly placed was there any way for science to corroborate vicki mcallister's story
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in the spring and summer roots transport water and nutrients from the surrounding soil up through the
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trunk and into a tree's branches where they fuel the growth of very large cells
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when the tree goes dormant in late summer and fall it produces smaller more dense cells
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this cycle produces the familiar rings we see when we cut a tree branch or trunk
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each ring indicates another year has passed if the tree absorbed diesel fuel from
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the gruesome funeral pyre was there any way to tell diesel fuel is a toxic material to trees
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it will either kill the cells or it will affect their growth rate their metabolism
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adversely when it's absorbed by the tree it will slow the growth rate of the
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cells that it's in contact with investigators cut five branches from the tree and when they counted back through
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the growth rings they saw something startling in 1981 the growth of those branches had
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dramatically slowed from what it had been in previous years growth rings from the year charlotte disappeared were much
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thinner than earlier rings but there was no way of knowing why this was so to find out
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pieces of each branch were ground into sawdust and given to dr donald dickerson an organic chemist
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dickerson dissolved the samples and injected the sample into a gas chromatograph
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the results indicated the presence of hydrocarbons compounds indicative of petroleum
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products even more startling only two of the five branches showed traces of petroleum the ones on the side
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of the tree where vicky mcallister said the cremation took place samples on the other side of the tree
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were negative for hydrocarbons some species of trees will translocate or carry the material
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laterally around the tree better than others maple trees in general tend to maintain fairly uh direct columns
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between the roots and the branches above a unique forensic approach had uncovered
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evidence that matched vicki mcallister's bizarre and horrifying story exactly
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heck of a coincidence john o'brien spent 40 years as a crime reporter for the chicago tribune
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in the boondocks of marshall illinois way down in clark county i don't think
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there's another crime that comes close to not only the murder of charlotte grabby and and the means in
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which her body was disposed of but the story doesn't end here another mysterious fire
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an attempted prison breakout and the murder of one of the grabby children were all to impact fred grabby's trial
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when scientists discovered hydrocarbons in the maple tree next to where charlotte grabby's body was allegedly
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incinerated fred grabby was arrested and charged with murder [Music] the star witness was fred grabby's
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ex-girlfriend vicky mcallister who was given immunity to testify her story both fascinated and horrified
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courtroom spectators the first time i think i heard about the tree was when it came out in court
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and i thought wow you know that that really to me proves vicki was telling the truth about
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everything the motive money fred grabby had no desire to split the family assets with his wife even though
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it was charlotte's inheritance which comprised the bulk of their holdings most of the farm ground that they had
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it's my understanding belonged to her through her side of the family and fred was going to lose a lot of money
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basically that's what it all amounted to if the love of money is the root of all
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evil the roots of a maple tree soaking up errant diesel fuel sealed fred grabby's
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fate fred grabby was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his wife and was sentenced to life in prison
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without parole in a bizarre twist to a bizarre story fred grabby's new girlfriend barbara
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graham armed with a gun arrived at the jail one night and attempted to get him out of prison she fired five shots
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wounding one deputy in the leg she is able to get up on top for says don't make me kill you and at that time
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the struggle ceased for that offense bobra graham was sentenced to 16 years in prison
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two months later the home fred and charlotte shared and the house their children jeff and cindy
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had built next door burned to the ground arson investigators discovered both fires
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were deliberately set oh i believe fred grabby probably had some involvement with it not in setting
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the fires directly but i believe he probably had some involvement but we'll never know probably
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fred grabby's lawyers appealed the first verdict and on a technicality won a new
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trial a month before the second trial fred's son jeff grabby who had testified
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against his father at the first trial was found murdered in california with three bullet wounds to the chest
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we were notified by seal beach california authorities that they had found the body of jeff grabby floating
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in one of the harbors out there to this day some believe fred grabby had a hand in
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his son's murder although fred denies it i don't know if he had that kind of
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pull with people he could send out to california i i don't think so but i there's a lot of things i don't know
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the second trial ended the same way as the first fred grabby was found guilty of murder
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and sentenced to 75 years in prison i wrote him a letter telling him that i forgave him for what he did
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i hate what he did but i still love him because he's my dad if that makes sense
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no one has ever been charged with jeff grabby's murder and no trace of charlotte grabby's
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remains have ever been recovered vicki mcallister claimed her reward then left the area relocated at the state's
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expense she continues to fear that fred grabby will somehow take revenge even from behind prison bars
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the maple tree still grows not far from the wabash river the maple tree alive and growing
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was one thing one creation that that fred grabby could not intimidate could not reach
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could not destroy [Music] [Music] so [Music] you