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a woman jogging along a deserted footpath in central michigan disappeared when investigators find her body clues
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at the scene point to a killer with professional training it took almost 20 years before an old
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hat and a chip of stainless steel no longer than a fingernail brought the killer to justice
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[Music] [Music] on a beautiful summer day in 1986 muriel kirby started her day as she
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always did by meeting her daughter jeanette for breakfast well to me it was a very special routine just talking over
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what had been going on and what was on her mind or my mind um it was a very special
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almost a friendship breakfast but this morning was different from the others jeanette didn't show up and she never
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called or left a message she's either ill or she's overslept because it's not like her not to make an
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appointment or to call and say i can't be there today jeanette's employer said she hadn't
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shown up for work and she wasn't at her home either her mother immediately notified police
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the 35 year old divorcee with no children wasn't known for leaving town without notifying friends and family
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as night fell the sky was dark with rain clouds and during the night there were severe
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thunderstorms the worst in years the night that her family realized she was missing and started searching for
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her there was a torrential downpour i knew in my heart that jeanette was somewhere in that storm and she needed
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help jeanette was an avid walker and she often explored the secluded trails of nearby riverbend park an undeveloped
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public space of more than 500 acres riverbend park is very large it's not what you would think of as a city park
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manicured and small in size it's a gorgeous part the huge trees with the canopy absorb all sound
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you could touch off a cannon in there and you wouldn't hear it the day after jeanette disappeared
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police found her car at the park a parking ticket indicated the car had been there since the day before
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a day-long search of the park turned up nothing the search continued into the night
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i remember praying dear god let her be all right i i knew that it was wrong something was
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definitely wrong jeanette was too close to this family she would never let us worry
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when dawn broke the next day police found jeanette's body in an isolated ravine
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just a half mile from her car there were clear signs of a struggle clothing was strewn about the area
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jeanette's broken headphones from her tape player were found yards away from
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her body from the physical evidence at the scene the struggle took place on the walking
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trail itself however the body was dragged to a lower area by the drag marks left in the plant material and the
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dirt but investigators found something unusual at the scene jeanette's hands were bound behind her
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back with a plastic tie consumers used ties like this for binding electric cables
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but police recognize these as the same type of ties they use called flex cuffs police cuffs seen here on the left have
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a metal tab inserted into the plastic head consumer ties seen on the right have plastic tabs
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that metal tab acts as like a ratcheting device and that's what makes flex cuffs
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different from normal household ties it's not something that you can readily
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go and buy at home depot or anywhere else investigators now had a potential pool
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of suspects fellow police officers was the unthinkable possible that one of their own had killed
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jeanette kirby [Music] the rain that fell the night of jeanette kirby's murder made things difficult for
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investigators [Music] rain is probably one of the worst enemies when you have a body found
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exposed to the elements because it will destroy a lot of the evidence [Music] police could find no footprints to or
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from the scene there were no tire or bicycle impressions in the area at the autopsy the medical examiner
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found no signs of sexual assault the cause of death was three knife wounds in her chest
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in a search for suspects investigators routinely question relatives and friends jeanette's ex-husband was in florida at
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the time of the murder so he wasn't a suspect investigators discovered that jeanette
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dated casually but none of the men she dated had a motive to kill her it appeared her murder was a random
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killing the hardest type to solve we don't have an eyewitness we don't have a murder weapon we have no dna
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evidence but the way jeanette's clothing had been cut gave investigators a clue
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there's this drive here this seeking of sexual stimulation and rather than just
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obtaining that through contact with the victim in this case it had to be obtained through a particular set of
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behaviors involving the victim's clothing her jersey had been cut up the middle
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and her sweatpants had been sliced apart in squares a methodical time-consuming process
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you start to get a picture of a person a very evil person who is very angry specifically with women
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and is most likely a predator of women you know i can't i can hardly handle it
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now thinking of what that person what that dear lovable jenna went through and then he just tossed her aside
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away from the path where he killed her the only thing the killer left at the crime scene
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were the flex cuffs they were the same brand used by the local police but the tennessee-based company that
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made the cuffs had some very bad news virtually every police force in the country used these same flex cuffs there
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were hundreds of thousands of them in existence all of them identical at the crime scene
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no one saw a policeman in or near riverbend park around the time of the murder even policemen who are in the general
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vicinity of the park were questioned i know several police officers were investigated
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as a result of this homicide they run down all the leads that they get but essentially they run up against a
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brick wall because nothing gets them any farther in the investigation they still have a pair of
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flex cuffs a full year passed then two by the fourth anniversary of jeanette's
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murder local police had no new evidence or leads to pursue they kept saying without evidence
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we're not sure we're going to be able to solve this case it was four years after the murder that
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an incident in leland a tourist town 200 miles away offered new hope a woman there told
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police that a truck with police style lights signaled her to pull over on a deserted country road
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the man from the truck approached her wearing a police hat but no uniform he ordered her out of her car and into
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his truck she resisted there was a struggle he pulled his gun and fired a shot in the air
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just then another car drove by the man panicked and fled when the investigators assigned to
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jeanette kirby's murder heard this news they took particular notice a man impersonating a police officer in
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an attempt to abduct a woman in a deserted area sounded all too familiar police questioned everyone they could
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find looking for the owner of an unmarked pickup truck with a police style light bar on the roof
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the gas station attendant remembered that vehicle and called the police to say he'd come and got gas there
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not only that but the gas station attendant remembered that the man had used a credit card to pay for the gas
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his name was david drahin he was a 33 year old factory worker a volunteer fireman and an ex-marine with
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no previous record he had been vacationing at his parents cabin in glen haven but he lived in
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ingham county in the same town as jeanette kirby [Music] when questioned by police
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draeheim denied he was involved in the attempted kidnapping although the victim identified him in a police lineup
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on the front seat of his truck police found a hat from the ingham county sheriff's department
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the same county where jeanette kirby was murdered so they call the ingham county sheriff's
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office and they say do you know this person is he one of your deputies is he someone that you're
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aware of is he connected to you in any way he was someone that we knew on a regular
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basis trusted him knew him believed him to be a local good guy drayheim worked at a wastewater
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treatment plan just a mile from where jeanette kirby was killed inside draeheim's truck were two other
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suspicious items a knife and a package of plastic ties similar to police style flex cuffs
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the suspect has in his possession a type of ties that could be characterized as flex cuffs although
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they're slightly different than the police flex cuffs but he has these plastic
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fasteners in his possession draeheim denied any involvement in jeanette's murder they didn't have the
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magic bullet they didn't have the tie between him and the flex cuffs they knew that he was found in
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possession of something that looked like or were called flex cuffs up north but they didn't know where he got him
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there was no evidence tying him to jeanette's murder but david drayheim was convicted for the
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attempted kidnapping charge and sentenced to 40 years in prison once again jeannette's case went cold
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jeanette's family had remained patient but in 1998 12 years after jeanette's
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murder her mother could take no more she was disillusioned and angry that her husband died before they could get
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justice janet was his baby you know that was his girl and how could anyone touch her
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or hurt her he was very angry and he kept that anger until he died and his wishes so many times were if i
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could only get hold of him i know what i would do in desperation mrs kirby contacted the
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state's highest-ranking law enforcement official and i finally went to jennifer granholm
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the attorney general and asked her for help told my story she said i'm going to send two criminal
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investigators on the case and those investigators found something that had been overlooked
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when david drayheim was arrested on the kidnapping charge the local police in draeheim's hometown
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failed to interview all of his friends for some reason a major character was overlooked and that was david drahan's
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best friend at the time of the murder he had never been interviewed that man was mark grieco
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and he told police an interesting story a few years before jeanette kirby's murder dray heim and grieco shared a
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house and both worked together as security guards at the time grieco owned a used police
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car which grieco pictured here with the car in 1984 was refurbishing it's actually physically inside the
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trunk trying to run the wires up through the dash and that's when i found the plastic bag
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stuck in between the inner and outer fender well of the car it turned out to be the bag of flex
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house these were police issue flex cuffs that had been overlooked when the car was
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sold grieco said he kept one for himself and gave the rest to draeheim i gave him flex cuffs
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you know i know i gave him some flex cuffs way back in you know 80 something when i bought this
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car and grieco had yet another story he said he put his flex cuff in the brim of his security guard hat
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it's a common practice in law enforcement police naturally asked rico whether he
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still had his security guard hat i'm kind of a pack rat sure i kept everything
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deep in his basement among dozens of boxes of clothing and souvenirs grieco found that very same hat he wore
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as a security guard 15 years earlier the odds of that happening are astronomical
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and the importance to the case cannot be overstated inside the brim just as he said
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was a set of police flex cuffs it was the same make and model used in jeanette kirby's murder
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but investigators wanted to find some way to tell whether these two sets of cuffs were
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scientifically related after years of searching for jeanette kirby's killer investigators finally had a break
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they discovered a police flex cuff similar to the one used in the murder to learn more about how these flex cuffs
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are made michigan investigators went to monterey mexico the only factory in the world that makes this brand of flex
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cuffs this is the video shot by those investigators since the cuffs were all made with the
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same plastic its chemical makeup provided no basis for comparison but the stainless steel tabs in the flex
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cuffs were another matter a carbide saw cuts the tabs from large spools of steel
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the cut marks at the end of each tab are distinctive it is a very fast process and just is
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continually cutting for hours at a time well during that process the blade starts to wear a little bit
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and while it's wearing the the marks that it's leaving on the metal tabs are are changing
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the flex cuffs used in jeanette kirby's murder and the flex cuffs provided by
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mark grico were analyzed by scott marrier of the michigan state police using a soldering iron he carefully
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removed the tab from each cuff for comparison after all these years the case came down to some tiny slivers
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of stainless steel there was a time when i was looking at this metal tab thinking
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what this the entire case rests on the identification of these metal tabs using a comparison microscope
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mario placed each tab on a putty platform then compared the two side by side he was looking for signature marks made
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by the saw that cuffed the tabs marrier soon discovered that the marks were strikingly similar they ran down
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the length of each tab almost like both sides of a zipper [Music] quality of the identification was so
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good that it would not surprise me at all if these two metal tabs had been produced uh consecutively it was an
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absolutely perfect match so perfect that it took everyone's breath away now prosecutors and investigators had a
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piece of evidence that was a piece of scientific evidence that put david drayheim at the scene of the crime
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on june 12 2002 david drayheim went on trial for jeanette kirby's murder prosecutors believe
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drayheim left his job at the water treatment facility around 4 30 on the day of the murder and drove to river
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bend park less than a mile away prosecutors say dray heim was a predator and when he saw jeanette kirby
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he was prepared he probably allowed her to jog or fast walk past the point where he was
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hiding and attacked her from behind immediately grabbed her hands behind her back
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and flexcuffed her now she was immobilized and isolated jeanette kirby was murdered and her
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clothes cut in meticulous detail jeanette kirby was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time
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there's no other link between the two of them that could have been me that could have
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been any woman i know and those moments that she spent before she died had to have been terrifying
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at the trial a surprise witness came forward saying that drayheim had flex cuffed her years
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earlier he brought my other arm behind me and i was tied you know i was strapped you know
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it was just strapped i couldn't go anywhere and it was dre heim's wife who provided
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the most unusual bit of testimony she told jurors he routinely jogged with a small packet of flex cuffs in a bag he
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wore around his waist why on earth would he need that equipment with him when he went out on a
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daily jog the only reason was either it was there because it was part of the daily fantasy
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that he carried with him in his head or it was there because he was hoping if some opportunity came up it would be
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there when he needed it david drayheim was found guilty of jeanette kirby's murder and was
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sentenced to 60 years in prison in addition to the 40 years he was already serving
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forensic science solved the case which might have gone unsolved had it not been for the persistence of jeanette kirby's
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mother and the man who never threw anything away the science doesn't age the tool marks
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that are left on those metal tabs will be there forever they'll never change
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thankfully forensic science did solve it for us and we could we can rest we can rest in peace knowing that her
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case has been solved because of forensic science [Music] [Music] [Music] you