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[Music] in 1992 there were more than 75 suspicious fires set in seattle washington during a
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six-month period of time all appeared deliberately set it was the biggest arson case in
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american history solved with behavioral profiling hypnosis and a piece of art [Music]
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on the night of august 9 1992 firefighters outside seattle washington faced a disaster
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three churches were engulfed in flames at the same time just a few miles from one another
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when we arrived the fire was probably at its peak the flames were shooting above the
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sanctuary which was a very large sanctuary you know i would guess you know it must have been
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[Music] three stories high the next morning parishioners of trinity lutheran arrived
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to find their church in ruins reverend rouse made an unusual decision he would conduct services anyway
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the parking lot was turned into a makeshift church and in the midst of smoking embers
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the congregation held their sunday service as i looked in the faces of many of my
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parishioners you could see the the sorrow the disbelief many were crying tears of of sorrow my staff
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were crying and holding each other they thought this can't be true arson dogs were brought in to look for
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traces of flammable liquids but they found none and chemical tests of the rubble
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couldn't find accelerants either there was really very little trace evidence for us to recover at the seeds
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there was no vandalism at the fire scenes so the motive appeared to be thrill seeking
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and all of the fire started the same way on the ground floor at chest level over the next several weeks there were
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eight church fires six were lutheran churches eventually the arsons moved on to businesses and
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homes in one night alone there were 12 different arson fires all of the fires were set at night
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without the use of accelerants i watched people burned in the middle of the night out of
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their homes losing all their possessions standing literally their night clothes with nothing but their life
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left with their children sobbing we heard stories about people jumping out of windows or being lowered out of
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windows a lot of stories about just devastating financial impacts one victim was inside her home when the
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fire started i was just getting out of the tub when i started to hear strange crashing
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noises outside my house like glass breaking i opened the bathroom and there was the
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front door and i just the wall to the left was entirely in flames it was up in flames
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she grabbed her roommate and ran frantically to the front of the house we opened the front door and the entire
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front porch is up in flames so our access to get out was denied and that was absolutely terrifying that was when
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you make a split second decisions am i going to live i've got to move the two made it out the back door and
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were lucky to be alive from august to january barely a night would go by without another family getting burned
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out of their home with each fire the arsonist was getting more daring he was becoming very emboldened
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and he would actually set a fire uh literally looking through the window at the family at dinner
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miraculously despite extensive damage no one had been killed no one until the arsonist made his next move
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in the fall of 1992 residents of seattle and the surrounding area were under siege
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a serial arsonist had set over 25 buyers targeting churches businesses and homes
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all of the fires were set at night in the same way by someone igniting buildings at chest level without the use
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of accelerants i called our arsonist a guerrilla fighter because he under generally cover
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of night would go out prowl around be unseen hit his target and be gone basically
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before his target becomes known to anybody as a fire he was very very quick he was extremely covert
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residents formed vigilante groups to protect their neighborhoods local fire companies mounted all night
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patrols but still the fires continued the arsonist appeared to be taunting fire investigators
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he would draw out the fire department we would have one fire and one part of town and then he would
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go a fire station would be nearby and he would set another fire on the other side
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so he knew where the fire departments were a task force was formed to coordinate
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the investigation they commissioned a psychological profile of their suspect by interviewing past arsonists and
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identifying the traits they all have in common psychologists gain important information
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about the type of individual who commits these crimes the profile described the arsonist as
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white in his late teens to early twenties with an alcohol and or drug problem he was intelligent but an
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underachiever who had probably just experienced some major trauma in his life he would probably be working as a
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salesman or delivery person since he seemed familiar with many sections of the area
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the arsonist left no clues but two months into the fire spree when he started fire number 28
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he got careless [Music] investigators found two fingerprints near the window where the blaze was set
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the prints were run through a computer and checked against hundreds of thousands of prints on file
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there was no match which meant it was likely the arsonist had no prior criminal record
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two weeks later at fire number 42 he made another mistake urine was found in the snow near the
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fire forensic scientists carefully gathered the sample for dna testing but since the urine was mixed with snow
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it was difficult to isolate any cells for analysis forensically we were told that there
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were just so few uh cells in there that were capable of extraction that it was not feasible
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months went by and the fires continued the task force was no closer to identifying a suspect
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there was a concern that there were more occupied dwellings that were being targeted
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and i mean a large concern that we were going to start seeing people dying unfortunately
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just after midnight on september 22nd 1992 those fears were realized a fire broke out at a senior citizen
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home that housed more than 400 people three women all residents of the home died
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i felt personally responsible for their deaths whether it was true or not the guilt of that the misplaced skill of
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that was so severe that shortly afterwards i really lost all will to live now police were searching not only for an
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arsonist but a killer eventually the press coverage generated the first lead in the case
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a woman called police to say that a well-dressed man bumped into her near one of the fires this individual stood
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out to her fashion it was his clothing the mannerisms some odors that she detected both
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alcohol and an aftershave or cologne she said the man was intoxicated and had mentioned the fires
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she got a glimpse of his license plate number but didn't write it down the incident happened weeks earlier
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and she had only a vague recollection of what the man looked like in their desperation
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investigators made an unusual decision they decided to try forensic hypnosis [Music]
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after 60 suspicious fires had been set in seattle washington investigators finally had a lead
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a woman near one of the fires had seen a suspicious looking man who had bumped into her he was intoxicated and talked
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about the fires but this had happened weeks before and she couldn't remember much about him
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so investigators decided to try forensic hypnosis we're trying to find that specific
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unique event uh in her memory that can kind of trigger the rest of the memories to flood out
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so it's a relaxation technique we go back in time with her to this this point
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in time and have her really kind of like watch a movie for us and tell her what she sees
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this was one of the first times in u.s history that forensic hypnosis was used in a high-profile case and it was risky
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once a witness is hypnotized most state laws prohibit an individual from testifying at a trial
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as the witness keyed in on the alcohol she smelled on the man's breath it unlocked images from the night of the
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fire and she began to remember what she saw she recalled a man tall thin with hair pushed back off his face
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well dressed wearing an oxford shirt he appeared intoxicated and his car a sedan possibly blew
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was unusually clean when asked if she could remember the license plate number she recalled the
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first letter i see the letter okay she was asked if she could recall anything else she said she saw a four
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and an m that was all she could remember she was very receptive a great candidate
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actually i believe that she probably had a photographic memory after talking with
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her after the interview she has the ability for some some recall that most people do not
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have and i was probably unique of all the the interviews i've done there were 500 000 sedan cars in
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northern washington that had license plates with the letter k so investigators believed that the
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physical description of the suspect provided by their witness was the key piece of information
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to put this on paper they brought in composite artist john hines he interviewed the witness who was once
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again hypnotized she's the only witness i've ever done a composite drawing of who's
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been under hypnosis and that was kind of an unusual circumstance [Music] heinz asked her to divide the man's face
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into sections and try to recall specific details of his appearance composite artists categorize the human
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face by features there are for instance nine different eye shapes five different head shapes
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and so on each feature described by the witness is marked on a fact sheet an fbi facial identification catalog is
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also used to jog the memory it contains thousands of pictures of facial features
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all visual cues for the witness they're taking a visual image verbally telling me what that image is and i'm
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having to take that verbal description and turn it back into a visual image and that's difficult
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using the information from the interview heinz drew what the witness described the process is an unusual combination of
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interviewing skill and drawing talent each feature was put on paper with painstaking attention to every
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detail the witness remembered after two hours of meticulous work an image was formed
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perhaps this was the first look at the arsonist when the drawing was finished pine showed it to the witness
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she said that it looked just like the neatly dressed man she'd seen months into the fire spree the task
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force released their composite drawing to the press they also released two others as a
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control to help guard against false leads the psychological profile was also given
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to the press it wasn't long before the hypnotically enhanced composite drawing
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paid off the day that the composites appeared in the herald i just became physically ill
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[Music] when the composite drawings and psychological profile of the arsonist were released to the media this man
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george keller believed he knew the identity of the arsonist he immediately went home
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and looked through his cell phone records and discovered that one of his business
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phones was used on the dates of the fires from locations near the fires and his business credit card receipt
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showed that one of his cards was used to purchase gasoline in areas near the fires on the same dates
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george keller faced a gut-wrenching choice the person using these company credit cards
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was his son paul who bore a striking resemblance to the hypnotically enhanced composite drawing
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i said there is a considerable resemblance between these pictures and my son paul then i went through the
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profile and because i was looking for a significant personality trait or something that
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might disqualify paul but as i went through all the items of the profile it i couldn't eliminate any paul keller was
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27 years old and employed in the family advertising business he was the oldest of three children in a
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deeply religious lutheran family which possibly explained why lutheran churches were targeted
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paul keller's sales routes took him all across the areas where the fires had
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been set he was certainly emotionally rattled very upset but as time went on we also understood
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for him or from him and from his wife that paul's presence in their family had been unsettling from almost the time
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paul was born his father told police that paul had an obsession with fire he said his son had applied for a
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firefighting job but had been rejected and that he had set a fire when he was nine years old
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he fit other aspects of the profile he was intelligent but had done poorly in school had problems with alcohol and
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most striking had suffered an emotional crisis just before the arson spree began
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he at that time was going through a divorce he was filing for bankruptcy his life was
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falling apart he was drinking heavily and the first three numbers of his license
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plate were exactly what the hypnotized witness remembered the task force put paul keller under
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surveillance for 10 days they followed him hoping they could catch him in the act
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the task force people were trying to keep him paul under surveillance which was real challenging
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and they would lose him periodically and everybody would panic eventually they decided to take him into custody hi
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all right detective isaac's from the everett police department yes yes yes it
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[Music] when keller arrived at task force headquarters his father was waiting for him
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george keller is a bear of a man and as he embraced him he put his mouth very close to his ear hugged him tightly and
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said it's over son it's all over i said it's all over and i said the light life as you knew it
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before this morning is over at first paul keller said he was innocent am i going to jail today or am i going to be
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released on my own since i've never got anything wrong 15 minutes into the interview
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the task force agents complimented him saying he was the best arsonist they'd ever
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seen [Music] and with that keller confessed to setting 75 fires including the fatal fire at the
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retirement home paul keller's fingerprints matched the ones found on the window at one of the
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arson fires his method of operation was surprisingly simple he just walked up to each site and
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started the fire with the cigarette lighter did you commit the service yes just blocked the stairs there was
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corrugated you can see where some of it's left yeah i'll do the same thing just
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that fast i pulled around and the door was just wide open there i was in that state of mind and i lit a chair and she
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just went that was the only one that i really ever stayed to watch of all it went real fast
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very fast it also went to multiple alarms very fast very fast keller also said he was sexually
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molested by a volunteer fireman when he was 12 years old paul keller was convicted of arson and
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murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison he won't be eligible for parole until he
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is 113 years old again a word to the victims all our life we will be sorrowful for your pain
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and your loss we shall never forget to pray for your healing restoration and peace
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may god in his help in his grace help all of us paul keller's arson spree was the biggest in us history
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it's very hard to rationally explain why i did that because there's no rational
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reason i was not angry at trinity i was not but i was very empty and perhaps i thought that others needed to be as
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empty as i was but it was not a valid thing to do and investigators say he may not have been caught
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if not for the forensic hypnosis and the composite drawing [Music] [Music] [Music]
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[Music] you