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[Music] up next this is a story of my life as a defenseless woman in the navy a naval officer alleges a cover-up and
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threatens to go public very soon i'll have enough evidence send to the media
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and then something will be done but before that can happen she's murdered some say by the man she
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named as her rapist and i start suspecting that something is miss that this may be all the setup
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can forensic science separate fact from fiction the videotape is startling it is scary
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she is foretelling her own death after a long stressful day working as an air traffic controller
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at one of the largest naval jet bases in the world elise mcdessey went to dinner with her
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husband at an italian restaurant in virginia beach virginia eddie mcdessey worked in the computer
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business he did a lot of contract work and some of it was for the us navy and that is when he met elise mcdessey
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sometime after 9 00 pm when the couple returned home from dinner someone was waiting for them
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[Music] when eddie regained consciousness his hands were bound behind his back he saw his wife tied to the bed and the
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man raping and stabbing her somehow eddie managed to free his hands grabbed the handgun he kept in the
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nightstand and shot the assailant then he called 911 but the intruder wasn't dead
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the assailant leaped up a bunch towards him with a knife and that he shot the individual again
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when paramedics arrived elise was barely alive her dress had been pulled up and her pantyhose had
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been ripped she had multiple stab wounds to the chest and her throat had been cut ear to ear
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she's trying to talk they absolutely believe she was trying to communicate and could never get their words out and
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before anybody could really give her any significant help she died on the way to hospital
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the assailant was identified by his driver's license as 37 year old quincy brown
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he was laying with his legs pinned underneath him laying on his back and he had three
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gunshot wounds to the chest brown was one of elise's co-workers at the oceana naval
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air base quincy brown military man worked at the same command where elise worked so it wasn't a random crime
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something happened to bring co-workers into the same room and neither one of them left alive
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elise's husband eddie was treated for his head injury and released as incredible as eddie's story seemed
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evidence at the scene appeared to support it the entranceway floor was littered with takeaway
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containers of leftover food from the restaurant electrical cords used to tie eddie's
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hands were on the bedroom floor underneath the intruder's right hand was the knife used in elise's murder and
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eddie gave police a videotape that elise made before her death it contained some
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shocking allegations against her superiors in the navy allegations that perhaps the navy
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didn't want to be made public [Music] elise and eddie mcdessey had been married for only five years at the time
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of elise's murder they lived in an apartment off the military base and had no children
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at least enjoyed being in the navy she was looking forward to her future as an air traffic controller
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tough job and especially for females and she would have been good at it if she had
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had more time quincy brown the man found shot to death in the mcdessie's bedroom
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had no history of violence once he had been in the navy for over 19 years he was married he had a
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child he did not have any kind of criminal background quincy brown worked with the
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lease at the naval air base everybody that we talked to that knew quincy brown that didn't go with his
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character at all it seemed to be completely conflict of his character but the facts were undeniable a rape
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test kit on elise mcdessey showed signs of sexual intercourse and the biological evidence
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matched quincy brown's dna a knife covered with elise's blood was found underneath brown's body
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but what drove brown to murder eddie mcdessey thought he knew why he said his wife made a videotape before
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her murder and he gave it to the authorities sexual harassment sexual assault and rape this is a story
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of my life as a defenseless woman in the navy the videotape elise mcdessey made is more perplexing to me than anything
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i've run into in 20 years of covering crime it is startling it is scary you see a woman who is speaking from the
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grave elise described a tale of horror she alleged sexual abuse covered up at the highest
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levels of the navy three weeks later i have to try my best to avoid his sexual embarrassment
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got raped in the women's bathroom and eagan threatened me and told me you can't prove anything
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keep your mouth shut or else you and your husband can't get hurt it's a confession of sorts like a dyer it's
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almost a video diary of all these terrible things happening to her i've made a list of names
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and placed it in a safe deposit box in my name only police used a court order to get elise's journal
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quincy brown had been named in her journal as one of those attackers police listed all five men who she
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claimed raped her while on duty at this point we knew we needed to get the naval criminal investigative service
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ncis involved because obviously now we had two of their members dead the ncis questioned the
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four other men elise accused in her journal they all denied the allegations she had accused
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four of the best guys i've ever known the best guys i've ever worked with
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family men really decent respectable guys nancy simpson was elise's friend as well
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as one of her supervisors i knew that it was a bunch of crap elise never told me
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that she had been sexually harassed at work if that had happened she certainly would have told me it
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would have never been covered up but eddie mcdessey was outraged to him the evidence was clear eddie believes
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that quincy brown went there to shut her up and to make her stop talking about what was going on in the
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base eddie's also said that quincy was part of a larger conspiracy involving higher navy forces to keep her
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quiet as proof eddie pointed out that elise had recently been demoted at the navy base eddie claims
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in retaliation for her sexual harassment claims eddie says they really slowed down her
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training reassigned her because of it he said that she was the victim not only of the harassers but
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of the same superiors that she'd confided in then investigators noticed small
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inconsistencies in eddie's story according to quincy brown's cell phone records he called the mcdessey's
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apartment at 9 36 on the night of the murders which was after eddie claimed they were
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assaulted at the door of their apartment the call lasted two minutes and 10 seconds out of the ordinary that
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somebody's gonna call and then come over and and rape someone and kill him the knife
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found under quincy brown's hand the one used to kill elise mcdessie didn't contain brown's fingerprints and
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the shirt didn't have elise's blood once he gets none of elise's blood on his body how in
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the world could he have done this and not had any of elise's blood on him and on the night before her murder elise
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magdesi bought the gun used to kill quincy brown in a sporting goods store in virginia
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then i start suspecting something is miss this may be all set up but who wanted both
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elise mcdesi and quincy brown dead and why in this video journal made shortly before her death
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elise magdesi claimed she had been raped and sexually assaulted by five co-workers at the oceana naval air
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base on the tape she claimed she reported these incidents to her superiors and had been ignored so she threatened
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to go public very soon i won't have enough evidence descend in the medium and then something
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will be done but the navy denied elise mcdessey ever filed one single claim let alone five
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i was her superior and my immediate superior was a very tough female tougher than me
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there was no word of this nothing was ever reported to any of us and either one of us would have
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acted immediately one of the men elise named in her journal was quincy brown the man found shot to
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death in her apartment elise's husband eddie claimed brown knocked him unconscious and murdered
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elise to stop her from going public with these allegations investigators weren't so sure
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to find the truth investigators started with the only hard evidence they had the crime scene we wanted fresh eyes
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somebody to really tell us something that we weren't able to see virginia beach police contacted ross
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gardner a nationally recognized crime scene analyst this was a very complex crime scene and
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it wasn't until we got a lot of the dna information back that we were able to
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make sense of it but certain aspects of the crime scene analysis certainly supported eddie's
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statement but then gardner looked more closely at the crime scene photos and noticed
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that they contradicted eddie's story the autopsy showed that the first shot penetrated quincy's heart
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this creates arterial spurts high pressure ejections of blood from the body and they are easily identified because
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the blood is ejecting out a stream it breaks up into larger masses and so what we see in an arterial spur are very
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large elliptical shaped stains eddy said when he saw his wife being attacked he grabbed a gun from the nightstand and
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shot quincy brown as he rushed towards him yet the blood spatter evidence and the
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crime scene photos showed that quincy brown was facing in the opposite direction there is no
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evidence whatsoever that suggests that quincy was ever standing when that wound was ejecting blood or
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that he was ever facing back towards the nightstand avoiding the arterial spurts on the carpet tell us
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that quincy was in this kneeling position at the time of the first shot and that his physical position never
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altered other than to lay back investigators now had a theory that eddie mcdessey was involved
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in an elaborate scheme first he convinced his wife to make the videotape and written journal
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accusing her five co-workers of rape and sexual assault their plan was to file a lawsuit against the navy
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eddie mcdessey told several people that this sexual harassment with his wife in the navy would be
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bigger than tail hook referring to another civil suit in which someone collected a lot of money from
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from the navy and elise was a willing participant in the scheme it was obvious that they had a plan
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in action it would appear that there may have been some partnership between eddie and elise as far as setting this
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thing up they planned to prove their case by luring one of the men she named in her
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journal quincy brown to their apartment to have unprotected sex with her and then claim
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it was yet another rape only this time they'd have dna evidence to prove it quincy did not force his way into that
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apartment he came there willingly he had sex with elise willingly investigators believe
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eddie planned to kill quincy after the sexual act was complete in order to silence him it's not clear
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whether elise was aware of this or not elise and eddie bought the gun in hampton virginia the night before
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this event occurred i don't know if elise had planned that quincy would die i don't know but why did eddie
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kill his wife eddie mcdessey had taken out a half a million dollar life insurance
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policy on his wife this was less than 30 days prior to the incident that's a lot of money to have in a life
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insurance policy for a sailor who has no family fortune is not earning but a low rate in the
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navy not making much money this plus an additional 200 thousand dollars from her navy life insurance
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was a significant payout the seven deadly sins greed is my favorite and this man loved his money and he was
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willing to sacrifice innocent people for seven hundred thousand dollars so he could live the good life and he
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could pin her murder on quincy brown he's a cold-blooded killer ironically elise helped plan organize
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and carry out her own murder the only thing that changed is elise was double-crossed and she was killed in the
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process as well eddie's plan was almost too perfect based on the forensic evidence
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prosecutors believe that eddie mcdessey was responsible for the murders of both his wife felice
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and quincy brown they believe this whole thing started as a sexual harassment scam
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against the navy elise magdesi made a videotape and written journal claiming that five men sexually assaulted and
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raped her while on duty at the naval air base where she worked despite her claims on the tape the navy
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says she never filed any charges against these men facial harassment sexual assault and
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rape but eddie and elise needed forensic evidence so they invited one of the men she named
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in her journal quincy brown over to their apartment for a sexual threesome elise would have claimed that quincy had
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raped her and therefore they would have been able to pursue their sexual harassment claim
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on the night of the crime there was no assault outside their apartment when they returned home from dinner
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quincy brown called their apartment at 9 36 most likely to confirm their date well
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we still want for tonight he said he'll be here in 15 minutes okay investigators believe eddie set the
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scene by tying elise to the bed to quincy brown it would appear to be a bondage fantasy for the evening
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to the police it would look like a violent assault when quincy arrived he had a condom in
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his pocket perhaps he was encouraged not to use it although no one really knows i'm just going to kick back
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after the sexual encounter eddie pulled his first double cross of the evening on quincy brown okay i think you're
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finished break into my house knocked me out you raped my wife they'd blame him for breaking into the apartment and
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raping a lease [Music] it's unclear whether elise knew if quincy would die but she obviously
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didn't know eddie would double cross her too eddie staged the scene to make it
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look like a break-in assault and the rape murder perpetrated by quincy brown and eddie collects 700 000 in life
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insurance and maybe he walks away with a sexual harassment case also he almost got away with it too but in
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the end he left too many clues it was obvious that eddie mcdessey was lying to me
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about what happened and how things had happened in in that bedroom he told us this happened
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this happened this happened and multiple claims by eddie mcdessey were refuted by the forensic evidence
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but when it came time to arrest eddie mcdessey he had fled to russia the problem we're having is that he's
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now a russian citizen and we don't have an extradition treaty so i can't get him out of russia
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for almost a decade eddie mcdessey was on the run reporter mike mather decided to track
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him down despite everyone telling him it was useless the state department at the time told me virginia beach police
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told me the embassy told me you're wasting your time he's never coming back here
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so i said let's go find out send him an email he agreed to meet with me blew to moscow apparently mike mather
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caught mcdessey at just the right time he clearly didn't like living in russia how can i
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say this they took my money they beat me up they put me in jail because they thought i was an american
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spy and here i was without american documents to prove that i'm an american mcdessey chose to return to the united
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states and face trial thinking that elise's video taped allegations would provide
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the reasonable doubt he needed for acquittal i want to do that because i know i can
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prove i'm innocent i know that what has happened to me and all this that happened to me
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the american people should know about fourteen years after the double homicide eddie mcdessey went on trial
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the forensic evidence was overwhelming we the jury find the defendant guilty of first degree murder of quincy b
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brown guilty of first-degree murder of elise and macdessey mcdessey was sentenced to two
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consecutive life terms ross explained very very well how the blood spatter evidence
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contradicted what that he said it wasn't he said she said it was he said and everyone
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else was dead it's never left me that eddie did that and i've never questioned that he was
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capable of it not even for a second without the forensic evidence without ross gardner
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and the blood spatter analysis of the crime scene to be able to disprove eddie's statement
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because all we had was eddie's statement and the crime scene and he had a good story