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when a person is cremated the heat usually destroys any evidence of foul play at least that was the theory until
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a scientist in texas found a way to test cremated remains and in so doing made forensic history
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[Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] san angelo texas known for its oil cotton fields and
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extremely hot weather it's great country there's a lot of rural area to it of course the biggest
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problem they have out there is you don't get a whole lot of rain olgie and lita nobles ran the town's air
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conditioning business and they had no shortage of customers perhaps it was the strain of both living
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and working together but the two didn't always see eye to eye it was that kind of different
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relationship where there was love involved but you couldn't tell it from the outside
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mr nobles had a real drinking problem and they argued like cats and dogs at the age of 70
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olgi died after a lengthy illness shortly after the funeral his wife lita checked herself into a hospital she
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hadn't been feeling well for weeks i just sick just vomiting over time just deathly sick at my stomach and i just
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get weaker and weaker and get to where i couldn't walk leeda blamed the stress of her husband's
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death for her illness but doctors found nothing wrong and released her within days the nausea and vomiting
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returned and lita developed another symptom numbness in her fingers and toes i woke up one night and i was so sick
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and i got up trying to get in the chair and of course my legs didn't hold me and
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i just went down the floor leta went to the hospital once again this time doctors performed a whole
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battery of tests and found the problem lita had been poisoned the level of arsenic in her system was
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three times higher than a lethal dose it made you wonder who in the world it could be that was doing it
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arsenic is a tasteless odorless element used in rat poison lita could think of only one person who
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could have done this her husband olgie they loved each other but it's one of those
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marriages that that stayed rocky all the time you know they just fought back and
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forth all the time and she did say that he's probably the one who did it was it possible that olgie poisoned his
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wife before he died i didn't think he had the nerve i really didn't think the man had the nerve to do
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a thing like that to find out scientists looked for evidence in her hair it turns out that hair and in some case
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toenails or fingernails are good indicators of body loads of certain elements in particular in the case of
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arsenic it's often used as hair where it's concentrated in the hair since hair grows approximately one half
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inch per month and lita's hair was three inches long this gave scientists a six-month timeline to see when lita was
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poisoned each half inch piece of hair was tested with neutron activation analysis
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neutron activation has some advantages and one is that it is considered to be non-destructive that is solid samples
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can be irradiated directly without having to dissolve the sample in any way the results were surprising
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lita ingested a massive dose of arsenic in the month before og died but she ingested a second large dose in the
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month after his death they were able to conclude that she had had a large dose of arsenic in the time
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frame since her husband had been dead and he couldn't have possibly administered it
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now investigators questioned whether og-2 had been poisoned [Music] tests on leda noble's hair indicated she
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ingested large doses of arsenic in the month before and month after her husband's death
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at one time arsenic was an ingredient in rat poison but it's no longer used for
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that purpose investigators looked in and around the noble's home for clues [Music]
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we took samples of the water we took samples from the septic tank system and we tested all different different things
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in the house to be sure that we could positively prove that they didn't get the poisoning from something that was in
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the house accidentally we did find arsenic in one item was an antacid the actual concentration
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in there was a sub-lethal but it certainly would be toxic with leta's permission
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investigators exhumed her husband's body five months after he died his autopsy revealed
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lethal doses of arsenic in all of his major organs olgie noble's death was now ruled a
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homicide my first thought is that there's somebody that's real close to the noble
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that needs them dead for some reason only two people had access to the food in the noble's home
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they had a son who was disabled who lived in the house who of course had to be a little suspect
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and it was telling too that the noble son showed no signs of arsenic poisoning the other person was the man who bought
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the noble's air conditioning business timothy scoggin but lita refused to believe either one
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was responsible she had an excellent relationship with her son and tim scoggin was like a member of the family
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i didn't know what to think because i just i just couldn't you know believe it
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lena noble and she'll look you right in high and tell you exactly what she thinks and that's what she did she
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looked us right now and told us tim scoggins wasn't doing that we were on the wrong track
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and that he'd never do that she trusted him completely tim scoggin was 33 years old single and
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had a close personal relationship with the nobles but a background check revealed an
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unusual past before buying the noble's business scoggin lived in llano texas about 130
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miles away while there he met two elderly sisters catherine and cordelia norton the last surviving members of an old
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texas family that made millions mining granite the two sisters never married and lived
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in a large mansion while running separate businesses seventy-five-year-old catherine was the
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younger of the two her nickname was gurley she was very frilly very ladylike catherine ran a flower shop and met tim
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scoggin while he was working for a local funeral home 83 year old cordelia was a beer
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distributor and a cattle rancher she was rough she had a man style haircut she wore
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khaki clothes and she could cuss better than any sailor you ever saw as scoggin got to know the sisters he
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spent increasing amounts of time doing their chores cooking for them he acted as their driver and helped them with
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their medications they were lonely they needed someone to talk to them they needed someone to care
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for them and that's what he did and they trusted him just like a son he was at their
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making call he would drive them anywhere take them to the doctors they would often go to university of texas football
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games not surprisingly the sisters appreciated scoggins help and apparently led him to
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believe his generosity would be rewarded he knew the ladies had a lot of money and he was going to befriend them and
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he said that catherine and cordelia had told him that they were going to remembering in the will so he was really
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thinking he was going to make a lot of money he bragged that he was wealthy or that he was going to be an heir or
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already was an heir of a wealthy family that and i believe he said he was related to
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the norton sisters rather than just a friend then all of a sudden the two sisters died within a day of one
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another the doctor signed off and said death heart attack old age and no one really
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knew anything about it or thought a whole lot about it they were buried everyone went about their business
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[Music] the sisters estate was estimated to be approximately 5 million when investigators learned that olgi
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nobles had been poisoned the deaths of the norton sisters appeared suspicious right away i thought well we need to
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exhume the bodies of the norton girl but they hit a dead end both norton sisters had been cremated
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so i was afraid we'd lost everything if tim scoggin killed the norton sisters
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for their money and murdered olgi nobles too he had committed the perfect crime three times
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you can't be around uh three deaths and one near death under very similar circumstances and just say
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it's a coincidence but without forensic evidence there was no way to prove it
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when investigators looked at tim scoggin they had to wonder did he simply have bad luck or was he a cold-blooded serial
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killer [Music] within a 12-month period scoggin's two closest friends lita and olgi nobles
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were both poisoned with arsenic and his friends catherine and cordelia norton also died suspicious deaths
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within a day of one another he was the last person along with cordelia and he was the last person
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alone with catherine he wanted money he wanted reaches and he liked the lavish lifestyle of particularly the norton i
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mean the norton's traveled all over the world they had friends from all over the
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world come visit them and he was included in that circle if scoggin poisoned the norton sisters
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no one could prove it they had both been cremated all that remained were their ashes
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he believed he could burn up the evidence and he'd be safe in the average cremation
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the body is subjected to temperatures of more than two thousand degrees fahrenheit for up to three hours
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virtually nothing remains it takes a lot of temperature to reduce a body to nothing but a little
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pile of ashes investigators called laboratories and universities around the country but no
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one knew of any way to test cremated remains for forensic evidence i knew we had to try and course when we
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went to the laboratory our lab people were pretty negative that we didn't have
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anything and they kind of had the same idea it had been burned up but rod mccutchen a toxicologist at the
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texas department of public safety crime lab was willing to try so i started thinking about the
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possibility of detecting arsenic in a cremated remain sample and decided it might be possible there were
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a lot of things to consider mccutchen knew that arsenic is actually a metal and some metal survive fire and
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intense heat you may change its form from a solid to a gas but you aren't going to destroy the arsenic itself
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so he took the sister's ashes and added an acid solution to dissolve all of the
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organic material what was left was primarily sulfuric acid in a process called colorimetric testing
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he added hydrochloric acid and zinc to the mix as it bubbles through this device
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the arsenic will react and form if it's present a purplish violet color the more arsenic present the
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stronger the more purple the color is mccutchen's chemical cocktail made forensic history
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the solution turned a deep purple conclusive proof of the presence of arsenic theoretically it could be done but when
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it happened that was that was a surprise i was elated when i found the results to
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tell you the truth i couldn't i couldn't believe it the depth of color in the reaction
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showed that cordelia norton ingested a massive amount of arsenic the test results on catherine's ashes
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were inconclusive nevertheless their deaths were ruled homicides and it appeared the sisters got the last laugh
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they died before changing their will when they read the will he found he got nothing
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that they said he was very distraught very angry when he left tim scoggin was the prime suspect in the
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murders of cordelia and catherine norton olgi nobles and the attempted murder of
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lita nobles mr scoggin had no criminal record he certainly didn't appear like any kind of
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tv crook in fact he was the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing he appeared to
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be completely non-threatening and and a loving friend to all his victims investigators found arsenic in some
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antacids in lita's home but couldn't find out where it came from until the owner of a local supermarket
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called to offer some information he said when he saw scoggins picture in the newspaper he remembered selling him
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a large amount of rat poison he even remembered the brand cowley's original rat and mouse poison
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he remembered mr scoggins coming in looking for some sort of poison to kill varmints of some kind i think he didn't
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buy it that day but he came back several days later and bought more than one bottle i don't recall how many
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forensic document examiners analyzed the cremation request orders signed by the norton sisters and the thirty thousand
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dollar check the sisters made out to scoggin shortly before their death they concluded the documents were
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forgeries it was written during the time of the death which baited even more suspicious because the
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ladies were extremely ill at this time and they wasn't in the stage of just giving away thirty thousand dollars
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because they were deathly ill prosecutors believe that scoggin set his sights on the norton sisters almost from
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the minute he met them the norton sisters likes gagan and he would often eat meals and stay overnight
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in their hillside mansion prosecutors think scoggin poisoned them after he learned the sisters plan to
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include him in their will as a mortician scoggin had access to the necessary paperwork to forge the sisters
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names on cremation papers [Music] but in a forensic first scientists found a huge amount of
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arsenic in the ashes when scoggin learned the sisters had left him out of their will he was angry
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but undeterred for his troubles scoggin forged a check on the sister's account for 30 000
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discovered later by forensic experts scoggin then moved 130 miles away to san angelo where he met the nobles
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they lent scoggins the money to buy their air conditioning business he was to repay them in monthly installments
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[Music] prosecutors believe he poisoned the couple so he could avoid making those payments
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olgi nobles died from the poison but 69 year old lita built up resistance to it this lady was so tough her inner
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strength was so strong her will to live was so strong and her body was able to absorb this and build up a tolerance to
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it but probably if you had 10 people out there you know nine of those 10 would probably die from
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it had lita died police would never have questioned the cause of her death or her husband's
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so they would never have made the connection to the norton sisters the big mistake he did he didn't finish
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out leeda or he would have got away scott clean and never nobody would ever know the difference
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tim scoggin was arrested and charged with murder and intent to commit murder he's a very effeminate kind of a man in
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fact when he talked on the phone people thought he was a woman and he passed himself off as secretary sometimes and
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called himself kim by his voice you couldn't tell the difference [Music] he had to be a cold
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calculating individual i've talked to a lot of serial killers but this guy here
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was the cold bloodiest most ruthless killer that i dealt with scoggin was convicted and sentenced to
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two life sentences people kill for money at the root of all evil it really is that is absolutely true
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that's all he done it for was money lita nobles still suffers from the poisoning
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to this day she has trouble walking yes i get angry sometimes i get to thinking about it and it's the first i
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couldn't talk about it it just i just don't cry i just couldn't talk about it
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now scientists all over the world can test cremated remains for various substances thanks to the hard work and
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dedication of the scientists involved in this case people sit around trying to think of the
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perfect crime and one could say that he nearly did commit for nearly perfect crimes and
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there were just a few mistakes i'm not a chemistry major but i just felt like i hate to i hate to
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lose and i hate to see someone get away with a crime and so it just happened to work out and i was very
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blessed that it did even though that in this case the perpetrator had gone out of his way to try to destroy the
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evidence the evidence was persistent and it was still there even after cremation
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[Music] [Music] [Music] you