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[Music] up next a predator terrorizes a texas town i said i have family i have a son just
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please don't rape me he started to choke me i couldn't breathe i was just gasping
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for air until he finally stopped no one knew what he'd do next we had a huge problem
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that this guy wasn't going to stop when police find him the dna evidence exonerates him he was
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smart enough to outwit the investigators i knew he he was just evil and i never knew that there was evil
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people on this earth like that [Music] it was 9 p.m in texas city texas and 19 year old stevie green was waiting
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for a friend to drive her home from work but the friend never showed up i'm in
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a ticked off mood because he left me hanging christmas was coming around the corner
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i've thought about taking a taxi but then i was like no i want to save the money so
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we can have a better christmas so stevie decided to walk home which was about a mile away
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suddenly she heard someone running up behind her the footsteps just stopped the knife was
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in my back i didn't want to die i was willing to do anything that this man was gonna ask me to do he
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said he'd stab her if she didn't take off her clothes as he raped me i just kept thinking in my head
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saying the lord's prayer the more i said it the more angry he got afterwards still holding the
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knife he told her to get up they told me to turn around and have my back to him and when i stood
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up something in me just told me to run and i grabbed my shoe and i booked into the middle of the street
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screaming at the top of my lungs stevie was traumatized in shock but lucky to be alive
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it was very difficult for stevie to look at him and get a good description other
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than some general build general height and things of that nature the whole time he kept telling me don't
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look at my face don't look at my face stevie described her assailant as an african-american wearing a hooded
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sweatshirt that concealed his face but nothing more it was somewhat shocking that it did
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happen at 9 15 at night walking home on a street that i've walked my kids have walked
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and i would trust them to this day to walk down that street no clues to the rapist identity were
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left at the scene however a rape test kit produced his dna profile unfortunately that dna profile did not
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match any of the dna profiles in the statewide database of known criminal offenders
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police checked files for known sexual offenders living near the crime scene one stood
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out kenneth ray johnson had just moved to texas city after serving 25 years for rape he was really a good
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suspect because he was new to the area he didn't want to cooperate at first but
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then he did he had several alibis if i'm not mistaken johnson denied any involvement
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since he was on parole he was wearing an ankle bracelet that tracked his movement
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using gps technology it showed johnson was at home at the time of the rape and his dna did not match the dna of the
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rapist he was not in the location on the date where stevie green was sexually assaulted
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i never questioned that he would be found i knew that he was going to pay for what he did one way or another
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but would he be caught before he could strike again with no one in custody for stevie
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green's rape investigators feared he would strike again as the investigation went into the fifth
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week and we heard nothing more about any suspects being arrested or charged or identified
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it became an idea that maybe this was going to be an unsolved crime then five weeks later fifteen-year-old
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vanessa rocha and her sixteen-year-old boyfriend were in a secluded area of goddard park in downtown texas city
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we went out there on many occasions and never had anything to worry about a man walked rapidly toward the young
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couple we looked up and we saw a man standing there with a devil mask on with a gun
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he told my boyfriend to turn not to look at him the man held a gun to vanessa's
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boyfriend and ordered her to undress he was calling me every name in the book cussing me out
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calling me a [ __ ] you know a [ __ ] just whatever i was making him mad because i
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kept opening my eyes at one point he started to choke me i couldn't breathe i was just gasping for
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air until he finally stopped after the sexual assault he told vanessa's boyfriend
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to remove all of his clothes i was terrified i really thought he was going to kill us
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i don't even know how to explain it you can't explain something like that
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he demanded the keys to the couple's car then made his getaway and he told us not to
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get up until we heard him start the car unfortunately because of the mask neither of the teenagers was able to
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provide a detailed description he was covered up from head to toe what caught my attention was his mask that he
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was wearing it was the devil when we're teenagers we don't think anything's gonna happen to
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us until it happens the assault was similar to the stevie green case except vanessa roach's case was more brazen
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i have never read about or talked to anyone that had worked a case where two people were abducted and
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totally controlled stripped down in front of each other with a girl being sexually assaulted
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it very seldom do you have an attack take place with a witness present attackers in most sexual assaults don't
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want any other witnesses a rape test kit collected biological evidence and the result showed it was the same
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perpetrator in both cases the next morning investigators found the teenager's car
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just a few blocks from where vanessa was assaulted we realized he didn't keep the car long
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and at that point we really started focusing in that he did live in that area and
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that was his area of comfort where he was acting from just to give him an easy route to get
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home wherever that was unfortunately police found no foreign fingerprints or other trace evidence
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inside the car the very next night two women were walking home from a nightclub around 2
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a.m when they were approached by a masked man brandishing a pistol they were both abducted at gunpoint he
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took them to a secluded area behind the school in like a little cul-de-sac one suspect taking
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two into control and totally humiliating one in front of the other he sexually assaulted one of the women
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but not the other again a brutal sexual assault took place very brazen very cocky in the presence
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of the witness who was there again a very angry very demeaning a very control freak
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type of activity that took place both women described a young black male all they could see was his eyes and
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mouth but they noticed something distinctive the assailant had a gold front tooth police
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finally had something besides his dna profile that might identify him in the oil refinery town of texas city
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texas three rapes within five weeks of each other had some striking similarities
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the rapist used masks or clothing to cover his face it appeared he didn't know
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any of his victims before he attacked them his rapes all happened within a radius
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of two miles and most alarming the crime showed an unmistakable arrogance it indicates a very
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strong-willed angry cocky arrogant individual who wants to play games with the police
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thinks he's better than the system and can beat the system and it's a it's a game for him
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a dna test was conducted on rape kits from every similar crime i was able to look
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at these three cases and say yes this was the same person that was in the sperm fraction of all these extractions
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police had a serial rapist on their hands and worried about what he would do next
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we were all concerned about the escalation of these offenses oftentimes a serial rapist will turn
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into a serial killer or injure their victims much more severely than he was injuring his
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victims so we were very concerned about it the only clue to the rapist identity was a description by a witness that he
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had a gold front tooth investigators scoured files for people in the area who fit
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this description and one did chad price a 29 year old construction worker chad price was a father married seemed
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to be actively participating with his wife and children in different things in the community
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he had developed a reputation in the community of being just that bold taunting in your face catch me if you
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can type a guy price had never been arrested but had been a suspect in a series of robberies
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a year earlier the robberies were unique because the perpetrator would call reporters to
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brag about his crimes sometimes he would call and say he was going to rob a building
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and sometimes he would call and threaten the lives of the reporters during one particular attack actually
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called the police department and started telling them that he was watching them actually investigate the crime the
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audacity of the robberies mirrored the audacity of the rapes police brought chad in for questioning
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we didn't felt we had enough to get a search warrant for his dna for his blood and that he understood
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that name there was nothing concrete to connect him to any of the sexual assaults and he basically denied
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everything price also refused to provide his dna detective getchas wanted to get price's
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dna legally without him knowing it i have learned from tv shows like forensic files that
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you can't obtain a dna sample from a coke can or cigarette butt and it's lawfully
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obtained during chad price's interrogation detective getchas offered him a can
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of soda we got through with the interview chad he had not finished the mountain dew i had an empty trash liner
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in the trash can new and he was going to throw it out i said no don't spill it don't get it
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all over there leak out investigators knew they had to drain the soda by making a hole
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in the bottom of the can that's probably the best thing to do is to go ahead and
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drain the can so that there's no chance that anything that spills out of that can
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could possibly affect that dna that's on the mouth of the can then dna testing could begin
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the very next day before the dna results were in there was another rape 10 miles away
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a 17 year old girl and her 22 year old boyfriend were parked at the dickinson bio boat ramp when they
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encountered trouble two people were present girlfriend and a boyfriend and out of nowhere came the assailant
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opened the door produced a gun had him removed from the pickup truck and then the terror began
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the man sexually assaulted the girl at gunpoint while her boyfriend stood by helplessly
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he picked the perfect people just a couple young kids out there uh making out in a desolate area
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investigators were convinced this was the work of chad price at the dna lab christie wimsat swabbed
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the opening of the mountain dew can with a sterile swab i'm looking for a transfer of saliva or
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skin cells from the mouth onto the opening of the can a dna profile was produced
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and it matched the dna from all of the rape cases i called texas city police department to let them know that
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this was the guy the guy that drank out of this can was the guy that was committing these rapes in that area
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on september 12 2000 chad price was arrested and charged with the crimes they cut a
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search warrant for a storage shed where price had items they found a duffel bag and in the
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duffel bag they found some tremendous evidence that supported all the other evidence in the case
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including the dna everything from ski masks to the halloween mask of a devil to a gun when i learned that the dna
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test came back that it was him i was excited i was just i was happy i i couldn't wait to come to court to
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testify despite the evidence price continued to deny any involvement and he insisted that the
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dna test on the soda can was falsified he told me that he was not the rapist that the mountain dew can never touched
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his lips so therefore they the police did not have his dna and that he was going to be required to take
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another blood sample and that when the results of that blood sample were made available it would show
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that it was his dna was not at any of the crime scenes in a shocking development chad price
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turned out to be right when price was arrested a sample of his blood was collected and
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sent to an independent lab for dna testing this time his dna did not match the biological evidence from the victims
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i was in disbelief i couldn't believe that we had the wrong person and that all the testing we had done had
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been wrong and i wanted to if it wasn't him let's get him out of jail no matter what i thought of him but what
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went wrong investigators were determined to find out a dna test conducted by texas law
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enforcement indicated chad price was the serial rapist terrorizing texas city texas but his defense
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attorney insisted on an independent dna test and when a private lab performed their
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test it showed chad price wasn't the rapist i was mortified i was immediately short of breath just trying
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to remember what i had done in the case trying to figure out you know what did i do what was switch
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what was different prosecutors couldn't believe they had the wrong man the blood sample for the independent lab
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had been drawn from price while he was in custody at the galveston county jail a
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technician went into the prison checked his identification took his blood then wrote the inmate's name on the vial
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containing his blood when samples are taken there is a fingerprint that goes with
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the vial of the sample of blood the individual who gave this blood obviously put their fingerprint on this
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file so prison officials compared the print on chad price's blood vial to chad
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price's fingerprint the expert said that's not chad price's fingerprint on the vial
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great the next step whose fingerprint is it the unknown print was run through aphis or the automated
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fingerprint identification system and there was a hit the print belonged to 36 year old
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derrick perry derek perry was another inmate being detained or held in the galveston county jail on unrelated
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charges he was also a not a cell mate but he was in the same pod as chad price and in each pod there must be 50 or 60
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inmates two jailhouse informants told prison officials how chad price switched the dna sandals
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they admitted to me that they witnessed and have personal knowledge of the conspiracy between
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chad price and derek perry to switch armbands for the blood sample chad price had a mindset of someone who really
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believed he was smarter than everyone else he had a real sense of power he had a
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sense that he could control situations i don't know where that comes from the
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medical staff does not look at faces they don't know chad price from derrick perry
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they call the name chad price instead of chad price standing up and walking forward to get blood
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it was derek perry who came forward another dna test confirmed what investigators had
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long suspected the dna from their rape cases was from chad price he was just as brazen in the rapes as he was in
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his attempt to get away with them i think chad price believes he can beat anything the system will give him
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and that that he is smarter than we are and and just anything is the limit for him
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you actually had a criminal who thought he was smart enough to outwit the investigators and play this game
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with his own dna on may 24 2001 a jury took just two hours to find chad price guilty of aggravated rape
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kidnapping and robbery for the attack on stevie green he was indicted on the other rapes and
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the jury was informed of his involvement during the penalty phase they sentenced price
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to life in prison plus 60 years he got a life sentence and i found that to be surprising
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because i really i really thought he would he might get the death penalty i was just
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ecstatic uh knowing that he was going to be there just for life i mean there's no that i can't
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even explain the way i felt you know just i don't have to see this man i have to
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worry about this man ever coming for me i'd love for him to admit it that was
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the only thing out of the whole trial that i think that's why i felt so robbed
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was because i wanted him to admit it i wanted him to say yes i did this derek perry
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who was due to be released from prison the day after he switched wristbands with price
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was charged with fabricating evidence and got an additional five years in prison
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the galveston county jail has since changed its procedures for drawing blood but the lesson for
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investigators and for chad price was that criminals may lie but forensic technology doesn't
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without that mountain dew can to link him to these sexual assault cases they might not have ever been able to
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get a warrant to get the actual known sample to compare to the sexual assault case so
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i would say the dna was was key in this case we take a lot of pride in putting a person like chad
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price behind bars it's nice to get someone who is that arrogant and that cocky and that brazen behind
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bars as quickly as possible chad price thinks he can beat whatever the system has to present
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technology is foolproof given the best circumstances we had those best [Music] circumstances