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[music] [music] [music] >> Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks
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listening. Thanks for telling a friend. This week I am very excited because we are featuring Unicrone by the amazing
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also a delicious double IPA that is clean, [music] citrusy, and has just the right amount of bitterness. ABV 9.1%
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garage grade four and a half bottle caps out of five. And let's give some cheers
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>> we like [music] you jib to Kelly in Wellsville, Ohio. Next up we have a cheers to Camilla in Norco, California.
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And a big shout out to Jessica in Phoenix, Arizona. >> Here we go. We have a cheers to Benjamin
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in Geraldton, Ontario, Canada. And last but certainly not least we have Katie Keown in the parts that remain unknown.
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>> [music] >> And that is enough of the business. >> All right, everybody gather around, grab
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a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. >> [music] [music] [music] >> As schools all over Ohio and across this
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great nation prepare to close down for the summer and kids gear up for the much needed summer break,
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it is this time of year every year that many remember and think about little Asenath Louise Ducat.
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Friends and family called her Seenie. She was a third grader at Barrington Elementary in the Columbus, Ohio suburb
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of Upper Arlington. The city of Upper Arlington and the people who live there are some of the
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best that Columbus has to offer. This is an affluent area. Families stay here for generations to
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live in this tight-knit community, to raise their children up in a safe, peaceful area, and thrive in nearby
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Columbus. Many Ohio State graduates stay or plant their roots here in the city of Upper
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Arlington. Seenie's school and home were located in what was thought to be a very safe,
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sleepy, upper-class neighborhood. But unfortunately, there was something bad bubbling up.
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There was something evil lurking in this very neighborhood. Several girls reported to their parents
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that they didn't always feel safe walking in the neighborhood. More than one girl said that she felt
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like she had been followed and not just on one occasion. It was difficult to understand what was
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happening. The neighborhood, as everyone thought, was still the same old sleepy,
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upper-class neighborhood. And maybe these were just the imagined fears of children.
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However, that something bad that was bubbling up to the surface boiled over on June 3rd, 1980, just days
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before the end of the school year. This is when little Seenie was intercepted by that evil element
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somewhere along the very short walk from Barrington Elementary School and her home, which was just blocks away.
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The distance was less than a mile, a 20-minute walk. >> [music] >> This is a walk that Seenie made many
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times and one that was even shorter for her as kids know all of the shortcuts and
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cut-throughs. But on that bright and sunny day, something got her. In the short window of just 4 hours,
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Seenie was first missing and then she was gone forever. >> [music] >> According to the Ohio Attorney General
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Dave Yost website, on June 3rd, 1980 at 4:34 p.m., Asenath Ducat was reported missing by her parents
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after she did not arrive home from school. The victim's parents indicated that Seenie walked home from school and would
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usually arrive home at 4:00 p.m. After an extensive search, Seenie's body was discovered in a drainage ditch at
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the corner of Riverside Drive and Waltham Road, which is less than one block from her
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residence at about 7:30 p.m. the same evening. The investigation revealed that her
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death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head and manual strangulation. Investigators believe that the victim
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was abducted and murdered at a location other than where she was found. >> [music]
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>> The town was devastated. The neighborhood was terrified. Upper Arlington lost one of their own.
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A young, outgoing, intelligent little girl was attacked in an area where she likely felt the safest.
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>> [music] >> This was her neighborhood where she lived with her four older siblings and her mom
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and her dad. >> [music] >> She was literally just a 2-minute walk from her home when she was cornered and
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grabbed, >> [music] >> snatched off of the street, and killed just a short time later.
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Who would do such a despicable and monstrous act? >> [music] >> How could this happen here?
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And how could an entire community in mourning carry on without this bright little girl?
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>> [music] >> Upper Arlington did carry on, but so many have not forgotten Seenie
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and what happened to her. >> [music] >> It's been over 40 years and the still strong, still proud community where
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Seenie lived still remember the talkative, energetic little girl who did not make it home that one day.
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That one day when a neighborhood was forever changed and permanently scarred. That one day
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when evil came to town. Or did it? You see, there is a lot of evidence in Seenie's case to suggest evil did not
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come to town, that evil was already there. Always there lurking in the streets of
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the sleepy, upper-class neighborhood. There is good reason to believe that Seenie may have even known her killer or
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one of the persons responsible. >> [music] >> The killer or killers may have known that there was only one
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way to keep this girl quiet after she was taken and assaulted. But the community has refused to keep
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quiet about what happened, what was taken from them, what was stolen away from the city and
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the Ducat family. The members of this community are UA and they are UA strong, as strong as a bear with a heart of
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gold. The kids in this neighborhood never forgot Seenie. Some to this very day wish that they
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would have been walking with the little girl on June 3rd. And if so, maybe this would not have
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happened. But unfortunately, from where I stand and the way things look to me, a tragedy like this was simply going to
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happen. That bad element was on the rise and that evil was going to bubble up and boil over at some
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point. And it did that day when Seenie was at the corner of Waltham and Malvern.
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So, it's important to remember that Seenie in her final minutes, >> [snorts] >> while she was scared and surrounded,
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she was actually in some not so easily explained way protecting another little girl,
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probably even one of her friends. Because this evil did not come to town. It was always there.
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Right there in that sleepy upper class neighborhood. Before the end of the school year,
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Seeney's classmates in memory of wrote the following acronym for and about Seeney.
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But in her proper name, Asenath. This is from Mrs. Suber's third grade class at Barrington Elementary School.
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Asenath Ducat, a friendly third grader. >> [music] >> She always had a sunny smile. Her eyes
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glimmered and sparkled like stars. Nice, considerate, honest, polite, and aware of other people's feelings.
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The class has happy thoughts of her. She will always be remembered. >> [music] >> In August of 1980, Asenath's father,
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Alexander, was interviewed by the UA News. I believe this quote clearly showcases the strength, the resolve, and
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the compassion of the Ducat family. Quote, "We have suffered a great loss, but it's not a reoccurring one.
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She's gone, but the community may have to go through this again. This case doesn't have to be solved for
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our benefit. The Lord will deal with this fellow in his own way. We don't wish the killer any vengeance.
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Sometimes we pray for his soul that he may be saved, but we are concerned about the safety of others.
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He may try to wreak this tragedy on someone else. I can't picture a person who is capable
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of rape and murder living a normal life. >> [music] >> I am sure we will hear from him in one
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way or another. Alexander Ducat, August 6, 1980. [snorts] >> [music] >> The Ducats were and remained UA and UA
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strong. This is True Crime Garage, and this is the still unsolved murder case of Asenath Seeney Ducat.
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This is a case that we have wanted to cover for a while [music] now, a couple years in fact. And it's only been
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covered a little bit, and here we are today, Captain, covering it for the very first time. And there have been some
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speed bumps along the way that got in the way of us covering this at an earlier date, and we will discuss those
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at a later time in these episodes. But we are here today to talk about the unsolved murder of Asenath Ducat.
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Asenath Ducat was born July 24th, 1971. And on our day in question, she was 8 years old.
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She went by the nickname Seeney, and later that day when her parents would report her missing, she was listed as 4
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ft 5 and 1/2 in tall, weighing about 68 lb. She had brown hair and brown eyes, and she was in the third grade at
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Barrington Elementary School, which was located on Barrington Road in Upper Arlington, which is a suburb of
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Columbus, Ohio. >> Our day in question is June 3rd, 1980. >> This is a Tuesday, and this would be a
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bright and sunny Tuesday. On this day, Asenath left school at 3:10 p.m. This is 10 minutes later than her usual
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dismissal time. Seeney and her classmates had to serve a 10-minute detention for rowdy behavior, disrupting
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the class. This delay caused her to miss the crowd that she would have regularly
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walked home with. So, typically, she's walking home less than a mile. This walk would take her less than 20 minutes to
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make it from the door of her school to the front door of the Ducat family home. And on this day, she's going to be
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walking alone because those other friends from other classrooms have left and already made the trek from the
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school to their homes. >> There were several eyewitnesses that saw her walking home that day. It's believed
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that she disappeared sometime between 3:20 and 4:00 p.m. on that day. Now, what we do have here, Captain, is that
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we have a situation where mom gets worried because Seeney usually arrives home every day at the same time. And
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when her daughter, her youngest child, is not there, Seeney, she starts to get a little nervous.
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And this is going to be followed by sending out the other kids of the Ducat family to go out on their bicycles and
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walk the streets and ride their bikes to look for their little sister. It's also
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going to be followed with Mrs. Ducat calling the school to ask where her daughter was, and calling a couple of
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her friends' parents. I imagine this would be friends that she would typically walk home with.
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And she's going to find out about this 10-minute detention and realize very quickly that Seeney was probably
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traveling by herself, walking home alone that day from school. Again, this 10-minute detention didn't come about
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until the day of, on June 3rd, 1980. She's also going to call her husband, Alex or Alexander, and let him know that
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their daughter did not come home from school yet. Alex works within walking distance of the family's home. He will
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actually end up leaving work a few minutes early on this day to help go look for little Seeney. So, I'm not that
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clear on the details, but it was either the whole class that got a detention or group of kids because they were talking
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too much in class, but kind of odd that they would be handed out a 10-minute detention for that day. Normally, you'd
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have to serve your detention on another day. Yeah, I'm guessing a couple things here, Captain. One,
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it makes sense to me, it's the end of the school year, kids get a little rowdy, they probably weren't listening
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to the teacher, teacher gets upset, and has to continually warn the kids, and then decides, you know what, I've got to
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make uh example here and let them know that they can't just do whatever they want. So, here's a 10-minute detention,
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probably served by the whole class. We got to keep it short, though, I'm guessing because some of those kids are
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going to be riding buses home. Some of these kids, as we said, like Seeney, will be walking home. Now, I've heard it
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reported that like 1980 was something different than the setup that we have today, that many more kids walked home
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back then. If you looked up where the Ducats lived and this Barrington Elementary School, it's less than a
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point ninth of a mile. I believe it's typical for kids that live in the same neighborhood as the school to commonly
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walk to school. So, I don't believe that it's any different 1980 than it would be
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today of the amount of kids that were walking to and from school. When I was growing up, Captain, when you
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were growing up, if our school was in the same neighborhood, you just walked because the buses didn't travel that
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short distance, or mom and dad would drop you off at the school. Well, Colonel, can you give us a general
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overview of this case, and then we can come back through and do a very detailed account of the events? Yes, so as we
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said, Seeney was walking home from school. It's believed that she was last seen within just blocks of her home that
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day. Her body was eventually found at approximately 7:30 p.m. So, let's note those times here before we get to that
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very detailed timeline of June 3rd. We have people that say that they have seen Seeney around 3:20 p.m., maybe even
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a few minutes after that. So, we believe that she obviously went missing during some point after that 3:20, 3:25
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marker on that day. Her body is found at approximately 7:30 p.m. that day. So, what we're really working with here,
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roughly, is a window of about 4 hours where we have a lot of question marks and a lot of blanks to fill in, and I
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think we will be able to do that with some of this timeline that we will later present. But her body was found, this is
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after an extensive search. Remember, we've already said brothers and sisters are out looking for Seeney. We have
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neighborhood kids looking for her, mom and dad are out looking for her, mom's driving around the neighborhood looking
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for her. This is followed by an official search that is going to start after the missing
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person's report is filed with the Upper Arlington Police Department at 4:34 p.m.
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on that same day. So, we got a lot of people in a small area looking for this little girl, and yet we have 4 hours
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where we have to fill in and figure out what was going on during that time frame. Her body was found at the mouth
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of a culvert located at the corner of Riverside Drive and Waltham Road. So, to give a very basic description of this
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area, what we have here, Captain, is Riverside Drive is a very busy road. It was back in 1980, it still is to this
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day. In fact, if you look up the population for Upper Arlington, the population is roughly the same today as
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what it was back in 1980. It's only about 1,500 people more. So, traffic and things like that are not significantly
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different. However, the lay of the land is significantly different, especially right here on this corner. This area has
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been landscaped and renovated several times since 1980. Now, think of your neighborhood growing up,
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everybody out there in listener land. And you know the busy road that is just outside of your neighborhood that mom
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and dad say, "Hey, wherever you go, you can go ride your bikes, you can go play with your friends, but you do not go
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near that road, you do not go across that road." Well, this would be that road. Riverside Drive, very busy road.
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Waltham Road is right off of Riverside, and it's one of the main vessels through
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this neighborhood, through Seeney's neighborhood. Her body is eventually found near this intersection of Waltham
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and Riverside Drive. The interesting thing about that to me, Captain, is this is very close to her home. It's less
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than 2-minute walk from her front door to where her body was ultimately found. Yeah, my parents would always say,
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"Don't play by that busy intersection, but stop hanging out with that kid that thinks he's a colonel."
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Too young to be a colonel. So, unfortunately, her body is found 4 hours later, and this is about a block from
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her home. And I encourage everyone to look this up on a map, because it will shock you how
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close she was found to her home. And it was determined that she was sexually assaulted, and her death was
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caused by blunt force trauma to the head and manual strangulation. The murder weapon
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I've actually seen several different weights >> [snorts] >> for this murder weapon over the years.
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I've seen She was killed with a rock. Someone took a rock and hit her in the head with it.
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And I've seen this rock to have weigh as little as 12 lb or as many as 25 lb. Most of the information that I've
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reviewed over the years suggests that this is a 20 to 25-lb rock. So, this is a pretty big rock. Now, the area that
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she's found, there's a lot of rocks there, and this rock was recovered. It was still at the murder scene. And
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that's something that's key to remember here, too. Murder scene. She was killed where she was found. So, what you're
00:22:09
saying is law enforcement believes a perpetrator or multiple perpetrators took her, assaulted her somewhere,
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transported her alive to this location, and then the murder took place at that location where she was found. Yes, that
00:22:25
is correct. And here's the I don't think that things were so clear for law enforcement at the time
00:22:40
when they were investigating this case. We have the benefit of 42 years of looking at this case and looking at the
00:22:48
different information that have come up in 42 years. They did not. One thing that police revealed was that there had
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been a previous and a very similar attack in that similar area on May 7th. So, less than a month earlier, a similar
00:23:04
type of victim and a very similar type abduction took place in that same neighborhood. Now, this would be news to
00:23:11
some of the people in the neighborhood, but not to everyone in that neighborhood. Were there any
00:23:16
eyewitnesses to this previous situation before the murder? Yes, there were. So, we have
00:23:24
the survivor of the attack, and then we also have a potential eyewitness in that
00:23:30
situation. The thing here, Captain, is eyewitnesses are key in this case. Eyewitnesses for the day that Seeney was
00:23:40
killed, and eyewitnesses on this other attack that may or may not be related. However, what we do know is at the time
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of Seeney's murder that police absolutely did think that it was highly likely that the two were in fact
00:23:56
connected, so much so that they are releasing a sketch, a composite sketch, to the public of the individual that
00:24:05
they believe may have been spotted in Seeney's attack, or at least in the area of where Seeney was last seen.
00:24:13
And this is believed to be a similar sketch, a similar composite sketch, to the earlier attack that took place in
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May. Again, just less than 1 month earlier. >> [music] [music] >> All right, cheers, mates. Cheers to you,
00:24:56
Captain. Make sure you slap that bass big time. Big time. Detective Ed Tine was one of the lead investigators in
00:25:05
Seeney's murder case. He put together some really invaluable information on this case that I think still holds a lot
00:25:13
of weight to this day. And this is how we can get a clearer picture of those 4 hours that went by from the time that
00:25:21
she was last seen to the time that her body was discovered at the mouth of that culvert. This is a timeline put together
00:25:27
by Detective Ed Tine, and it starts roughly at 3:00 p.m., and it's going to take us all the way up until about 7:30
00:25:35
p.m. that night. Now, a lot of these names have been redacted, and then on top of that, these times are not exact.
00:25:46
Most of them are going to be approximate. So, I think it was key to give an overview of the general
00:25:52
information of the case and what is known of that day first before we start getting into the specifics, because this
00:25:58
could get a little confusing without having that information prior. At the start of
00:26:04
Detective Tine's timeline, we have 3:10 p.m., and it's stated here that the victim, Seeney Thuka, and the rest of
00:26:14
her third grade class was dismissed after they had been held over for 10 minutes for a class detention.
00:26:21
Normal dismissal time was 3:00 p.m., as we've already discussed. At 3:10 p.m., we have a lady that is driving home. She
00:26:30
returns to her home on Waltham Road. Waltham Road is not only part of the intersection where her body was found
00:26:38
near, but this will be part of her route home, back to her house. Now, this lady
00:26:43
says that at about 3:10 p.m., she pulls into her driveway on Waltham Road, and she observed an
00:26:50
unknown male white wearing blue jeans, a white shirt, and possible blue jean jacket walking out of the field.
00:26:59
And this is a field that is located directly across from the intersection of Waltham
00:27:04
and Hillside. This location is eight city blocks west of the Barrington Elementary School, so very near Seeney's
00:27:12
school. At approximately 3:15 to 3:20 p.m., a classmate of Seeney's sees her walking, observes her walking westbound
00:27:21
on Waltham Road crossing Arlington Avenue. Now, at 3:15 p.m., this is just 5 minutes after the lady that lived on
00:27:29
Waltham returned home, she goes outside to do some lawn work and notices that the man that she saw earlier is no
00:27:37
longer there. She does not see him at this time. We also have a second classmate of Seeney's see her walking
00:27:43
west on Waltham at Coventry and Barrington around this same time. It's important to remember that any
00:27:50
individual that's seen at this time in this area could be a suspect. >> We have a driver that reports that
00:27:58
approximately 3:20 p.m. I think this time is probably a little early in the timeline, but again, we're going off of
00:28:05
this eyewitness, off of their report, that says at approximately 3:20 p.m. while driving westbound on Waltham Road
00:28:12
and at Malvern Road, he observed a male white with dark glasses carrying a limp girl into the yard of, and then the name
00:28:22
is redacted, off of Malvern Road. He also saw a red bicycle lying along the curb in the south side of Waltham and
00:28:30
Malvern Road. So, this is interesting, because later, of course, we know that Seeney is abducted
00:28:38
and killed in this area. This motorist at this time does not believe what he is witnessing to be anything of importance
00:28:45
until, of course, later that day at 7:30, when we find out the worst thing that a neighborhood could experience
00:28:51
experience. He's saying simply that he saw the bike, he saw a girl being carried away by a
00:28:57
guy. He made the assumption that she had wrecked her bike, was injured, and this
00:29:03
was either her brother or father tending to her and carrying her away. So, what he believes that he sees is
00:29:12
something very innocent, something very normal. However, he's going to find out hours later that something not innocent
00:29:19
and not normal at all happened in this general area, maybe at this same time. And we're going to have a lot more
00:29:28
eyewitnesses to this male on a bicycle. Yeah, at approximately 3:20 p.m., we have another witness who says that they
00:29:36
observed a male white with dark hair, approximately 18 to 21 years of age, riding westbound
00:29:44
at Golford and Fairfax on a bicycle. He was wearing a white shirt and dark trousers. This seems to match up with
00:29:53
the previous descriptions we have by other eyewitnesses. Again, we see the bicycle and we see a similar outfit
00:29:59
along with uh similar age description for this unknown male. At 3:25, we have a similar report of another individual
00:30:10
that lives on Tremont Road. This says that they observed a male in his 20s, 6-ft tall-ish, average build
00:30:20
with brown hair, white short-sleeve shirt, dark pants, running south, and carrying a small child.
00:30:28
The witness goes on to say that she also saw a red bicycle on the south side of Waltham in the bushes by the pine trees.
00:30:37
>> Now, can you imagine if you saw a teenager or somebody in their early 20s carrying a child? This is not going to
00:30:44
look natural. This is not going to look like they're playing around. At the same
00:30:48
time though, you got to keep in mind around this 3:00 hour, we have two schools in this neighborhood. So, you're
00:30:56
going to see a lot of kids kind of out walking around or on bikes at this time. >> Right. The other thing too that we need
00:31:03
to point out because that description that I gave is just a little tricky there.
00:31:08
The witness lives on Tremont. She's not saying that she saw or witnessed this on
00:31:13
Tremont Road. She's saying that she witnessed this near Waltham Road on the in the bicycle was on the south side of
00:31:20
Waltham Road. So, this individual lives nearby but was driving in this general area where they witnessed this man or
00:31:29
young man carrying a small child. We also need to point out that this Tuesday in 1980 was a primary election day.
00:31:39
And we have two locations in this neighborhood that are voting locations. So, we have additional people that are
00:31:49
out and about on this day for the purpose of voting. And we get our first witness,
00:31:56
eyewitness, who says that on their way to voting saw something that might be of interest
00:32:02
to our case. So, this is a woman who lives on Riverside Drive. Says that she walked to vote at First Community
00:32:09
Village. First Community Village is very near where Seeney Ducat's body was later
00:32:14
found. She says that she crossed the culvert on her way and observed a male white standing on the south side of the
00:32:21
creek at approximately 100 yards east of her. She said that there was something red
00:32:27
and blue cloth-like on the ground in front of him. This occurred between 3:25 p.m. and
00:32:35
4:20 p.m. Now, another thing to note there as well. I know that she's giving us a window of time that is
00:32:42
approximately an hour. But, this individual is crossing the same culvert where Seeney Ducat's body will later be
00:32:52
found. I've walked and crossed this culvert several times. I would find it incredibly difficult to
00:32:59
believe that anybody, whether they were looking around or not, would not have seen her lying there on that day at that
00:33:07
time. So, what this tells me is even though we don't know exactly what time this woman is walking and crossing the
00:33:14
culvert. She says between 3:25 p.m. and 4:20 p.m. Whatever time she crossed that culvert,
00:33:21
Seeney is not there. She's not there at this time. And that's going to be key to our case.
00:33:27
Now, at approximately 3:40 to 3:50 p.m. we have another woman who returns to the
00:33:33
culvert after voting and decides to pick up a rock from the creek that she's going to take home and use as
00:33:40
a paperweight. The rock came from the location where the body is later discovered. Again, this person gives us
00:33:47
a different window, 3:40 to 3:50 p.m. So, now we can say, based off of these two eyewitness statements,
00:33:55
that even if we go to the earliest parts of their timeline, of their window that
00:33:58
they provide for us, that at 3:25 to 3:40 p.m. Seeney is not located, she's not in that culvert at
00:34:07
that time. So, our window for those 4 hours is starting to shrink a little bit. Now, if we were to take that out to
00:34:14
the end of their windows, we're up to 4:20 p.m. I mean, doesn't seem a little insane the day that they find
00:34:21
this missing murdered girl where there's a bunch of rocks at that somebody stopped to pick up a rock to
00:34:29
use it for a paperweight? It seems very bizarre to me, number one, but number two, I think that it it's one of those
00:34:36
things that come up in in question, you know, when when police interview you and
00:34:41
you're telling them about your day, they want to know why you did everything. Why
00:34:45
the hell would you stop to pick up a rock? Or why did you notice that she wasn't there?
00:34:51
What what proof do you have for that? Why were you looking around? Why weren't you just minding your own business?
00:34:55
Well, I decided to stop and pick up a rock for a paperweight. Sounds weird to me. However, I don't have this person's
00:35:03
name as it's been redacted, so I don't know if I should be questioning her statement if she's just a regular
00:35:11
Mrs. Citizen, then I don't question her statement and I believe it to be true. And I'm really just trying to figure out
00:35:18
when Seeney was placed in that culvert because that's a fact that we know for certain that happened. And we have the
00:35:25
statement of police saying that she was killed there. So, we're trying to shrink this window
00:35:31
of time, this 4 hours to a much smaller amount of time because we have all these
00:35:35
different people that are seen in the area walking about at this time. One of those people that were seen is
00:35:42
responsible for this, if not more than one that was seen. And so, we want to really narrow down who it could be that
00:35:50
placed Seeney in that culvert that day. Well, here's something that's also pretty strange in this case. Mr. Ducat,
00:35:58
like you were stating earlier, he works close enough to the family's home that he could walk home. Well, he is going to
00:36:04
cross that that culvert where she is found. So, if she was there at the time, it's most likely that Mr. Ducat would
00:36:13
have seen his daughter. Yeah, we're going to be able to put a lot of people in this area where her body would
00:36:18
eventually be found that do not see her there. They do not see her body lying in
00:36:24
that culvert. And that really shrinks the window here. So, again, he would have had to walk
00:36:29
across this little bridge to get over this culvert. And I'm telling you, there's no way unless you got blinders
00:36:36
on, man, on both sides of your head. There's no way that you're not seeing her lying there on the rocks.
00:36:44
At 4:40 p.m. is when Mr. Ducat left work. And he walked home. His normal route would make him cross that culvert.
00:36:53
Right. >> have an exact time for when he was crossing that bridge that day, but we
00:36:58
know it was after 4:40 p.m. So, our window is getting even smaller. This is going to take us all the way up
00:37:07
to 5:55 to approximately 6:00 p.m. when we have a woman who lives on Waltham Road. She walked across the culvert on
00:37:17
her way to vote. Again, does not see Seeney in the culvert. We're now up to 6:00. Her
00:37:24
body's going to be found before 7:30 p.m. I think one of the things that makes cases more difficult,
00:37:32
like in the '80s, is that not everybody has a clock on them. Where now, almost everybody carries a cell phone. Your
00:37:41
cell phone has some some kind of clock on it. And also, you have then time frames of well, I saw
00:37:51
this happen and then this person text me, so I know it was before that time. Where in the '80s, if you're not
00:38:01
carrying a pocket watch or a wrist watch, you probably have no reference of time. So, some of these people's
00:38:09
time frames could be off by, you know, 10 to 15 minutes, give or take. The other thing that we didn't have or
00:38:16
wasn't so readily available back then that we have today is this First Community Village where people were
00:38:23
going to and from for voting purposes. They would have had Today, they got a bunch of cameras set up. So, they'd be
00:38:29
able to go, "Okay, Mrs. So-and-so says that she crossed the culvert to come here and vote and we have her walking
00:38:36
through our doors at this time. And Mr. So-and-so says that he left and then had
00:38:40
to cross the culvert to get back to his house. Well, we have him leaving our doors at this time." And so, we would be
00:38:47
able to get more exact times. These times to me are still incredibly important and it's important to shrink
00:38:54
this window. We have another eyewitness. This is two people, actually, that say between 6:15 and 6:30 p.m. we have a
00:39:04
woman with her son. Her son is young. We know this because he's on a tricycle. If
00:39:09
he's If he's not young, that would be weird. >> Hey, sounds awesome sauce to me.
00:39:13
>> But, the two of them cross the culvert between 6:15 and 6:30 p.m. This, again,
00:39:20
the same location where the body was later found. Now, at 7:26 p.m. Officer Mike Worley, along with two other
00:39:30
individuals. Remember, by this point in the evening, we have neighbors, friends,
00:39:37
neighborhood kids out looking for Seeney. Plus, we have the police actively looking for Cini at this time.
00:39:44
So, at 7:26 p.m., we have a a police officer along with two adults from the neighborhood.
00:39:52
The three of them together sadly discover the body of Acenith Ducat lying at the base of an open culvert in a
00:39:59
stream located on the north side of First Community Village. And this is directly from the police report. The
00:40:06
victim is lying in approximately 4 in of running water with a large rock covering
00:40:11
her head. Her head had been crushed by the large limestone rock that had been taken from the creek bed. She was fully
00:40:18
clothed, although there were indications that her pants had been down at one time
00:40:23
and then pulled back up. It was observed that the pants were unbuttoned and there
00:40:28
was grass in her undergarments. Well, such a sad scene and we we see so many cases like Delphi or West Memphis 3
00:40:37
where the the whole community is searching for a missing child or missing children and that they don't discover
00:40:45
the bodies until the next day. This one within a couple hours they're discovering her body. It's almost like
00:40:52
these killers or killer is almost not worried about even trying to conceal the body
00:40:58
whatsoever. Correct. And actually, what I think has happened here, Captain, is we run into a situation where things
00:41:05
started going badly for the killer or killers and now they're just making impulsive decisions based off of getting
00:41:13
the hell out of the area as quickly as they can. Again, it's awfully confusing and such risky behavior to see such a
00:41:22
horrible act in such a a a a crime take place in an area that we can clearly see
00:41:29
there's a lot of movement. There's a lot of people out and about for the purpose
00:41:33
of voting this around the evening hours. But again, go back to the 3:00 hour. We
00:41:39
have two schools in this neighborhood that are letting out in that 3:00 hour. So, there's a lot of kids out and about
00:41:47
during the time that she was abducted. Unless one were to think that she was just hanging out and doing God knows
00:41:54
what for 3 hours before something terrible happened to her. And I don't think anybody believes that at all. I
00:41:59
certainly don't believe it. I think she was snatched on her way home from school
00:42:03
and then obviously, based off of the timeline we just went through, she had to be gone
00:42:10
for several hours before someone placed her in that culvert because we have all these people that say they walked across
00:42:17
that culvert and did not see Acenith Ducat at any time. Well, what's so sad, too, is that she would be more likely to
00:42:26
talk to a kid, you know, somebody in their late teens, even early 20s. When you're
00:42:32
that age, 8 years old, you're you're viewing a even a 20-year-old as one of you, you know, like, oh, that's
00:42:39
just a older kid. You don't necessarily with kids and teenagers view them as dangerous. And so, they
00:42:48
were able to lure her in and then then this assault takes place and now they go, well,
00:42:55
there's a good chance that she knew her attacker or attackers because it seems like they're they thought the
00:43:02
only the only way out of this is that we have to kill her so she can't identify us.
00:43:07
>> Well, and the thing here is that goes back everything that you're saying goes
00:43:11
back to all of these eyewitness accounts, right? The other people in the area at the time that are spotted by the
00:43:18
citizens saying, "Hey, yeah, I we have one person saying I saw the victim walking home at this time in this
00:43:26
location." And we have other eyewitnesses saying, "I saw a young male, probably 20 years old, of average build,
00:43:35
approximately 6 ft tall. He's in the area at the same time. We have two people that say they believe
00:43:41
they saw a similar-looking man carrying a small child or a little girl across the street around the same time
00:43:51
that Acenith would have been abducted on her way home. Now, I want to take this opportunity to clear up a couple things
00:43:58
here because I've seen it reported plenty of times this way that there were some unusual
00:44:05
deviations in Cini's route that she took home that day. I have discussed this with several people and
00:44:14
confirmed this with people that knew Cini and it was explained to me as such that
00:44:21
Cini had a preferred route that she would take from her school to her home. And there was a group of kids that she
00:44:28
would typically walk with. Well, some of the other kids in the group had a different route that they
00:44:34
preferred. And when the kids when the entire group was there, they would take this other route. It's a more
00:44:41
straightforward route, less turns, less twist. Cini's route might be a little quicker,
00:44:47
but for whatever reason, it's been noted by several of her friends that this was
00:44:51
the route that she preferred. Now, we do know that she was walking alone that day
00:44:58
and so, she would have taken her preferred route. Now, we go back to the idea of unusual deviations. Well, why
00:45:05
would they believe that there were unusual deviations? Well, we know the route that she ultimately took on the
00:45:11
day that she was abducted and killed because we have several things. One, we have the eyewitness statements of what
00:45:17
time and where she was and where she was walking at those times, as well as they
00:45:22
brought in a scent dog to track her movements from the school and her route home that she took.
00:45:31
So, I believe that the earlier portions of her route that have those deviations are simply based off of a route that she
00:45:38
preferred. And that was the route that she chose to take that day. Now, the other deviations that are the later
00:45:47
part of her route, those aren't deviations that she was making by choice. In my opinion, Captain, that is when she
00:45:56
started to get nervous. She was being followed. She did not like somebody that she's seeing in the area. She felt
00:46:02
uneasy and maybe she diverted from her route to get away or to avoid someone. Or
00:46:10
a scarier thought, at some point she's being chased by this individual. Well, let's dive into some
00:46:16
of the details of this murder scene. Yes, because the layout of where Cini is ultimately found is very important to
00:46:25
this case and figuring out who is responsible. So, her body is actually found near a
00:46:33
near the mouth of a culvert. This culvert runs under a service road. And mind you, if you look at pictures from
00:46:40
1980 compared to 2022, the layout of this land has changed a little bit over the years. It's been filled out a little
00:46:50
more. But the other place that is curious that is nearby this culvert where her body is
00:46:57
found is a tunnel which the locals, or at least the children of the neighborhood, called Frankenstein's
00:47:06
Cave. Now, we mentioned earlier that your parents, if you lived in this neighborhood, would tell you, "Do not go
00:47:13
to Riverside Drive. You do not cross Riverside Drive walking or on your bike. The road is just far too busy. It's too
00:47:21
dangerous for people crossing on foot or on a bike." But this Frankenstein's Cave is a larger
00:47:29
tunnel that runs underneath that Riverside Drive. Now, this would be another location that your parents would
00:47:36
likely tell you that you are not allowed to go to. The other thing, too, as a child, you
00:47:42
may not want to go there anyway because it's called Frankenstein's Cave. If there were anybody to be hanging out
00:47:48
there, this would be the older kids, the teenagers, the maybe people were down there drinking beer smoking a joint. And
00:47:56
somebody had spray-painted Frankenstein's Cave inside the tunnel on one of the walls, the tunnel wall. So,
00:48:03
this is how it kind of got its name. Other than that, it's a little tricky to figure out where the name came from. But
00:48:10
ultimately, Cini's body is recovered at the mouth of this culvert, which is underneath the service road, runs
00:48:18
underneath the service road that is near Frankenstein's Cave that runs underneath
00:48:23
Riverside Drive. Again, we had multiple witnesses that are traveling that are traversing this
00:48:30
area, this exact area for that 4-hour time period of when she was gone. So, you have to believe, based
00:48:39
off of those witnesses not seeing her there where she's later found, that she wasn't there until much later in the
00:48:46
evening, closer to the time that she was discovered. Again, the time that we have
00:48:51
on record for the police is 7:26 p.m. There was also a brief description in the Columbus Dispatch
00:49:01
about her autopsy. >> Yes, according to the June 10th, 1980 Columbus Dispatch, "Skull, brain injury killed Ducat girl,
00:49:13
autopsy shows" is the headline. A brief description of that article is as follows. In a Columbus Dispatch
00:49:20
newspaper article published on the 10th, a preliminary autopsy reported that 8-year-old Acenith Ducat
00:49:28
died of skull fractures and brain contusions inflicted when she was struck on the head with a 20-lb shale-type
00:49:35
rock. The autopsy also showed that the third grader had been raped. Hand prints were left on both sides of her throat as
00:49:43
her attacker choked her. Bruises were found beneath both eyes and on the left side of the nose.
00:49:50
Upper Arlington police were to distribute pamphlets describing the murder suspect to motorists on Waltham
00:49:58
Road near where the body was found. They hoped to find another witness in addition to the woman who is thought to
00:50:04
have seen the killer carrying the youngster into the retirement complex grounds. Police also believed that
00:50:10
Ducat's killer was the same person involved in the attack of another schoolgirl on May 7th.
00:50:17
Police described the man as white, between the ages of 16 and 20 years old with a Mediterranean look. The killer
00:50:25
was riding a red Schwinn 10-speed bicycle. >> [music] [music] >> Thank you for joining us here in the
00:50:44
garage. We would be [music] nothing without you. We love you and thank you so much for the support and telling your
00:50:52
friends and family about us. That's how we continue to grow and we appreciate you more
00:50:58
than we can even begin to put into words. Join us back here in the garage tomorrow.
00:51:04
>> And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. >> [music] [music]