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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Thomas was brand new to the Colloca School in

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Speaker 1: Murray County. She started as a freshman this year, entering

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Speaker 1: the public school system for the very first time. Investigators

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Speaker 1: say that she is with Tad Cummins to the auto

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Speaker 1: as the Cummins was a teacher. A student reported seeing

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Speaker 1: Cummins kissing Elizabeth in his classroom in late January. Cummins

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Speaker 1: told to students he's a father figure to Elizabeth. He's

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Speaker 1: told my daughter from me. She's fifteen, he's fifty. This

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Speaker 1: is crime stories with Nancy Grace. Police arrested Elizabeth's mom,

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Speaker 1: Kimberly Thomas, last year. They charged her with five counts

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Speaker 1: of child abuse and neglect. If a person was looking

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Speaker 1: for a teenager, that could be easily and I would

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Speaker 1: saying to very attracted count First, it has now been

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Speaker 1: weeks since a school girl was abducted by her fifty

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Speaker 1: year old pervy school teacher. I'm talking about Tag Cummins,

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Speaker 1: that little girl, Elizabeth Thomas, and still he has managed

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Speaker 1: to elude not only local law enforcement, but the FBI

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Speaker 1: as well. There is a national amber alert to find

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Speaker 1: this girl, but still nothing. Our hopes were raised last

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Speaker 1: week when there was an alleged signing in Corpus Christi, Texas.

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Speaker 1: But since that nothing, are they all their way to

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Speaker 1: Mexico to live as a man and wife. That is sick.

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Speaker 1: Plus there's the issue of his real wife who's waiting

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Speaker 1: back home at Columbia, Tennessee for him. I Nancy Grace,

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Speaker 1: this is Crime Stories and I am not letting go

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Speaker 1: of Tag Cummins this easily. Oh no, he can't just abduct, kidnaped,

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Speaker 1: make off with us schoolgirl and think you can get

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Speaker 1: away with it. That's not happening, not on Crime Stories anyway.

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Speaker 1: With me, two very special guests in addition to the Duke,

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Speaker 1: Alan Duke joining me. Investigative reporter with me is Jason Watley,

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Speaker 1: who is representing Elizabeth's father. In addition to that, his

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Speaker 1: law partner Corey Richie, both well known trial lawyers in

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Speaker 1: the Tennessee area. And Corey, I want to start with

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Speaker 1: you first of all, gentlemen, thank you for being with us.

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Speaker 1: My first question is this, Am I correct that you

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Speaker 1: represented Anthony Thomas in his case when he went to

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Speaker 1: juvenile court to try to get the children away from

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth's mother. That that is absolutely right. As soon as

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Speaker 1: the allegations came to light concerning Kimberly Thomas Um, the

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Speaker 1: victims of which were the three UM oldest minor children,

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Speaker 1: including Elizabeth UM. The Department of Children's Services became involved

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Speaker 1: and Anthony fought to keep the children, to keep full

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Speaker 1: custody of the children, and to get the mother out

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Speaker 1: of the house. And that's exactly what happened. The mother

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Speaker 1: has not had any contact with the children ever since then,

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Speaker 1: and that was almost a year and a half ago. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's not a secret anymore. The allegations against her have

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Speaker 1: been adjudicated in juvenile court and there they have a

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Speaker 1: standard of proof. It's it's beyond a preponderance, which is

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Speaker 1: a civil case. What were the allegations against her mother,

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Speaker 1: they're the allegations that are the same as what she's

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Speaker 1: facing criminally. She had Um committed multiple acts of abuse

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Speaker 1: against the children UM, including UM I believe hitting one

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Speaker 1: of their heads against a either a washing machine or

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Speaker 1: some other appliance. UM. She made one or more of

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Speaker 1: the girls UM stripped naked in front of one of

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Speaker 1: her friends, UM. And that there's also this allegation came

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Speaker 1: to light after the juvenile court proceedings, but Um. There

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Speaker 1: I believe was an EpiPen that was left out that

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Speaker 1: was supposed to be for one of the older children,

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Speaker 1: and the youngest child, who was six or seven at

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Speaker 1: the time, grabbed ahold of it. And for that Ms

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Speaker 1: Thomas is facing a felony charge of child's abuse. You know, Corey,

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Speaker 1: let me, let me just stop this trying right here.

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Speaker 1: I don't understand why would you make your daughter stripped

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Speaker 1: naked in front of a friend, a grown friend. The

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Speaker 1: woman's got some very serious problems. Um. But what was

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Speaker 1: her thinking? Why did she say she did that? Well,

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Speaker 1: as I recall, she denied it, um, and I think

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Speaker 1: she continues to deny it. Um. The evidence, as I

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Speaker 1: understand it against her is pretty significant and um um,

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Speaker 1: I I don't know what in her mind justified her

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Speaker 1: and committing these awful things. But um, but to this point,

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Speaker 1: she she's uh. Either on one hand, she's said I

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Speaker 1: didn't do it, you know that I'm innocent. On the

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Speaker 1: other hand, she's tried to externalize it in certain ways

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Speaker 1: by saying, well, you know, these girls are just you know,

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Speaker 1: they're teenage girls and they need to be whipped and

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Speaker 1: they need to behave better um or you know, the

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Speaker 1: Department of Children's Services only gets involved in people's lives

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Speaker 1: and they just their only designed to harass people. That

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Speaker 1: that's kind of been her response from the beginning of

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Speaker 1: this entire situation, that teenage girls need to be whipped

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Speaker 1: words to that effect. Yes, ma'am oh oh Man, And

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Speaker 1: I know that you guys told me the dad Anthony

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Speaker 1: is in pest control and has to travel every day,

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Speaker 1: all day to different homes all over and he's not

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Speaker 1: in the home, and he did not know what was

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Speaker 1: happening while he was out at work. He did not.

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Speaker 1: In fact, he I was not there for this. But

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Speaker 1: when he was made aware, when the investigators made him aware, uh,

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Speaker 1: he practically had a meltdown. And he he of course

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Speaker 1: felt awful not having realized this, that it was going

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Speaker 1: on in his very home. And as soon as he

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Speaker 1: found out, he took all the action that any parents

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Speaker 1: would or should, and he's done great things since then.

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Speaker 1: So it's awful that this is now happening. Well, was

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth in the position where she had to testify against

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Speaker 1: her mother at juvenile um. She never did testify. As

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Speaker 1: far as I recall, we were able to avoid that.

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Speaker 1: There are certain rules concerning children's testimony and juvenile court proceedings,

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Speaker 1: and uh, none of the minor children had to testify

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Speaker 1: in that proceeding. I'm glad to hear that I did

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Speaker 1: a stint in juvenile in inner city Atlanta, and there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of ways to keep the child off this

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Speaker 1: stand in juvenile proceedings that wouldn't wash, they wouldn't fly

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Speaker 1: in big court, as we called it. I'm glad to

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Speaker 1: hear that. What did you make of the sighting? Oh,

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Speaker 1: let me thank our our sponsor today. I forgot to

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Speaker 1: do that at the beginning. Alan with us and sponsoring

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Speaker 1: our podcast today is crime Con. Crime con dot com

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Speaker 1: amateur to go down. It's happening in Indianapolis June nine

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Speaker 1: through June eleven. Allen and I will be there, many

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Speaker 1: many notable crime fighters will be there as well. Go

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Speaker 1: to crime con dot com and use the code word

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Speaker 1: Nancy to get twenty percent off your feet. Also with us,

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Speaker 1: Mr Whatley, question to you it's also on this case.

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Speaker 1: What did you make of the sighting that allegedly went

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Speaker 1: down in Corpus Is t Texas Nancy. At this juncture,

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Speaker 1: we're getting tips of the lead sightings UH in various

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Speaker 1: parts of the country. Uh. That was one that just

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Speaker 1: made national news. I mean, we're getting several others. It's

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Speaker 1: very difficult to know how to react because every single

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Speaker 1: time you you hear this, you want to make sure

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Speaker 1: that you follow up on it. You want to you

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Speaker 1: hope and pray that law enforcement is following up on it. Um.

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Speaker 1: It's really in a in a very real way, out

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Speaker 1: of the hands of the family. We've been personally involved

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Speaker 1: with uh with some of these a LAD sightings, and

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Speaker 1: we're personally following up ourselves. Were always making sure that

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Speaker 1: law enforcement is aware on so far, it looks as

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Speaker 1: though all of these have also called the tip line

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Speaker 1: for the t v I and so you know, we're

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Speaker 1: we're hopeful that investigation is is going forward and checking

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Speaker 1: these out because we're not the professionals here in terms

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Speaker 1: of doing these criminal investigations. UM, but but we're doing

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Speaker 1: that ourselves. So in terms of Corpus, see, you know,

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Speaker 1: we just don't know. I mean, we're very frustrated that

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Speaker 1: we don't have any concrete leads at this point, any

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Speaker 1: video tape from a convenience store or some other places

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Speaker 1: like that that shows Elizabeth or Tad Cummins and and

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Speaker 1: so we're just very frustrated, and we're hoping that some

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Speaker 1: of this national media attention will help generate UM some

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Speaker 1: legitimate sightings that can be verified. Let me ask you this,

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Speaker 1: and it's recently been discussed that there were romantic emails

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Speaker 1: on the school computer between Tag Cummins and Elizabeth. He

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Speaker 1: was using the school computer, and also a report that

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Speaker 1: at one on one occasion, Elizabeth actually hid from Tad

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Speaker 1: Cummins when he came looking for her. Is that true, Well,

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Speaker 1: we understand that it is true, UM. And further, something

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Speaker 1: you need to know and I'll get back to the

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Speaker 1: emails in a minute. We're learning that Elizabeth had opened

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Speaker 1: up to UM at least two of her siblings expressing

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Speaker 1: that she was afraid of Ted Cummings. And this was

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Speaker 1: in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. And so

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Speaker 1: the picture is forming that you know, this wasn't just

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Speaker 1: a girl who fantasized about an older man and ran away,

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Speaker 1: and and and and you know, this is a picture

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Speaker 1: that that some people are getting that is not the

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Speaker 1: picture we're getting. This is a girl who was conflicted,

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Speaker 1: who was scared, who who we believe very strongly did

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Speaker 1: not believe that she was going to be going anywhere

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Speaker 1: for any substantial length of time. She was under the

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Speaker 1: control of this man, we learned. We've learned now that

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Speaker 1: that literally, um, he actually had come by the house

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Speaker 1: several times when the father was not home, uh and

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Speaker 1: uh took her to lunch and even threatened her that

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Speaker 1: she had to go to lunch with him or she'd

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Speaker 1: get kicked out of his class, things of that nature.

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Speaker 1: These are things that we're learning day by day. New

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Speaker 1: information comes out. We also learned that according to the

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Speaker 1: young girl who took her to Showny's that morning, uh,

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Speaker 1: we're at least according to what she called UH one

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Speaker 1: or two of the sisters, um, that Elizabeth asked her

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Speaker 1: to take her back home that morning and did not

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Speaker 1: want to follow through with it, and uh the young

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Speaker 1: lady said she could not because she had to go

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Speaker 1: to work, and so she dropped her off at Showny's.

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Speaker 1: And so so we're learning more and more very disturbing

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Speaker 1: details that would go to Elizabeth's state of mind and

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Speaker 1: her fear of this man and is painting a very

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Speaker 1: different picture, in a grim picture. H and and uh

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Speaker 1: and obviously as the families just extremely terrified at this.

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Speaker 1: Let me understand something. You're saying that that morning before

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Speaker 1: she was taken by Tad Cummins, she asked a little

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Speaker 1: friend to take her home. According yes, according to our sources,

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Speaker 1: which right now are sisters of Elizabeth, they were told

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Speaker 1: that exact thing by the young girl who actually dropped

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Speaker 1: her off. And we're not in communication with with the

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Speaker 1: young girl at this time, but not in communication with her.

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Speaker 1: Her family sort of shut that down, as we understand

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Speaker 1: at this point, and we just don't have an open

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Speaker 1: line of communication with her. I wonder why she didn't

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Speaker 1: take her home. I mean, it could have been a

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Speaker 1: number of things. Maybe she didn't have time, maybe she

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Speaker 1: was going the other way, Maybe Elizabeth changed her mind.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, or maybe the little girl said, hey,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to mad at me. It could have

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Speaker 1: been anything. And you're stating that he also threatened if

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Speaker 1: she didn't go with him on a lunch date that

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Speaker 1: he kicked her out of class. Yes, that, again, all

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Speaker 1: this information is coming from siblings. Uh. In particular, there's

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Speaker 1: there's one sibling that really hasn't been questioned that much

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Speaker 1: at this point, if any who was very quiet and

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Speaker 1: shy and uh and and this is information that Elizabeth

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Speaker 1: was talking to them about between the time the kissing

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Speaker 1: incident came to surface, uh and when ultimately she disappeared.

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Speaker 1: I was just wondering, did the father Anthony notice, what

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Speaker 1: if any items were missing from the home. What clothing,

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Speaker 1: maybe her iPad, maybe c D S, maybe toiletrees she us,

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Speaker 1: what if anything is actually missing that belonged to Elizabeth? Well,

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Speaker 1: nothing of significant note, just standard clothing and not not

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Speaker 1: a lot of it, uh are from our perspective, she

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Speaker 1: did not take a significant amount of items that would

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Speaker 1: have represented a person who was leaving town. Um. And

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Speaker 1: so that's just that's our take of it at this point.

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Speaker 1: There's really nothing of significance that I know of, uh

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Speaker 1: that that would give us some indication that she was

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Speaker 1: planning a long stay or anything of that nature. I'm

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Speaker 1: really surprised she hasn't tried to get in touch with

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Speaker 1: her siblings, especially Sarah, the sister we are to um.

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Speaker 1: Our position would be that she's probably wanted to get

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Speaker 1: a hold of her siblings but has been unable to

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Speaker 1: do so. This is one of my fears and it's

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Speaker 1: come true. I knew it was gonna happen, but now

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Speaker 1: I can read it in black and white. There are

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Speaker 1: some comments on elizabeth story online and this person states

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Speaker 1: that it was already known and now it's confirmed they

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Speaker 1: were romantic. Why persist in calling it an abduction? People

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Speaker 1: don't get it. I mean, she as a child in

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Speaker 1: the eyes of the law. We already know that she

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Speaker 1: didn't want to go and she got roped into it.

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Speaker 1: She can't give consent to this. I mean, have I

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Speaker 1: missed something? Jason, listen, Nancy, you haven't missed anything. And

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Speaker 1: shocking to me. It's very frustrating. That angers me when

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Speaker 1: I hear that kind of talk, because that's ridiculous. She

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Speaker 1: was under his control um and he had worked on it.

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Speaker 1: This wasn't just that that she's under his control because

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Speaker 1: she was infatuated with or something like that. He worked

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Speaker 1: on her to program her. It is clear that he

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Speaker 1: had been working on her, softening her, molding her to

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Speaker 1: that will make her UM do what he wanted. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is a classic abduction, and anybody that suggests anything else,

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Speaker 1: I think they're just popping off. They don't know. But

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Speaker 1: when you study the facts and you hear what we're

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Speaker 1: talking about, and there's other stuff that I don't feel

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Speaker 1: comfortable even talking about on the air with you at

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Speaker 1: this point that we're hearing that suggests that Tad Cummins

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Speaker 1: had an extremely dark side and his motive was there

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Speaker 1: was obviously there was no purity to his motive. Obviously

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Speaker 1: he was in control of this girl, uh in a

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Speaker 1: in a way that's very very sinister, Allen. Have you

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Speaker 1: seen the report that she actually hid from him when

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Speaker 1: he came by her work. Where where did she work, Jason?

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Speaker 1: Where was her place of work? I didn't know she

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Speaker 1: had a job she worked at He worked at Chick

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Speaker 1: fil A? Oh, yeah, that's right. Actually I didn't know that.

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Speaker 1: So he comes by there and she actually hid from

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Speaker 1: him and begged people not to tell her teacher that

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Speaker 1: she was there. Man, Man, I mean, I don't know

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Speaker 1: how people could think this is a will in scenario.

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Speaker 1: Do you believe that police are monitoring the cell phones

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Speaker 1: and the home phones of all of her friends and

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Speaker 1: her family, her siblings. I think law enforcement is doing

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Speaker 1: everything that possibly can. I know they've been working extremely hard.

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Speaker 1: It's a statewide effort. You know, local law enfoicemen of

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Speaker 1: course is involved in it as well. UM. They they

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Speaker 1: are probing for information in ways that UM. Frankly, they

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Speaker 1: may not have much experience with UM in a case

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Speaker 1: like this, I know they're they're probably seeking help from

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Speaker 1: UM special agents who have experienced in in UM electronic

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Speaker 1: evidence or perhaps cyber crimes. UM. Of course, I don't

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Speaker 1: know the specifics of it of it, but UM that

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Speaker 1: that's what I think they're doing, and that's probably how

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Speaker 1: they were able to find out UM how UM Elizabeth

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Speaker 1: and Mr Crummins were communicating with each other via not

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Speaker 1: even via email, but via saved draft on Mr cummins

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Speaker 1: uh school email account. You know that that's information that,

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Speaker 1: of course is not readily available. You just pull up

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Speaker 1: your email history and there it is. It requires some

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Speaker 1: sort of forensic investigating that they're clearly undertaking right now. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: to save discarded or deleted items. Yeah, yeah, you know.

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Speaker 1: My My only question is why she would not try

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Speaker 1: and contact anybody in her family or any of her friends.

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Speaker 1: And I really believe that's got to be Tad Cummins

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Speaker 1: refusing to allow her to do that. What do you

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Speaker 1: think of that, Jason. I mean, obviously Tad Cummins is

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Speaker 1: in control of the situation, and so no one's ever

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Speaker 1: said he's stupid. He may be demented, but um, he's

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Speaker 1: not stupid. And so he's not going to allow this

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Speaker 1: girl to have access to a phone or to get

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Speaker 1: a phone from somebody. He's gonna have eyes on her

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Speaker 1: at all times because frankly, he knows his life depends

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Speaker 1: on it. And and so, um, that's just how I

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Speaker 1: see it. And uh, and I think that's how the

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Speaker 1: family sees it right now, that that he is going

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Speaker 1: to be watching her like a hawk because she is

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Speaker 1: uh uh, she is the number one witness against him obviously,

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Speaker 1: and so you know, it's it's it's hard to safety obvious.

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Speaker 1: I don't like to look at it that way, but

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Speaker 1: that's the truth. Now. The way this is working Alan

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Speaker 1: For instance, in one particular email, Tad Cummins compliments Elizabeth

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Speaker 1: on her body and then she writes a draft and

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Speaker 1: then they can delete it. They are sharing like a

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Speaker 1: school computer, and when you have a draft, typically that's

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Speaker 1: not saved. It's not like an email, see what I mean,

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Speaker 1: It's just not sent to someone's address, which would make

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Speaker 1: it harder to find if you didn't know about this

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Speaker 1: secret email. How Ever, it still sits on the computer.

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Speaker 1: When you type something on a school computer, it still

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Speaker 1: sits there, and as a result, that's how they found it.

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Speaker 1: So while it was clever, it was not clever enough

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Speaker 1: to to hide the romantic letters. Hey, re explain it, Alan,

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Speaker 1: explain it. Explain it again, how they did it if

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Speaker 1: you don't mind. And this is kind of a spy thing,

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Speaker 1: and of course you know Tad claims he was c

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Speaker 1: I a right. They establish an email address, which takes

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Speaker 1: about a minute to do on a number of services

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Speaker 1: for free, and you establish it and you share the

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Speaker 1: password with someone else, the log in information. If you

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Speaker 1: want to communicate with them, you type an email, but

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Speaker 1: save it as a draft and never send it. However,

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Speaker 1: later they can use the log in information to log

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Speaker 1: in and look in the draft folder and read it

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Speaker 1: as if they had received it in their own but

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Speaker 1: there's never a trail of it being sent to their

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Speaker 1: email address. So that is a surreptitious way of communicating.

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Speaker 1: Just imagining with me. Corey Richie and Jason Watley, the

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Speaker 1: lawyers representing the Thomas family just imagining pervy fifty year

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Speaker 1: old Tad come and hunched over the computer, coming up

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Speaker 1: with a way to trick the school administration so he

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Speaker 1: can write a little girl sexy or romantic emails. That

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Speaker 1: is just oh okay, alan uh. For those of you

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Speaker 1: that want to know more about the story, or want

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Speaker 1: to hear the latest, or have a tip or have information,

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Speaker 1: please go to crime Online. You'll see our tip number

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Speaker 1: and our email if you don't want to call in.

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Speaker 1: We're doing every single thing we can to help bring

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth home. The reality is he's got nothing to lose.

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Speaker 1: We believe he's armed, and this could go sideways at

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Speaker 1: any minute. To Jason Watley and Corey Richie gentleman, and

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Speaker 1: thank you, and God willing. When we are together again,

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Speaker 1: we'll have good news. Thank you, Thank you again. I

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Speaker 1: want to thank our sponsor making today's podcast possible, Crime

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Speaker 1: con dot Com. Go to their website and use our

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Speaker 1: code Nancy for off crime Sleuths. Amateur and Professional convene

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Speaker 1: June nine in Indianapolis. Please join Allen and I there

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Speaker 1: will be podcasting live and want you to join us. Hopefully,

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Speaker 1: when we all talk again, we'll have good news about

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Thomas, hopefully on her way home to her family.

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Speaker 1: Nancy Grace with crime Stories, signing off goodbye friend,