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Speaker 1: Forty one Action News dig steeper and gets the answers

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Speaker 1: about what happens to Adrian. Jump Investigator Jessica McMaster now

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Speaker 1: uncovered exclusive evidence. He was just a typical little boy,

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Speaker 1: just full of life. Adrian's dad and step mom abused

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Speaker 1: him for months. He just had the most amazing smile.

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Speaker 1: His whole face smiled when he smiled never before seeing.

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Speaker 1: Video takes us inside Adrian's last moment, and you can

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Speaker 1: see the look of nothing in his eyes. This is

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Speaker 1: Carme Stories with Nancy Grace and what prosecutors call the

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Speaker 1: most heinous crime they've ever seen. As soon as I

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Speaker 1: opened eye cloud, I saw pictures of Adrian and his abuse.

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Speaker 1: So you eat out of the trash? Could you keep

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Speaker 1: on getting cold? Could youre outside? In this video you

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Speaker 1: can hear heather and harsh words towards Adrian and a

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Speaker 1: lack of compassion for a desperate little boy. The last

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Speaker 1: days and hours of Adrian's life spent stripped and confined

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Speaker 1: to a shower stall, left outside overnight to stand in

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Speaker 1: a filthy pool. The boy who was fed two pigs,

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Speaker 1: The boy who was fed two pigs. You know, when

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Speaker 1: I was in law school, I went to law school,

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Speaker 1: specifically to become a felony prosecutor. I thought I had

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Speaker 1: seen the worst of the worst, but I never thought

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Speaker 1: I would put those words into one sentence, the boy

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Speaker 1: who was fed to pigs, And it reminds me of

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Speaker 1: the first time I guess it was a rape or

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Speaker 1: a rape slash murder case I prosecuted, and the words

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Speaker 1: the defendant had used at the time of the incident,

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Speaker 1: the crime words I had never said out loud before ever,

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Speaker 1: Such horrible, horrible curse words, just horrible slurs on women,

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Speaker 1: just awful using the lord's name in vain. And I

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Speaker 1: remember in my opening statement standing up in front of

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Speaker 1: the jury and letting it fly, the F word, the

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Speaker 1: C word, the P word. The only thing I got

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Speaker 1: hung up on was like, could not say the lord's

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Speaker 1: name in vain. But you know what's bad about that

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Speaker 1: was then the second time I had to say it

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Speaker 1: kind of rolled off my tongue. Then the third time,

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Speaker 1: in the fourth time, and at the end of ten years,

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Speaker 1: you know, I was numb to it until I, you know,

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Speaker 1: had the twins and I didn't want them to hear

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Speaker 1: that kind of language. But these words here, the boy

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Speaker 1: that was fed to pigs. It's still tastes bad in

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Speaker 1: my mouth to say it. I Nancy Grace, this is

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Speaker 1: Crime Stories, and with me today is an incredible guest.

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Speaker 1: Our guest is Kansas City reporter Jessica McMaster with k

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Speaker 1: s h BE Channel forty one, and awesome reporter who,

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Speaker 1: like many of us, has had to wade through the

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Speaker 1: muck every day, hopefully wearing hit boots so you don't

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Speaker 1: bring it home and get it on your living room,

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Speaker 1: so on your sofa or your carpet. She is the

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Speaker 1: reporter who did this incredible three part series of this

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Speaker 1: little Boy his last months on Earth and her investigation

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Speaker 1: of an apparent de Facts Department Family Children's Services cover up.

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Speaker 1: And because of Jessica McMaster's hard work, we learn the

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Speaker 1: state legislator later is considering Adrian's Law to change how

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Speaker 1: defects works. In response to Jessica McMasters reporting, Jessica, I'm

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Speaker 1: so happy to meet you, even though it's only over

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Speaker 1: the airwaves and under horrible conditions. One day I'd like

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Speaker 1: to meet you and sit down and have a cup

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Speaker 1: of tea with you. Thank you for being with us. Likewise,

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Speaker 1: thank you, Nancy. It's good to good to be able

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Speaker 1: to talk with you. I'm just a little overwhelmed at

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Speaker 1: the incredible change that you are bringing about in this world,

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Speaker 1: which is so woefully in need of change. I want

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Speaker 1: to talk to you about this little boy. Tell me

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Speaker 1: about your investigation of Adrian Jones. This goes back to

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Speaker 1: November two thousand fifteen. I was actually pregnant, very pregnant

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Speaker 1: with my daughter when we got news that came over

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Speaker 1: the scanners that police had gone out to a home

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Speaker 1: in Kansas City, Kansas and found a child's remains. I

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Speaker 1: remember that day. We're just, you know, reporter mode. You're

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Speaker 1: just you're getting all the information you can, You're trying

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Speaker 1: to learn more. At that time, we didn't have any

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Speaker 1: idea who this person was, who this little boy was,

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Speaker 1: and what he had lived through. But then slowly we

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Speaker 1: started to learn that he had been abused by his

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Speaker 1: father and stepmother and that eventually he was killed by

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Speaker 1: them and his lifeless body was tossed in a livestock pen.

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Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you something, Jessica. People that have

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Speaker 1: not been on farms don't get it, and nor should they.

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Speaker 1: But when you say you are a pig, if you

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Speaker 1: have ever been around pigs. No offense to our piggy friends,

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Speaker 1: but they are disgusting and they are sometimes huge, they

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Speaker 1: will eat anything, and a lot of times on farms

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Speaker 1: they have them living in muck, like in mud. Kind

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Speaker 1: of it's horrible. I mean for people. The pigs apparently

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Speaker 1: love it, but for people. And I'm looking at this picture,

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Speaker 1: one picture specifically, and he has on a little white

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Speaker 1: hat and he as smiling this beautiful smile. That's my

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Speaker 1: favorite picture of him. And it's a soccer T shirt.

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Speaker 1: And he's so beautiful in this photo. If you told

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Speaker 1: me he was a girl, I would believe it. He

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Speaker 1: has the most beautiful little features. Now, when my son

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Speaker 1: was a baby, Jessica, I thought he's just beautiful. I

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Speaker 1: thought he and Lucy were equally beautiful, like a little seriously,

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Speaker 1: a little angel. This little guy looks much like that.

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Speaker 1: A beautiful little nose, a gorgeous little bow for a mouth.

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Speaker 1: His eyebrows are just perfectly like someone painted him on.

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Speaker 1: And not that all children are beautiful, this just gets

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Speaker 1: just beautiful. It's just having a hard time, fink. He's

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Speaker 1: easy to fall in love with that. Someone fed this

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Speaker 1: kid pigs, put him in a pig Stye, what happened?

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Speaker 1: Why would they do this? Jessica, I don't think that

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Speaker 1: will ever know, And that's honestly. I think it's the

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Speaker 1: hardest part for us, and it's really been the hardest

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Speaker 1: part for our viewers because you give him this information

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Speaker 1: and a normal everyday person tries to rationalize it. You

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Speaker 1: try to make sense of it because you need an answer.

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Speaker 1: You need to be able to rectify this, but you can't.

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Speaker 1: There's no good reason for it. You know, there's he

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Speaker 1: was the only boy you know, but you there's just

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Speaker 1: there's really no way of knowing how anyone or why

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Speaker 1: anyone would do anything like this. I wish we could

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Speaker 1: give people that answer. I wish I had that answer

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Speaker 1: so that I could sleep. I don't know if this

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Speaker 1: happens to you, but I wish I could forget this.

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Speaker 1: I wish I could erase this in my mind. I

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Speaker 1: wish I never knew about it. But the thing is,

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Speaker 1: now I do know about it, and I asked myself

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Speaker 1: every single day, what am I going to do about it? Now?

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Speaker 1: I know? Right, here's the problem. Instead of whining about

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Speaker 1: it and crying about it, What am I going to

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Speaker 1: do about it? That's what I need to know right now, Jessica.

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Speaker 1: I'm overwhelmed at how you dug into the story. So

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Speaker 1: you go out on a story and for all you

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Speaker 1: all you know essentially is that his remains were found.

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Speaker 1: You go out there and you find what do you discover?

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Speaker 1: I want to hear how your investigation unfold. This has

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Speaker 1: been something that I've been working on, like I said,

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Speaker 1: for about a year and a half. And what you

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Speaker 1: just start collecting little pieces of information. You have former

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Speaker 1: babysitters telling you that they witnessed him having to stand

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Speaker 1: for long periods of time with his hands in the air,

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Speaker 1: and it made them uncomfortable and they thought that it

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Speaker 1: was too extreme. And then they say, you know that

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Speaker 1: they called Child's Services because they were concerned. One babysitter

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Speaker 1: tells me that she was there when child Services visited

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Speaker 1: the home, you know, So then you talk to her.

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Speaker 1: And then I got in touch with Adrian's grandmother, Judy Conway,

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Speaker 1: and I had been talking with her off and on.

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Speaker 1: And I also talked to the woman who owned the

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Speaker 1: home that the Jones has lived in, and she was

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Speaker 1: a key person in getting us the information that we

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Speaker 1: really needed because the Joneses had surveillance cameras in every

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Speaker 1: room of the house. They watched Adrian's every move and

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Speaker 1: aside from that, they also documented his abuse. For whatever reason,

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Speaker 1: they would just it was like they were proud of

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Speaker 1: what they were doing to him, and Heather uploaded it

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Speaker 1: to her eye cloud account. Grandmother starts telling me that

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Speaker 1: there's video of this, and she has it, and there's photos,

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Speaker 1: and that's not something we got from her right away.

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Speaker 1: Mike was supposed to go to trial, but he ended

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Speaker 1: up pleading a week before that occurred, so they didn't

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Speaker 1: really want to talk until that had happened. Once Mike

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Speaker 1: decided that he was going to plead um, they came

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Speaker 1: to me and said, you know, I have this information.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about it. So we

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Speaker 1: went in and we sat down with grandma and the homeowner,

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Speaker 1: and then as some time passed, they decided that it

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Speaker 1: would be important to share those photos and videos with us.

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Speaker 1: And then, you know, we put a lot of thought

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Speaker 1: into what we were going to share with our viewers,

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Speaker 1: and it was a lot. It was a really tough

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Speaker 1: decision because you didn't you knew how traumatic it was

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Speaker 1: for us to see it and how devastating it was

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Speaker 1: too to see images of Adrian with handcuffs on and

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Speaker 1: left outside, for him to have to stand overnight in

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Speaker 1: a filthy pool that the family would use, and he

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Speaker 1: wasn't fed, and just horrific, horrific stuff that you can't

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Speaker 1: even make up in your wildest nightmares. And so that's

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Speaker 1: how it really all unfolded. And when you were watching

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Speaker 1: these videos, we just found out exactly what they did

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Speaker 1: to him. And then we also discovered that there was

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Speaker 1: another adult living in the home, because you can see

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Speaker 1: him in the video and you can see Adrian hiding

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Speaker 1: from that adult. So there was all this information, and

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Speaker 1: then we of course have been trying to get his

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Speaker 1: records from Kansas Department of Children and Families ever since

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Speaker 1: he died. You know, in the state of Kansas, there's

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Speaker 1: a law that states, you know, after a child's death

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Speaker 1: or you know, a near fatality, that information becomes a

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Speaker 1: matter of public record. So but we what we found

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Speaker 1: is that information is rarely being released. These children who

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Speaker 1: are abused and nearly killed or killed just kind of

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Speaker 1: wind up in a file and their stories are never told,

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Speaker 1: and there's really no accountability for this public agency. You

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Speaker 1: know it's I have been screaming this with me, is

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Speaker 1: Jessica McMasters incredible reporter. I have been screaming about de

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Speaker 1: Facts Department, Family Children's Services, uh CPS, Child Protective Services.

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Speaker 1: There are different names across the country. They held accountable

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Speaker 1: for dropping the ball and not doing their job and

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Speaker 1: chill ldren dying. Jessica make Masters telling me that Defects

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Speaker 1: was in the home and they let the child stay

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Speaker 1: there until the child is killed and fed to pigs.

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Speaker 1: I don't like saying it, but this is the truth.

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Speaker 1: And what is going to happen to those DEFECTS workers.

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Speaker 1: They just go right along, fat, dumb and happy like

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Speaker 1: nothing happened. That is not okay. It's not okay. Your

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Speaker 1: report blows the lid off of it. You know. I

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Speaker 1: have been yelling about this for since when I went

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Speaker 1: on the air at Court TV. I don't know why

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Speaker 1: no one wants to hold them responsible. This child is

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Speaker 1: dead because of the parents, the father and the stepmother,

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Speaker 1: and because Defects look the other way. Why did they

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Speaker 1: leave him in the home, Jessica, I wish we knew,

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Speaker 1: but we still don't. We don't have the file. You know,

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Speaker 1: that's one of the things that we need. That's one

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Speaker 1: of the things that Adrian's grandmother really needs. I mean,

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Speaker 1: she'll tell you there's there's no closure, there's no fixing

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Speaker 1: what happened to her grandson, but to know exactly how

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Speaker 1: many calls were placed, you know, so you know, a

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Speaker 1: judge sealed the file. But there's various reasons why these

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Speaker 1: We found that these files aren't being released because we

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Speaker 1: put in a generic request for Since the law was enacted,

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Speaker 1: how many media outlets have put in a request for

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Speaker 1: cases like Adrian And of fifteen requests we've found two,

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Speaker 1: only two have ever been fulfilled. So despite the law,

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Speaker 1: what is the number we can call? What is a

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Speaker 1: website we can go to to let our voices be heard?

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Speaker 1: This is a horrific discovery. Police called to a home

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Speaker 1: in Kansas City, Kansas for a domestic dispute. Wow. Can

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Speaker 1: you imagine that When they get there, a woman tells

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Speaker 1: them if they look around, they'll find the remains of

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Speaker 1: a little child. Officers find a seven year old little

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Speaker 1: boy remains in a pig pen. He lived at the

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Speaker 1: home with six brothers and sisters, his father and stepmother,

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Speaker 1: Heather Jones, and the community really didn't know much about

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Speaker 1: the children because the parents had kept them away under

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Speaker 1: the disguise the pretense that they were being home schooled. Well,

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Speaker 1: Jessica McMasters didn't take it at face value, and she

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Speaker 1: continued to dig. This story made headlines all around the world.

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Speaker 1: What's amazing is that not only would they abuse the child,

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Speaker 1: they would take pictures in video of what they were doing.

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Speaker 1: That that's amazing. As soon as cops opened up and

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Speaker 1: eye cloud, they find pictures of the abuse. It's awful

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Speaker 1: and it was right there House of horrors, as Jessica

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Speaker 1: was just saying, cameras in every room. They monitored the boys,

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Speaker 1: every move they documented as his health deteriorated, like they

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Speaker 1: were proud of what they were doing to them. How

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Speaker 1: is this effect of the other children? And where are they?

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Speaker 1: The other children right now are in foster care. Grandma

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Speaker 1: does have some contact with them, and I think that

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Speaker 1: they're going to therapy and and doing the best they can.

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Speaker 1: But I don't know how you can see this because

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Speaker 1: there is evidence that they witnessed Adrian's abuse and be

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Speaker 1: the same. I'm not the same hearing about it, so

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Speaker 1: living under that roof, I just can't imagine what that

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Speaker 1: must be like to try and cope with that and

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Speaker 1: move on from that and make sense of what mom

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Speaker 1: and dad did. There are pictures of him looking gaunt

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Speaker 1: and malnourished. In one video, you see someone crack open

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Speaker 1: the little boy's face with a broomstick. Outside surveillance shows

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Speaker 1: and I haven't even been able to bring myself to

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Speaker 1: watch it. The little boy's hands and feet handcuffed, and

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Speaker 1: he's forced to stay outside, and he's looking around like

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Speaker 1: he knows he's being watched, and he tries to use

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Speaker 1: his mouth to pick up what looks like a bowl

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Speaker 1: and eat what was in it. The stepmother comes out,

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Speaker 1: starts lecturing him and telling the other children, Adrian's eating

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Speaker 1: a bowl of apple sauce that has bugs and dirt

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Speaker 1: in it. Why are you doing that? It just goes

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Speaker 1: on and on. I just can't even look at it.

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Speaker 1: I can't even look at it anymore. Tell me about

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Speaker 1: the bill, Tell me what Kansas is going to do

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Speaker 1: to change this. Very early so, the day after our

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Speaker 1: three part series aired, uh, I went to the our

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Speaker 1: state's capital and I just started talking to any and

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Speaker 1: every lawmaker I could find, and many of them actually

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Speaker 1: were very receptive with the issues with our story, the

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Speaker 1: issue of not being able to get their records. The

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Speaker 1: part that they really responded to was that other adults

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Speaker 1: seemed to maybe have known about what was happening to Adrian,

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Speaker 1: and yet we still all know how this ended. And

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Speaker 1: so they were really responsive to the fact that there

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Speaker 1: was another adult living in the home. And so one

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Speaker 1: state representative said, I'm going to introduce a bill tomorrow

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Speaker 1: that says, if you're an adult living in a home

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Speaker 1: where a child is being abused, you are required to

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Speaker 1: report that abuse and you can be held criminally responsible

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Speaker 1: because right now, you know, there's the Mandatory Reporter law,

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Speaker 1: which includes professionals, you know, teachers, doctors, nurses, people like that,

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Speaker 1: but it doesn't include any other adults or any other

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Speaker 1: family member other than mom and dad. So so that's

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Speaker 1: the first step. They are listening to the issues with DCF,

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Speaker 1: with not being able to get those records released, and

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Speaker 1: I know that there's a state senator who's looking into that,

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Speaker 1: and she has the research department looking into that. Because,

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Speaker 1: as you know, they got to do their research because

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Speaker 1: they wanted to pass and they got to figure out

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Speaker 1: how to write up the bill. And how to introduce it.

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Speaker 1: So we haven't gotten there quite yet with that portion,

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Speaker 1: but that's the goal. The first step is just who's

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Speaker 1: in the home. I don't think it's that far fetched

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Speaker 1: because teachers and educators are under a deity to report abuse,

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Speaker 1: and you stand by and let a child be abused

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Speaker 1: this way. I I had to close down the story.

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Speaker 1: It was hurting me so much to look at that

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Speaker 1: picture of him out being forced in the water, to

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Speaker 1: stand out in the water overnight with his head poking

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Speaker 1: up above the water, and they would take pictures of it.

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Speaker 1: I usually don't say this, but I'm glad he's in

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Speaker 1: heaven now because it's better than where he was. A

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Speaker 1: lot of people are saying that. And since law enforcement

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Speaker 1: didn't know what was happening and de facts did nothing

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Speaker 1: to save the boy, had the rest of his life

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Speaker 1: would have been like this until he would be tortured

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Speaker 1: for how many more years and then die. So I

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Speaker 1: would rather just die now than be tortured for a

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Speaker 1: couple of more years and then die, Rather go on

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Speaker 1: to My Holy Father than than stay and what his

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Speaker 1: life was. I just don't understand how Defects dropped the ball,

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Speaker 1: why they didn't take him out of the home. But

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Speaker 1: you know what I learned, Jessica, I was about five

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Speaker 1: years into it. You've taught me a lot. Maybe I

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Speaker 1: can teach you something I learned the hard way. Five

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Speaker 1: years into prosecuting an inner city Atlanta, and I would

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Speaker 1: torture myself about why, why, why why? And finally I

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Speaker 1: said why, ask why? Why? Ask why? Stop asking why?

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Speaker 1: Because I'm never gonna know why people do the horrible

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Speaker 1: things they do. I'll never understand it, and I'll just

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Speaker 1: torture myself trying to fee gure it out. But what

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Speaker 1: I can do is change it or try to change it,

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Speaker 1: which is what you are doing. You have to because

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Speaker 1: you're right. Otherwise you're just left being tormented. Jessica. Please

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Speaker 1: tell our listeners where they can find your reporting, and

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Speaker 1: it's fairly easy if you just go to k S HB.

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Speaker 1: That's k S is in sam h B as in

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Speaker 1: boy dot com. If you scroll down the page and

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Speaker 1: click on the investigator's tab, you'll find our series under

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Speaker 1: there with the rest of our investigations, and the stories

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Speaker 1: are all linked to each other. As my father always said,

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Speaker 1: believe you me, I will be calling that number. I

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Speaker 1: will be hitting that website because I do not want

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Speaker 1: this beautiful boy's death to be in vain. And hopefully

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Speaker 1: the Kansas legislature will get off their rear ends and

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Speaker 1: do something and I will leave it at that. And

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Speaker 1: we actually have those links in the story to our

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Speaker 1: how you can contact our kinds legislatures, legislators. There are

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Speaker 1: the links are writing the story there, Jessica McMasters, thank

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Speaker 1: you for being with us. Nancy Grace Crime Stories, signing off,

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Speaker 1: goodbye friend,