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Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where

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Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes we look at stories

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Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make

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Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In our last episode, where

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Speaker 1: the Bodies Lie, we looked at the tale of William

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Speaker 1: Burke and William Hare, who in the early nineteenth century

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Speaker 1: murdered sixteen people in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Westport Murders, as

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Speaker 1: they have come to be known, constitute perhaps the most

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Speaker 1: infamous murder spree in Scottish history. But what makes this

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Speaker 1: story especially interesting to me is the wider context within

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Speaker 1: which it occurred. Today we might refer to Burke and

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Speaker 1: Hare as serial murderers, but in many ways this label

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Speaker 1: masks what was really at play. It is impossible to

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Speaker 1: speculate whether these two men would have gone on to

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Speaker 1: commit similar crimes, or indeed if they had murdered before.

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Speaker 1: But what is known in the case of the murders

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Speaker 1: in question is that there were a product of market

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Speaker 1: forces as much as anything else. In other words, the

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Speaker 1: Westport Murders of what happens when financial desperation converges with

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Speaker 1: an illicit but desperate demand thinking more about it, these

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Speaker 1: murders brought to mind a very modern equivalent. One evening

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Speaker 1: in August two and thirteen in the town of Fenchee

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Speaker 1: in North China, six year old Binbin was playing outside

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Speaker 1: his home while his mother tidied up after dinner. When

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Speaker 1: it was time to call him back inside, however, the

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Speaker 1: boy was no longer there. Having checked the house and

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Speaker 1: found no sign of him there either, the woman and

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Speaker 1: her husband began frantically searching the nearby streets as other

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Speaker 1: relatives joined in to help. They searched for three hours

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Speaker 1: until one of them was alerted by the sound of

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Speaker 1: a child's pained cries coming from a nearby field. Racing

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Speaker 1: to the source of the cry, the parents found their

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Speaker 1: son alive, but clearly in extreme distress, with his face

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Speaker 1: covered in blood. Gathering him up, they rushed immediately to

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Speaker 1: the nearest hospital, telling the doctor that he must have

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Speaker 1: somehow fallen over and hurt himself. The boy appeared to

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Speaker 1: be bleeding from his eyes, peeling back the lids, the

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Speaker 1: doctor was horrified to discover that his eyes were no

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Speaker 1: longer there. The boy later revealed that somebody had abducted him,

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Speaker 1: telling him when he started to cry. If he stayed quiet,

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Speaker 1: they wouldn't gouge out his eyes, only to do exactly that.

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Speaker 1: The young boy was thought by police to have been

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Speaker 1: just the next in a long line of victims in

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Speaker 1: an ever growing black market trade for organs. In China alone,

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Speaker 1: it's estimated that roughly three hundred thousand people will require

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Speaker 1: an organ donation of one kind or another, yet only

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Speaker 1: ten thousand will be able to find one due to

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Speaker 1: a drastic shortage of donors. In two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 1: Mohammed Salim Khan, from the town of mere Route in

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Speaker 1: northern India was working as a laborer, earning on average

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Speaker 1: two dollars a day. Most days, Khan would head down

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Speaker 1: to a local street corner where site managers would look

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Speaker 1: to recruit builders for any work that needed doing. One morning,

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Speaker 1: having been waiting for some time without any luck, Karn

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Speaker 1: was approached by a man asking if he'd be interested

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Speaker 1: in taking a three month job in Delhi, located some

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Speaker 1: eighty miles away, for three dollars a day. In a

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Speaker 1: country that, despite its great wealth, still has around three

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty million people surviving on a dollar a day,

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Speaker 1: it was a difficult offer to turn down. After making

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Speaker 1: his own way to Delhi, Khan arrived at the contact

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Speaker 1: address he had been given, only to then be taken

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Speaker 1: to another address in the town of Gurgwn, just over

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Speaker 1: the border in the next state. Khn was then led

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Speaker 1: into a building in which two armed men were waiting

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Speaker 1: to receive him for the next two weeks. Kahn was

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Speaker 1: refused permission to leave. However, since he was being well

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Speaker 1: fed and promised that he would still be paid for

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Speaker 1: his time, Kahn felt he had no reason to complain

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Speaker 1: until one day, when, having strangely not being given any food.

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Speaker 1: That morning, someone came to take his blood. When Karn

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Speaker 1: inquired what it was for, another pointed a gun at

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Speaker 1: his head and told him not to ask questions if

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Speaker 1: he wanted to live. A short time later, someone else

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Speaker 1: arrived to administer an injection. When Karn protested, he was

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Speaker 1: told not to worry and that it was good for him.

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Speaker 1: Khan watched with alarm as the needle went in. A

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Speaker 1: soft chill rushed through his body and into his head,

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Speaker 1: and then everything went black. The next thing Karn remembered

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Speaker 1: was coming around in a bed with the sense of

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Speaker 1: someone standing over him and a horrific pain in his

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Speaker 1: back as his eyes adjusted, that someone became a man

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Speaker 1: in a surgical mask. Your kidney has been removed, he said.

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Speaker 1: If you tell anyone, we will find you and shoot.

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Speaker 1: Carn took a moment to process it all. Then clushed

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Speaker 1: at his side. Pulling up his shirt, he discovered a

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Speaker 1: large piece of wadding taped to his body, and underneath

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Speaker 1: it a ten inch red raw incision stitched together by

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Speaker 1: thick surgical thread. Cahn, whose work supported five children, his

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Speaker 1: mother and two sisters, was later told by doctors he

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Speaker 1: would never be able to work as a laborer again,

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Speaker 1: and he received nothing for his kidney. Are you always

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Speaker 1: taking care of your family? Do you often take care

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Speaker 1: of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take

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Speaker 1: care of yourself, to make time for you. You deserve it.

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Speaker 1: Tele adoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to

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Speaker 1: help you get back to feeling your best, to feeling

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Speaker 1: like yourself again. With tele adoc, you can speak to

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Speaker 1: a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments are

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Speaker 1: available seven days a week from seven am to nine

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Speaker 1: pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed sometimes maybe you

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Speaker 1: feel stressed or anxious, depressed, or lonely, or you might

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Speaker 1: be struggling with a personal or family issue. Teledoc can help.

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Speaker 1: Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they

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Speaker 1: make it easy to change counselors if needed. For free,

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Speaker 1: teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download

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Speaker 1: the app or visit teledoc dot com forward slash Unexplained

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Speaker 1: podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com Slash

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Speaker 1: Unexplained Podcast. Mohammed Khan had been the victim of a

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Speaker 1: long running and wide ranging organ harvesting ring led by

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Speaker 1: a man calling himself doctor Amit Kumar at the time.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, Kumar, who was then known as

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Speaker 1: doctor Santosh Rout was arrested for similar offenses, but later

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Speaker 1: jumped bail before changing his name and re establishing his

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Speaker 1: criminal network. Officers, reacting to a tip off from one

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Speaker 1: of doctor Kumar's recruiters, raided the operation's headquarters just days

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Speaker 1: after Mohammed Khan's kidney was stolen from him. Unfortunately, Kumar

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Speaker 1: was able to escape and remains at large today. What

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Speaker 1: they did find, however, was evidence that the operation as

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Speaker 1: is often found to be the case with similar operations

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Speaker 1: had infiltrated much of the legitimate healthcare industry, with many

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Speaker 1: individuals in Delhi's medical community thought to be aware of

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Speaker 1: what was going on. As was pointed out in a

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Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen Newsweek article written by Jason Overdorff,

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Speaker 1: such crimes are often very hard to prosecute, as many

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Speaker 1: of the victims are seen to have entered into the

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Speaker 1: arrangement willingly, with extremety, forcing them to accept money for

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Speaker 1: their organs. Since this effectively makes them part of the

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Speaker 1: criminal venture, they are often unwilling to reveal their involvement

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Speaker 1: to the police. As Jason Overdorff stated, doctor Kumar's network

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Speaker 1: was thought to have involved at least four doctors, five nurses,

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Speaker 1: twenty paramedics, three private hospitals, ten pathology clinics, and five

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Speaker 1: diagnostic centers. Though in this instance the crimes were perpetrated

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Speaker 1: in China and India, respectively, they are servicing an international demand.

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Speaker 1: At the end of the chain will inevitably be a

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Speaker 1: wealthy individual from virtually anywhere in the world, driven by

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Speaker 1: their own desperation to live or to save the life

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Speaker 1: of a loved one. According to recent figures at organ

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Speaker 1: DONA dot gov. In the US, over one hundred and

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Speaker 1: thirteen thousand people are currently on the National Transplant waiting List,

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Speaker 1: with one being added every ten minutes, and of that number,

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Speaker 1: twenty will die each day still waiting for a donor.

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Speaker 1: With statistics like that, there is no wonder that a

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Speaker 1: thriving black market has developed to service the shortfall. Recent

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Speaker 1: statistics from the World Health Organization suggest that as many

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Speaker 1: as eleven thousand organs are trafficked and sold on the

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Speaker 1: black market throughout the world each year, with the average

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Speaker 1: buyer thought to spend in the region of one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars, and the average donor, if they

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Speaker 1: are lucky enough to get anything at all, pocketing just

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Speaker 1: over three percent of that for their efforts. If you

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Speaker 1: enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters,

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Speaker 1: you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com forward

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Speaker 1: slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small,

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Speaker 1: are massively appreciated. All elements have Unexplained are produced by

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Speaker 1: me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show

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Speaker 1: on iTunes and feel free to get in touch with

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Speaker 1: any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on

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Speaker 1: the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own

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Speaker 1: you'd like to share. You can reach us online at

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Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and

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Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward slash Unexplained Now, it's

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Speaker 1: time to take care of yourself. To make time for you.

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Speaker 1: Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help

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Speaker 1: you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a

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Speaker 1: licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am

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Speaker 1: to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc

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Speaker 1: Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the

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