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Speaker 1: Previously on Hello John Doe.

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Speaker 2: So we had this missy person case Philip Brandenburg, and

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Speaker 2: now Philips is identified and he's really a real person

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Speaker 2: and he was really born, and it would just set

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Speaker 2: such an amazing feeling.

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Speaker 3: I knew the whole time. It just in my mind,

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Speaker 3: in my heart. I knew that that test was don't

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Speaker 3: come back positive.

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Speaker 1: You blew their minds. Yeah you did. You wasn't supposed

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Speaker 1: to be here, but you were.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Well I chose him. If he hadn't been born,

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Speaker 4: I wouldn't have got him. I couldn't love him anymore,

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Speaker 4: with his mind or not.

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Speaker 1: I was very worried and through the whole process, because

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Speaker 1: you know, it changes a person when you find out

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Speaker 1: so many crazy things. To find their birth mother, some

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Speaker 1: adoptees have to look through paperwork, housed and musty warehouses,

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Speaker 1: or they have to make lots of calls to adoption agencies.

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Speaker 1: But for Steve Patterson, once we had proven he was

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Speaker 1: really Philip Stephen Brandenburgh, finding his original mom was as

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Speaker 1: easy as getting on Facebook.

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Speaker 3: And I texted her and that's when she said she

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Speaker 3: had been looking for me for all these years. And

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Speaker 3: then she finally found her long lost son stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: Her long lost son looking for him. That didn't make

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Speaker 1: a look of sense to Steve.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it was boring to find out who my

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Speaker 3: mom was too, on my biological mom. But I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: He found her so quickly online. Couldn't she have done

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Speaker 1: the same, After all, she must have known Mary's last name, right.

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Speaker 1: Steve didn't know what to think about Sandy at first,

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Speaker 1: but he did want to find out why she gave

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Speaker 1: him up. You want to find your father, right, or

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Speaker 1: at least know who you know who he is? For

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Speaker 1: us to at least find out, Yeah, that would be

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Speaker 1: pretty cool.

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Speaker 3: I think that's one of my biggest things.

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Speaker 1: But in twenty twenty one, he worked up the courage.

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Speaker 1: He was wishing Sandy have your mother's stay on Facebook

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Speaker 1: and he wrote, Hey mom, who is my dad? I

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Speaker 1: imagine him holding his breath as he clicked in, wondering

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Speaker 1: if Sandy would respond. And then Sandy did respond. She

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Speaker 1: wrote I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you, and.

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Speaker 3: I got angry and I text her I probably shouldn't have.

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Speaker 3: I was like, I just don't know who my dad is.

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Speaker 3: Can you not tell me who my dad is and

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Speaker 3: she was like, I can't remember.

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Speaker 1: She presumably had a one night stand with someone and

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Speaker 1: got pregnant, but she didn't have specifics up until then.

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Speaker 1: I think there was a part of Steed that had

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Speaker 1: been looking for a fairy tale reunion with this mom

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Speaker 1: and dad, something satisfying, something that made sense to him.

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Speaker 1: But this he couldn't cope with being the result of

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Speaker 1: a fleeing to Steve. I think it took on additional

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Speaker 1: weight that maybe Sandy didn't want him in the first place.

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Speaker 3: And I hadn't really talked to her since well, I mean,

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Speaker 3: I ask her Sevil times. I think everybody's got an origin,

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Speaker 3: and I would just like to know, you know where

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Speaker 3: up again. I'm not at all sad or disappointing of

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Speaker 3: how I grew up, but I just I don't know.

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Speaker 3: It's just it is a big deal to.

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Speaker 1: Me, and enough for him to reconsider everything. He wasn't

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Speaker 1: sure anymore if he wanted to keep getting to know Sandy,

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Speaker 1: why should he meet her if she wasn't going to

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Speaker 1: give him answers for Mary, his adoptive mama. None of

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Speaker 1: this was much of a surprise.

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Speaker 4: There's no way she know who Steve's daddy is because,

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Speaker 4: like my mom always told me, you get up turned

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Speaker 4: around through a briar patch, which one amedbriar stuck you.

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Speaker 4: They ain't no way you could know who his daddy was.

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Speaker 1: The not knowing nagged at Steve. He took to drinking

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Speaker 1: more than usual. He'd gone all this way almost fifty years,

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Speaker 1: and once he got to the end of the tunnel

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Speaker 1: and found Sandy, he didn't find what he was looking for.

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Speaker 3: I'll talk true, maybe maybe ten or twelve times. I

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Speaker 3: mean she'll text me Happy Birthday and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: You want a relationship with her at all? I mean,

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Speaker 1: would you like to have that?

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Speaker 3: I don't know. That's I don't know. Maybe I could

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Speaker 3: answer that question better once I'll find out why she

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Speaker 3: gave me up. If that makes sense, that's just me.

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Speaker 3: Maybe later I'm down the road again, revisit that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, but to me, it's Sandy. Sandy didn't feel

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Speaker 1: the same way she wanted to know Steve. His adoptive mother,

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Speaker 1: Mary confirmed that she.

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Speaker 4: Keeps begging me and I want text her back, please

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Speaker 4: have Steve come see me, And I said it's up

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Speaker 4: to him, as not my cult.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just Steve. You had questions. I'd come up

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Speaker 1: with some of my own through the years. Remember I've

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Speaker 1: been looking for him for almost twenty years. I needed

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Speaker 1: to lay some things to rest, and this woman, Sandy Brandyburg,

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Speaker 1: held the keys to a lot of my questions. When

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Speaker 1: I first heard about this family, I couldn't stop thinking

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Speaker 1: about their two boys and Sandy not only was she

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Speaker 1: Steve's mother, she was also the great mother of the

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Speaker 1: other missing boy, the schoolboy named Michael, who disappeared in

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Speaker 1: the mid nineties. As I've told you, a serial killer

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Speaker 1: named Franklin Floyd tore this family apart. He wormed his

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Speaker 1: way in by Mary and Sandy when she is in

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Speaker 1: a desperate situation. That's part of why I wanted to

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Speaker 1: talk to Sandy. I wanted to find out why did

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Speaker 1: she end up Mary to Floyd, Why did she give

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Speaker 1: up Steve and not the girls? And since Steve wasn't

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Speaker 1: clamoring to meet Sandy in person, I got his blessing

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Speaker 1: to reach out. My producer Kate and I were nervous

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Speaker 1: about even calling her on the phone, figure sheould hang up,

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Speaker 1: or worse, stay on the phone and tell us to

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Speaker 1: go to hell, and I can see why it would

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Speaker 1: be hard to dig back into the past and talk

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Speaker 1: about the son she lost track of. It might be

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Speaker 1: hard to cope with what kind of mom loses track

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Speaker 1: for kids. But when Kate called her up, she was

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Speaker 1: real sweet. She told us to come over anytime, so

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Speaker 1: we didn't. What we found completely changed my mind idea

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Speaker 1: of who Sandy was. Flip the story I had him

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Speaker 1: my head for twenty years upside down. My name is

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Speaker 1: Todd Matthews and this is Hello John Doe, a sleuth,

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Speaker 1: a family, and a serial killer.

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Speaker 5: The story of a.

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Speaker 1: Family torn apart by tragedy and my quest to bring

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Speaker 1: them back together. Chapter three, Sandy. We drove straight from

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Speaker 1: Steve's neighborhood in North Carolina to Virginia as he san you.

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Speaker 1: Turns out it was only a day trip. Think about that.

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Speaker 1: So many of Steve's answers to his life are just

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Speaker 1: a car right away. Sandy lives in Hampton, Virginia, a

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Speaker 1: Chesapeake Watershed town across the bay from the world's largest

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Speaker 1: naval base. It's absolutely beautiful out there. Look anywhere and

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Speaker 1: you'll see a body of water going to Sandy scared

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Speaker 1: me in a way. I guess because I wasn't sure

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Speaker 1: what to make of her. I didn't understand how she

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Speaker 1: had lost track of Steve and lack the wherewith all

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Speaker 1: to find him, especially Ben's so close and Steve and

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Speaker 1: Mary's descriptions to her weren't the most flattering. But there's

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Speaker 1: something about this line of work that's taught me you

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Speaker 1: just never know. People can surprise you. I've seen that

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Speaker 1: once or twice before.

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Speaker 5: My name is Sandy Willer. I'm seventy three, being in

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Speaker 5: and out of Hampton for the past fifty years.

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Speaker 1: Sandy welcomed us into her house. She uses a wheelchair

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Speaker 1: to get around. Live us right next to her adult

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Speaker 1: grandchildren summer in autumn, who came in and out of

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Speaker 1: the room while we chatted.

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Speaker 5: She's a TikTok star.

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Speaker 4: Shy.

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Speaker 1: The house was tidy enough but had no furniture. She

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Speaker 1: had apparently recently gone through a move. My producer Kate

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Speaker 1: and I sat on a couple of desk chairs and

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Speaker 1: set the recorder on her walker. Sandy kind of looks

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Speaker 1: up Jonnie Mitchell nowadays. She has this hippie beautiful air

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Speaker 1: about her. Her skin is tan, her long hair singlessly

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Speaker 1: term from blonde to white with old age. She has

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Speaker 1: this essence about her, like she's got stories. Nowadays, her

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Speaker 1: life is fairly simple.

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Speaker 5: You're writing for fun. I keep my four year old

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Speaker 5: great granddaughter, and I'm going to keep autumns and new

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Speaker 5: baby when he's born.

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Speaker 1: She lives in her family, stays at home mostly. She

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Speaker 1: told me about growing up.

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Speaker 5: We moved all over the place. My dad worked for

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Speaker 5: GM and we moved all over the place.

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Speaker 1: Born in Washington, d C. Then ended up spending a

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Speaker 1: lot of her childhood in Detroit. She loves school, especially

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Speaker 1: history classes. She used to invite neighborhood kids over in

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Speaker 1: charge them a dime to play school. She was the

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Speaker 1: oldest of three kids.

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Speaker 5: I was the quiet. My sister was a model at

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Speaker 5: one time. My brother was a trucker. I don't know

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Speaker 5: what my brother does now. I think he's been chied.

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Speaker 5: My parents were very Let me see how I can

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Speaker 5: I put. I love my parents to death. Parents were

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Speaker 5: very strict.

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Speaker 1: Not only were they streak, she says, they were also fearful.

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Speaker 1: They lived in a mostly white neighborhood outside of the city.

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Speaker 5: My mother sat during the riots in Detroit. My mother

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Speaker 5: sat in the suburbs with a gun at the window

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Speaker 5: at night to protect us from all these rioters that

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Speaker 5: were going to come and get us a night.

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Speaker 1: Sandy's referring to the nineteen sixty seven race rights in Detroit.

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Speaker 1: It was one of many cities that saw upheaval around

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Speaker 1: the time. It's called the long Hot Summer of sixty seven.

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Speaker 3: Detroit police raided that bar, called in paddy wagons and

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Speaker 3: hauled off about eighty people to jail.

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Speaker 1: That's when all hell broke loose.

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Speaker 5: I do hereby officially recommend the immediate deployment of federal

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Speaker 5: troops in the Michigan.

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Speaker 3: Forty three Americans died in these streets. The city of

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Speaker 3: Detroit was shut down.

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Speaker 1: It was a time of flux for Detroit, which then

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Speaker 1: had a population closer to one point five million people.

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Speaker 1: It was a time attention, but also of motown manufacturing,

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Speaker 1: the Detroit Tigers, and the World Series win. But at home,

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Speaker 1: Sandy's dad was kind of living in the past. According

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Speaker 1: to Sandy, he was a tough nut who had a

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Speaker 1: lot of rules. Let's just say there were more don'ts

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Speaker 1: and dues in this household, particularly if you were just

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Speaker 1: a girl.

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Speaker 5: I got grounded one time for six months because I

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Speaker 5: said I was going to get my ears picture. When

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Speaker 5: I was seventy, I wasn't allowed to get my driver's

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Speaker 5: license because I was a girl. My mother became an

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Speaker 5: interior decorator when I was in my forties. She stayed

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Speaker 5: home the rest of the time. My mother didn't drive

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Speaker 5: till she was twenty six or twenty seven.

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Speaker 1: Sandy dated, but not in a way you or I

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Speaker 1: might recognize as dating.

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Speaker 5: Oh No, I dated, but usually very few single dates.

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Speaker 5: It was all we did things as a group. I mean,

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Speaker 5: there were like nine of us that hung out together.

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Speaker 5: They followed us on dates, my sister and I. It

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Speaker 5: was just really strange. Now that I look back at it,

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Speaker 5: it was really strange, you know. At the time, she.

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Speaker 1: Just didn't know anything else. Back then, Sandy's parents were overbearing,

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Speaker 1: and you can imagine the toll that would take on

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Speaker 1: a person constantly told what she was allowed to do.

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Speaker 1: Sandy wanted a life of her own where she could

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Speaker 1: get away from all of that. So when she met

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Speaker 1: a nice guy who was part of the group, she

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Speaker 1: jumped at the chance to gain some independence.

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Speaker 5: Clip se Vegas. He was part of the group. He

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Speaker 5: was part of our group.

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Speaker 1: Sandy's family had moved down the street from him when

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Speaker 1: they were in high school. Clip was a few years older.

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Speaker 1: They were friends, but it wasn't some sort of meet

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Speaker 1: cute situation. For Sandy. Clip was an opportunity.

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Speaker 5: I wanted to get away from home. I wanted to

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Speaker 5: do what I wanted to do, and so we got married.

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Speaker 5: We didn't tell anybody at first when we got married,

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Speaker 5: and then we broke it to him gently, furious. Furious.

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Speaker 1: Sandy was only eighteen. This was her first chance at

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Speaker 1: having the life she wanted. She could move to the

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Speaker 1: big city and fulfill her dreams.

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Speaker 5: I ended up teaching in a school in the inner

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Speaker 5: city in Detroit, and we didn't teach history in government.

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Speaker 5: I taught how to fill a job applications, how to

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Speaker 5: get a bank account.

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Speaker 1: Then Clip was drafted and Sandy was left to her

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Speaker 1: own devices. Vietnam is often referred to as the first

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Speaker 1: television war. It had a serious global impact, but it

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Speaker 1: also reverberated in America's living rooms.

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Speaker 4: By nineteen sixty nine, more than half a million men

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Speaker 4: and women were stationed in South Vietnam.

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Speaker 1: All these men are in the army, Some are draftees,

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Speaker 1: some regulars.

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Speaker 3: We've lost something over forty thousand men, now forty thousand

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Speaker 3: American lives plus.

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Speaker 5: Was in Vietnam while I was pregnant. I had my

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Speaker 5: own apartment. I've met the girl Life store. Her husband

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Speaker 5: was a military to everybody was back then.

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Speaker 1: About a year after they were married, Sandy gave birth

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Speaker 1: to her first child. She was named Suzanne Sebakas.

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Speaker 5: When she was born, she had this little curly little

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Speaker 5: girls and big blue eyes. I was so excited.

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Speaker 1: You look a lot like her.

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Speaker 5: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: There are baby photos of Suzanne in the house. They

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Speaker 1: both have those same sapphire blue eyes, that big grin,

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Speaker 1: the bleach blonde hair. Suzanne was precocious, a standout from

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Speaker 1: the start.

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Speaker 5: She was just always so happy. She I don't know.

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Speaker 5: She had a strong personality. She loves school, she loved

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Speaker 5: learning things, she loved doing things. I think she wouldn't

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Speaker 5: have been a teacher, I really do.

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Speaker 1: Suzanne, whom Sandy sometimes called Susie, was almost two years

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Speaker 1: old when Cliff came back from Vietnam. By then, the

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Speaker 1: couple realized they had no real bond. They divorced pretty quickly.

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Speaker 1: After my dad was drafted. I've seen firsthand the war's

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Speaker 1: lasting impact. Cliff was never the same.

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Speaker 2: I had a little PTSD. I had the crumbling marriage,

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Speaker 2: which doesn't help to go get off the plane at

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Speaker 2: the airport and have the hippies call your names and

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Speaker 2: spit at you.

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Speaker 1: Cliff caught me a few months after I talked to Sandy.

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Speaker 1: We talked about other stuff, but he didn't want to

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Speaker 1: talk about her. He set that boundary early on. All

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Speaker 1: I'll say here is that the two probably weren't all

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Speaker 1: that well matched in the first place. By our early twenties,

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Speaker 1: Sandy decided being her own with the kid was better

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Speaker 1: than being under her parents' roof, and better than being

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Speaker 1: hitched to Cliff. But beyond that, she hadn't thought that

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Speaker 1: far ahead. And remember, this was the time of women's liberation.

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Speaker 1: The peal was suddenly accessible. Women were becoming free from

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Speaker 1: the constraints of motherhood and unwanted marriages. That wasn't the

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Speaker 1: case for everyone. There were still many pockets of the

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Speaker 1: country where that change hadn't set in yet. Getting birth

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Speaker 1: control was all but a nightmare, a challenge at every turn.

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Speaker 5: The first thing, you had to find a doctor that

289
00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:17,440
Speaker 5: wasn't Catholic, Catholic doctors did not give birth control to anyone.

290
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Speaker 5: And you asked for birth control, and they'd give you

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Speaker 5: a lecture about how it could kill you, how it

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Speaker 5: could hurt you, and then they would give you the

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00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:28,360
Speaker 5: lowest dose of whatever they could give you, unluxurre you.

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Speaker 5: The whole time you were doing it. You had to

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Speaker 5: be married, and you endured the lecture because it was

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Speaker 5: your job as a woman to have as many kids

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Speaker 5: as you could, as fast as you could have.

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Speaker 1: Sandy wouldn't stay single for long. She met a man

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Speaker 1: at a restaurant who couldn't be further from the straight

300
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Speaker 1: last Vietnam veteran that Cliff was. If Cliff was by

301
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Speaker 1: the book, Dennis was a wild card. They got married

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Speaker 1: pretty quick.

303
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Speaker 5: He was a lot of fun. He was a professional gambler.

304
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Speaker 1: There's this paradox about it. Sandy. She was always on

305
00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:04,280
Speaker 1: the hunt for freedom as a woman, but she only

306
00:16:04,280 --> 00:16:06,760
Speaker 1: seemed to find it through marriage, through the men in

307
00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:09,800
Speaker 1: her life. Two years after she married him, she got

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Speaker 1: pregnant with her second daughter, Alison, then came amy her third.

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Speaker 1: That marriage didn't last either. The way she puts it,

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Speaker 1: it was her parents. It pushed tennis out the door.

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Speaker 1: That's her view.

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Speaker 2: At least my.

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Speaker 5: Parents made it so hard that he left, and I

314
00:16:24,360 --> 00:16:27,400
Speaker 5: think he went to California. He would pop up from

315
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Speaker 5: time to time to visit us, but he'd never stayed.

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Speaker 5: I never knew where he was.

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Speaker 1: By this point, Sandy was now a mother of three girls,

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Speaker 1: with no second income and no second parent to help out.

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Speaker 1: She relied on neighbors to watch the kids while she

320
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Speaker 1: worked at the sow and mell here's my producer. Tate

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Speaker 1: again didn't cost the kids.

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Speaker 2: It was.

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Speaker 1: Mighty at that time. It was the woman's.

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Speaker 5: Problem, exactly. Yeah, I take some real winners.

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Speaker 1: Sandy married five times in her life. Most of her

326
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Speaker 1: husbands didn't pay child support. When they decided to split,

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Speaker 1: she'd be left with the kids, and that was that. Cliff,

328
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Speaker 1: Sandy's first husband, wouldn't talk about it. Dennis Brandenburg died

329
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Speaker 1: years ago. Sandy tell me her parents weren't much help,

330
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Speaker 1: but they were living outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, and

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Speaker 1: told her to move closer to them. She figured it

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Speaker 1: might help out that she was on her own. Sandy

333
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Speaker 1: and her three kids moved to a trailer park in

334
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Speaker 1: North Carolina, the one that Mary remembers going to up

335
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Speaker 1: Church's trailer park. When I think about Steve's story, I

336
00:17:39,320 --> 00:17:42,720
Speaker 1: think about the patchwork of circumstances and decisions that impacted

337
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:45,159
Speaker 1: his life, The butterfly effect, I guess you'd call it.

338
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Speaker 1: If Mary hadn't worked at the sewing factory, if she

339
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Speaker 1: hadn't known Sandy, if she hadn't have tragically lost two

340
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Speaker 1: infants of her own, but she have adopted Steve. If

341
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Speaker 1: Steve never found my number, what he found out his

342
00:17:57,080 --> 00:18:01,040
Speaker 1: real story for Sandy to some of those wady moments

343
00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:02,520
Speaker 1: happened in nineteen seventy four.

344
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Speaker 5: There was a tornado and the tornado twisted my house.

345
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Speaker 1: It basically decimated her home. It had a catalyzing effect

346
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Speaker 1: on Sandy's mental health. The storm made all the things

347
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Speaker 1: she was already dealing with that much worse.

348
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Speaker 5: Well, I'm out there saying people, come stay in my house.

349
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Speaker 5: People that had lost their house in the neighborhood, come

350
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Speaker 5: stay in my house. I didn't realize my house was

351
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Speaker 5: seven feet off the ground until I went to go out.

352
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Speaker 1: Sandy suffered immense pain, both mentally and financially.

353
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Speaker 5: The girls were traumatized by the tornado because we were

354
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Speaker 5: in the trailer when the tornado hit and we had

355
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Speaker 5: no way out.

356
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Speaker 1: Her daughter Amy barely remembers it, but it's become part

357
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Speaker 1: of family lore.

358
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Speaker 6: There was a tornado and I was lost for a

359
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:53,880
Speaker 6: brief period of time, and they found me in the refrigerator.

360
00:18:54,400 --> 00:18:57,760
Speaker 6: It had fallen with the doors open and I was inside.

361
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Speaker 6: So I have been protected by her for in.

362
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Speaker 1: The second WhatIf moment that year, Sandy happened to get

363
00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:11,359
Speaker 1: pregnant again. Steve is right. Sandy tell me she doesn't

364
00:19:11,359 --> 00:19:14,640
Speaker 1: know who Steve's father is, but she figured it might

365
00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:18,320
Speaker 1: be her second husband, Dennis Brandenburgh.

366
00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:21,520
Speaker 5: Dennis would come when my parents weren't around and see

367
00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:26,440
Speaker 5: the kids all the time and see me, and every

368
00:19:26,440 --> 00:19:30,080
Speaker 5: time he came, we had sex, playing and supple. So

369
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Speaker 5: when I came up pregnant with Steve, I thought okay.

370
00:19:33,320 --> 00:19:36,320
Speaker 1: But she wasn't certain and she came under fire for

371
00:19:36,359 --> 00:19:37,280
Speaker 1: that uncertainty.

372
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Speaker 5: My mom and dad thought I was a prostitute. That's

373
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Speaker 5: why I don't know his father. Whose father is not

374
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Speaker 5: true at all, I don't I didn't don't ever remember

375
00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:49,560
Speaker 5: having boyfriend back then, but I drank some back then too.

376
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Speaker 1: Drinking and trauma don't go so well together, you can

377
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:56,879
Speaker 1: erase big swaths of memories that way. Sandy suspect she

378
00:19:56,960 --> 00:19:59,760
Speaker 1: was having blackouts. Here's her daughter Amy again.

379
00:20:00,320 --> 00:20:02,600
Speaker 6: Well asked questions and she was like, I can't remember.

380
00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:05,240
Speaker 5: I drink a lot. I can't remember. You just gets

381
00:20:05,240 --> 00:20:05,879
Speaker 5: tired of hearing that.

382
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:09,800
Speaker 1: But Sandy seems to remember some bright spots, like parts

383
00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:10,960
Speaker 1: of her pregnancy was Steve.

384
00:20:11,359 --> 00:20:15,119
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I was excited. The girls were excited. We

385
00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:16,600
Speaker 5: had all these little baby clothes.

386
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:24,600
Speaker 1: After the tornado, she didn't have a home or a car.

387
00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:28,440
Speaker 1: She was in temporary FEMA housing. She didn't have a

388
00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:30,960
Speaker 1: husband who could help her with her children. She was

389
00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:33,879
Speaker 1: excited about Steve's arrival. But this must have been a

390
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:35,960
Speaker 1: time of unimaginable stress too.

391
00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:39,840
Speaker 5: We were in the hotel. I said, Mom's gonna go

392
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Speaker 5: have the baby. Now can we come too? And the

393
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:47,360
Speaker 5: girls were so excited. We were all excited. We must

394
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Speaker 5: addressed him in ninety outfits a day at.

395
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Speaker 1: First, and she picked out a name for him.

396
00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:55,040
Speaker 5: Philip Stephen PS. He was supposed to be PS.

397
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Speaker 1: The end of the line, You're done, I'm done. But

398
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:05,360
Speaker 1: reality quickly set in. She was now a single mother

399
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:10,199
Speaker 1: of fourr living in temporary housing she couldn't manage, and

400
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:12,679
Speaker 1: her daughter Amy wasn't the only one having trouble coping

401
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:13,600
Speaker 1: after the tornado.

402
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:19,680
Speaker 5: And I guess I snapped. I didn't know what to do,

403
00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:24,560
Speaker 5: so I went to Social Services in North Carolina and said,

404
00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:26,480
Speaker 5: you have to take my kids because I can't take

405
00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:30,400
Speaker 5: care of them. I need help, mental help. And that's

406
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,639
Speaker 5: exactly how I put I need mental help. I couldn't

407
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:38,200
Speaker 5: function if it rained. I sat in the corner and cringed.

408
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:42,040
Speaker 1: Sandy doesn't know exactly why she snapped in she just

409
00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:44,159
Speaker 1: knew she had hit a while. It might have been

410
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:47,880
Speaker 1: postpartum depression. Sandy told me she thought she had PTSD

411
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:51,159
Speaker 1: from the tornado. At any rate, Sandy was at a loss.

412
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:53,800
Speaker 1: She didn't know what to do. She didn't live with

413
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:56,320
Speaker 1: another adult who could help her weather the mental illness,

414
00:21:56,720 --> 00:21:58,879
Speaker 1: So the best thing to do, she reasoned, was to

415
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:01,879
Speaker 1: give up her kids. While Sandy was struggling with her

416
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:06,280
Speaker 1: mental health, her oldest, who she called Susie, stepped up.

417
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:11,760
Speaker 5: It wasn't fair to ask Susie at five years old

418
00:22:12,080 --> 00:22:15,040
Speaker 5: to take care of a newborn baby, but she did,

419
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:18,639
Speaker 5: and a two year old. Yeah, but she did. And

420
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 5: I couldn't go It couldn't go on like that. It

421
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:23,639
Speaker 5: wasn't fair to the girls, It wasn't fair to Steve.

422
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:30,280
Speaker 5: Anything could have happened back then. If you asked for help,

423
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:32,920
Speaker 5: they treated it like it was a joke. I mean,

424
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:35,680
Speaker 5: come back next week. We'll talk to you next week.

425
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:46,639
Speaker 1: Now in her seventies, she's gotten a diagnosis and meaningful help.

426
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:49,680
Speaker 1: That's how she ended up being a grandma who takes

427
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:52,639
Speaker 1: care of her grandbabies and great grandbabies when she couldn't

428
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 1: take care of the first four children she had. The

429
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: day Sandy decided to give up her children to social

430
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:01,679
Speaker 1: Services was a moment of clarity, the fog lifting. She

431
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:03,440
Speaker 1: had to get them to a place where they would

432
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:08,240
Speaker 1: be okay. So she did, But after that Sandy missed them.

433
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: It was a mother's pull to be back with her kids.

434
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 1: She would do anything. Around this time, Sandy went to church.

435
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 1: It was the first Baptist church in Charlotte, North Carolina,

436
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:24,840
Speaker 1: and she met a guy that seem fairly nice in pictures.

437
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:27,640
Speaker 1: He has dark hair than he sometimes parts to the side,

438
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 1: handlebar mustache, and big square glasses, which were in vogue.

439
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: Then this guy listened to her story and offered to

440
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:35,920
Speaker 1: help her get the kids back.

441
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:39,399
Speaker 5: So I was in Charlotte, and that's why I met

442
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 5: Franklin Floyd. But I knew miss Brandon Williams, and he

443
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 5: said that he would go with me to get the

444
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 5: kids and everything would be all right.

445
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:51,199
Speaker 1: This was Franklin Floyd, the man who would later be

446
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: convicted for murder, who already had quite a wrap sheet

447
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: with more fake id's than a bandit. This was a

448
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: guy who came up in Steve's Google searches when he

449
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:00,880
Speaker 1: started looking for himself.

450
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 3: And then I started typing in Franklin's name, started reading

451
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:06,120
Speaker 3: about him.

452
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:09,199
Speaker 1: What he read startling. He couldn't believe that he just

453
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 1: barely cross pass with this man, a serial killer now

454
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 1: sitting on death row.

455
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 3: I got lucky, kind of lucky. I feel, oh yeah,

456
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 3: one hundred percent, no doubt, because she wouldn't have got

457
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 3: me out of I would have had to go with

458
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 3: Sandy and Franklin and that went. It turned out good.

459
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: And this made him rethink the events that led up

460
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 1: to this, how different his life could have been if

461
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: Sandy didn't give him to marry. Floyd made an impression

462
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:44,159
Speaker 1: on Mary when she adopted Steve I.

463
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 4: Saw him at a distance, and what they left him

464
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,119
Speaker 4: was a little masta to citter Masda with them three kids.

465
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 4: I never did get to talk to him. I kept

466
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 4: my distance from him.

467
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 3: She said that she got a bad feeling from him,

468
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 3: that he was standing when they switched me off or whatnot.

469
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 3: He was far off, just staring. She just there was

470
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 3: something about.

471
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 1: Him, But Sandy didn't know there was something about him

472
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: when she met him, not yet. At least. Sandy was

473
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 1: simply grateful to meet a man way to help her out.

474
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,440
Speaker 5: I don't think mentally at that time I was capable

475
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 5: of loving anybody. I really really needed serious mental health.

476
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 5: I loved the fact that he was going to help

477
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 5: me get my kids back and take me away from

478
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 5: the situation.

479
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:32,359
Speaker 1: Love him, No, she married him anyway. But it wasn't

480
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: just that Sandy always needed a man by her side,

481
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: though she ad meant that's probably true. Floyd been the

482
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: helpful many scene, saved the day and reunited Sandy with

483
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: her family. But then he went off script and.

484
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 5: We took the kids back to the trailer, and we

485
00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 5: stayed there for a couple of weeks, and then he

486
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,159
Speaker 5: said we're moving moving.

487
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: Who was this guy. The guys before were just flings

488
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 1: or bad matches or impulsive relationships. Maybe if those guys

489
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: were bad matches, this guy was a bad man, plain

490
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 1: and simple.

491
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,199
Speaker 5: And by this time I was afraid of it all.

492
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 5: He's creepy. He was always creepy. And now that I

493
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 5: look back, I was so stupid and so naive. I mean,

494
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 5: I remember dumb little things. He had false teeth. The

495
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 5: false teeth, said Franklin Floyd on him was engraved in him.

496
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 5: He told me that was the dentist name. And I believe.

497
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 3: Him, you know.

498
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 5: And then he went out one time and killed a

499
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 5: squirrel and he was skinning the squirrel and I don't

500
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 5: eat squirrel. And the girl said they're not eat the

501
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 5: squirrel and he said, y'all will eat it, or y'all

502
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 5: be just skinned just like this thing. So you did.

503
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 5: I threw it up, but yeah, and I made the

504
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:57,920
Speaker 5: girls through it too.

505
00:26:58,960 --> 00:26:59,120
Speaker 2: Oh.

506
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 5: He slept with the gun under the pillow, and he

507
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 5: always had a knife. No way out. We're shocked.

508
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:14,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, when he said they were moving, it wasn't really

509
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 1: a discussion. This is what Steve didn't know. When he's

510
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:20,400
Speaker 1: a baby. Floyd had come into their lives and taken over.

511
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: If they disobeyed him, Hit threatened to skin him alive

512
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: like squirrels.

513
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 5: He had a Honda, and back then Hondas, the original

514
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 5: Hondas had motorcycle engines. They were little teeny weeny, tiny

515
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:38,199
Speaker 5: little cars. And he said, we don't have room for

516
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 5: everybody in the car. And we drove one night to

517
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 5: Mary's house and took Steve and left him there. And

518
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 5: I cried the whole way back, and he said, we'll

519
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 5: go back and get him. We'll go back and get him.

520
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 5: We'll go back and get him. And then when we

521
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 5: got to Saint Louis, he said, I'll never see him again.

522
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:05,920
Speaker 1: This is where memory gets pretty weird. There's a lot

523
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: that Sandy doesn't remember about this period in nineteen seventy four.

524
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 1: She says so herself. She says she'd drink a lot

525
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 1: during this time, though she denied doing any drugs. Some

526
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: of Sandy's memories are just shades of what happened. Some

527
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 1: are infused with the stories she's heard over the years

528
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 1: other people's memories. What she remembers about Steve's adoption was

529
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: very different from Mary's story. We'll get to Sandy's story

530
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: of the adoption in the next chapter. But all you

531
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: need to know right now is that, according to Sandy,

532
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:35,479
Speaker 1: she employed drop Steve off with Mary and took off

533
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: for Saint Louis with the three little girls. In hindsight,

534
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: meet him Franklin employed seemed like a catalyst. For Sandy,

535
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: everything in her precarious life would completely fall apart.

536
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 5: I went to jail for writing a bad check. I

537
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 5: wrote a check for a dollar and seventy eight cents

538
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 5: to get diapers for Amy seven eleven. Made it a

539
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 5: point to prosecute every everybody. All I had to pay

540
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 5: was that ten dollars fee, and my parents will lend

541
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 5: me the ten dollars to pay it, and even the

542
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 5: judge when I went to court kind of laughed.

543
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 1: Thirty days, that's how long she was behind bars. She

544
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: left her three daughters with a friend to keep them

545
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 1: away from her husband, who by then she was terrified of.

546
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: That didn't matter well she was in jail. Floyd picked

547
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: up the girls. He dropped two of them up in

548
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: an orphanage and took off with Susie. It would be

549
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: years until Sandy found out what really happened to her daughter.

550
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: Next time owned Hello John Doe.

551
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 5: I won't worry about it comb my hair. I was

552
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 5: just I was going to find her. I had to find.

553
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 6: Her, and that's when he took her. And that was

554
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 6: the last time that she was seen.

555
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 5: Who just wanted her is what I thought. I never

556
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 5: thought it would be the night pret.

557
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: Hello John Doe is and original productions by Revelations Entertainment

558
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: in association with First and Last Productions from Revelations. Our

559
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: executive producers are Morgan Freeman and James Younger. From First

560
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 1: to Last. Lindsay Moreno is the executive producer. Our producing

561
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:18,880
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562
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Speaker 1: produced by Kate Michigan. Our editor is Katherine Saint Louis.

563
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564
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:29,720
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565
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566
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 1: mixing by Scott Summerville. Theme and original music composed by

567
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 1: Jesse Pearlstein. Additional music came from Epidemic Sound and Blue

568
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Speaker 1: Dot Sessions. Bendall Faulton is our fact checker. Our production

569
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570
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Speaker 1: is our executive producer. Special thanks to Adelia Ruben at

571
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Speaker 1: NEI on Hum and Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeartMedia.

572
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Speaker 1: I'm Todd Matthews. You can learn more about NamUs at

573
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: amos dot com. The number for the National Center for

574
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 1: Missing Exploited Children's Call Center is one eight hundred the

575
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: loss that's one eight hundred eight four three five six

576
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: seven eight. The National Sexual Assault Popline from the Rate

577
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 1: of Abuse and Incest National Network is one eight hundred

578
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Speaker 1: sixty five six four six seven three. Okay, guys, this.

579
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Speaker 3: Is the end of the show.

580
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581
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583
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