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Speaker 1: Let's start from the beginning. I was a young girl.

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Speaker 2: I was eleven years old, and my parents had just divorced,

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Speaker 2: and my dad was now living with his girlfriend in Portland, Orgon.

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Speaker 2: And this was my first summer vacation where I stayed

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Speaker 2: at a different home than my childhood home. And the

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Speaker 2: moment I walked in that house, I felt like I

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Speaker 2: wasn't alone, that there was energy there, that there were

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Speaker 2: spirits there, that I was being watched in every room.

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Speaker 2: In every room, he had purchased bunk beds for my

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Speaker 2: sister and I and my sister picked the bottom bunk

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Speaker 2: and I picked the top bunk.

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Speaker 1: And it was my first night in this new house.

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Speaker 2: I fall asleep a little bit, but then I'm awakened

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Speaker 2: by being touched.

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Speaker 1: And then my hair is touched. It's not a heavy touch,

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Speaker 1: it's a light touch.

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Speaker 2: So I leap and go down the little stairs of

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Speaker 2: the bunk bed and I rush over and I'm going

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Speaker 2: to go run into my dad's room, but I froze.

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Speaker 1: I felt that.

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Speaker 2: Whatever was touching me was over there too. I wasn't

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Speaker 2: going to be safe in my dad's room, and I

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Speaker 2: didn't feel safe with my dad, and so I laid

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Speaker 2: in the hallway floor with a light on, curled up

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Speaker 2: in a ball, hoping that the night would just go

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Speaker 2: away fast. And in the morning my dad stepped over

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Speaker 2: me and he said, why did you fall asleep in

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Speaker 2: the hallway? And I said I was being touched, Dad,

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Speaker 2: something was touching me. And he said, Oh, don't pay

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Speaker 2: any attention to them. They bothered me all the time

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Speaker 2: at night. Don't pay them any mind.

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Speaker 3: Melissa, who is your dad and what is he known as?

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Speaker 2: My father is Keith Hunter Jesperson. He's known as the

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Speaker 2: happy Face serial killer.

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Speaker 4: My girl, my girl, don't lie.

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Speaker 5: To me.

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Speaker 4: Tell me where did you sleep last night? In the pies?

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Speaker 4: In the pies where the sun don't have a shine?

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Speaker 4: I will shiver.

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Speaker 2: Oh nice.

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Speaker 3: My name is Lauren bry Pacheco. I'm a television producer

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Speaker 3: and I've worked with Melissa Jessperson Moore for about four years.

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Speaker 3: We work on crime stories together and we travel a lot,

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Speaker 3: and during our downtime we've had the chance to really

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Speaker 3: get to know one another. And she shared a lot

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Speaker 3: with me about her past, especially her childhood.

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Speaker 1: My childhood home was amazing. My parents had three children together.

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Speaker 2: I'm the oldest a year later, my brother was born,

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Speaker 2: and then two years after my brother, my sister, Carrie

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Speaker 2: was born, and my mom was a stay at home

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Speaker 2: mom and my father was a long haul truck driver.

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Speaker 2: I felt loved, I felt provided for, I felt adored.

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Speaker 2: I actually felt like I was a super are.

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Speaker 6: Menissa, how big are you?

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Speaker 7: This big yees real big.

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Speaker 4: Dance Manista, you dance, You're a good dancwer.

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Speaker 2: We lived in the country, and when I would hear

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Speaker 2: the semi truck pull up, and you could hear the

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Speaker 2: wheels on the gravel, and you just knew, you knew,

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Speaker 2: you could easily recognize that sound. The window panes would

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Speaker 2: actually shake because of the size and the rumble of

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Speaker 2: his engine. So we would just both my brother, my

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Speaker 2: sister and I would actually race to get to my

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Speaker 2: dad to see who could get into his pockets first,

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Speaker 2: because in his pockets were tons of change and tokens

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Speaker 2: and things from his trips, and so it was like

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Speaker 2: a competition who could get who.

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Speaker 1: Could get Dad's change. And that was our first encounter

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Speaker 1: with him.

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Speaker 2: And you pick us up and he would throw us

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Speaker 2: in the air and play with us and be excited

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Speaker 2: to see us. He would be just as excited to

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Speaker 2: see us as we were excited to see him.

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Speaker 3: Everybody thinks they're you know, their dad is the center

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Speaker 3: of the universe, But your dad, How did you feel

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Speaker 3: being placed up on his shoulders.

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Speaker 2: I love the view that I could see so much more,

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Speaker 2: and I felt that I was absolutely safe and that

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Speaker 2: anything was possible, and that I could do whatever I

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Speaker 2: wanted to do, and that was safe in the arms

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Speaker 2: with my dad. He was six foot six and close

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Speaker 2: to three hundred pounds. His size was something. The first

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Speaker 2: thing you notice, how you feel so small in comparison.

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Speaker 3: Keith was this huge giant man even to adults, so

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Speaker 3: for a child, he must have seemed even that much

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Speaker 3: more enormous. And when Melissa talks about him, she has

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Speaker 3: this reverence, this almost mythological lens that she views him through.

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Speaker 2: I felt like my dad was a superhero because he

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Speaker 2: was so large, and he could actually eclipse the sun

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Speaker 2: with his with his head, like he just his body,

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Speaker 2: like the sun would just like beam behind him, and

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Speaker 2: he could just eclipse the sun.

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Speaker 8: Phil Stanford, The Oregonian, Maywecond, nineteen ninety four. The letter,

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Speaker 8: unsigned and written on pale blue paper, has a happy

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Speaker 8: face at the top of the first page, two tiny

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Speaker 8: circles for eyes, an upturned sliver of a moon for mouth.

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Speaker 8: Have a nice day, all five of it, says next

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Speaker 8: to the cartoon face. However, the letter is six pages long,

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Speaker 8: So what does that mean? Five? What? Five murders? That's what.

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Speaker 3: Melissa agreed to go on the road with me and

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Speaker 3: our producer Noel and revisit the places from her past

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Speaker 3: that have incredible significance, both good and bad, to her today,

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Speaker 3: and one of those places was Spokane, Washington, where she

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Speaker 3: moved with her mother and siblings after her parents' divorce.

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Speaker 2: I haven't been Spokane for a long time, but whenever

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Speaker 2: I come back here, I think about the first time

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Speaker 2: I came here back in nineteen ninety. My dad was

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Speaker 2: home for the weekend and we had a great weekend.

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Speaker 2: We're really close and it was like a normal weekend,

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Speaker 2: and then it was time for my mom to drop

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Speaker 2: off my dad at the truck station. And on the

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Speaker 2: way to the truck station to his offices, there was

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Speaker 2: just this tension in the air and there was something

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Speaker 2: obviously going on between my parents, my mom and my dad.

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Speaker 2: When we arrived at my dad's work, he got the

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Speaker 2: car and acted like he was never going to see

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Speaker 2: us again. He hugged us super tight, said how much

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Speaker 2: he loves us, and was just gripping us like it

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Speaker 2: was his last time ever holding us. When I saw

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Speaker 2: him walk away and go to his job, my brother

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Speaker 2: and sister and I got back in the car, and

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Speaker 2: my mom was silent until we were about a block

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Speaker 2: away from the house. She said, when we go into

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Speaker 2: the house, I need you to pick one thing, your

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Speaker 2: favorite thing.

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Speaker 3: We drove there because we were going to meet her mom, Rose,

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Speaker 3: who we met at work.

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Speaker 2: I'm excited to see her. Yeah, I'm glad that you're

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Speaker 2: going to meet her. She's a caseworker for a Salvation

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Speaker 2: Army where she helps families who are on the streets

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Speaker 2: transition to having a life off the streets. And so

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Speaker 2: these are children that have lived in cars. These are

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Speaker 2: children that have nothing very similar to what I had

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Speaker 2: and what she had. I wonder if she has a

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Speaker 2: picture of me in her office.

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Speaker 3: I think she might be coming out.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 3: They hadn't seen each other in a few years, but

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Speaker 3: you could definitely hear the warmth and the pride and

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Speaker 3: the love in Melissa's voice when she described her to us.

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Speaker 2: You know what you'll find that about my mom is

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Speaker 2: she's a very nurturing, soft person that you could tell

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Speaker 2: anything too. So not dregonical home. Oh my skinny, Oh

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Speaker 2: my gosh, you're getting small, my office.

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Speaker 8: Is over here.

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Speaker 3: Meeting Melissa's mom in person, I was really taken aback

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Speaker 3: by the fact that they don't look alike. Melissa's always

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Speaker 3: told me that she looks just like her father, and

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Speaker 3: I never saw it until I met her mom. She

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Speaker 3: absolutely looks like her father.

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Speaker 2: When I was flying down here, I was thinking about

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Speaker 2: what your experience must have been like, because when we

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Speaker 2: came here.

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Speaker 1: Is after you dud separated.

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Speaker 2: I remember just, you know, leaving and coming here m

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Speaker 2: without planning, right, That's what it felt like.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't planned.

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Speaker 5: You're correct, it wasn't what happened. Well, it was our

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Speaker 5: thirteenth wedding anniversary and I was expecting a bouquet of

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Speaker 5: flowers and he said, you know, I think we should

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Speaker 5: just get a divorce.

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Speaker 1: He said, would you mind just leaving?

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Speaker 5: And were you happy at any point with him? I

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Speaker 5: think at the very beginning we had a lot of

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Speaker 5: fun and we would we'd take a month off and

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Speaker 5: we'd traveled down I five, all the way down California

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Speaker 5: along the beaches, or you know, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah,

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Speaker 5: we did, we did. We'd take a month off, go

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Speaker 5: to Lake Powell. We'd go to Canada. Oh. He had

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Speaker 5: a golden wing motorcycle and we went all through Canada,

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Speaker 5: traveling through uh Lethbridge and Alberta.

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Speaker 1: And it was a good provider, he really was.

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Speaker 2: And you probably felt really financially.

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Speaker 5: Still, I felt safe. And then I had you, and

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Speaker 5: then things changed.

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Speaker 8: I would like to tell my story. The writer of

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Speaker 8: the letter begins. The exclamation point is all his, so

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Speaker 8: as the labored printing and the odd mixture of capital

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Speaker 8: and lowercase letters. Onor about January twentieth, nineteen ninety, I

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Speaker 8: picked up Sonya Bennett, and I took her home. I

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Speaker 8: raped her and beat her real bad. Then I ended

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Speaker 8: her life by pushing my fist into her throat.

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Speaker 2: When my dad was so up into town, he didn't

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Speaker 2: get a hotel. He would stay at our home, my

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Speaker 2: mom's home, and even when she was with her new

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Speaker 2: boyfriend who became her husband, my dad would stay in

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Speaker 2: the house with him in the house as well. The

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Speaker 2: reward of him coming was he's filling the pantry. He's

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Speaker 2: helping her. She was a single mom. She was a

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Speaker 2: sole provider for months on end, and here he comes

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Speaker 2: into town. She's going to take any reprieve she can get.

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Speaker 2: You know, this area right here is where when my

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Speaker 2: dad would come to visit, we'd drive past this road

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Speaker 2: right here. But this used to be all open fields

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Speaker 2: like this, and at the end here was as a

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Speaker 2: safeway where we would go and get groceries. So when

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Speaker 2: my dad would come into town, he would actually take

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Speaker 2: us three kids to this grocery store and just let

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Speaker 2: us pick anything we wanted. And one thing that he

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Speaker 2: constantly picked was just like he would get these huge

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Speaker 2: five gallon tubs of ice cream and then he would

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Speaker 2: get these he would get like a couple packages of bacon.

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Speaker 2: He would make not like one package of bacon at

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Speaker 2: a time, he would make like five packages of bacon

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Speaker 2: at a time. So when he came, he was a

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Speaker 2: source of all at A girl that I used to

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Speaker 2: hang out with, Tamera, and she lived right here in

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Speaker 2: this house.

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Speaker 1: And what happened was she lost her.

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Speaker 2: Jacket and she accused me of stealing her jacket.

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Speaker 1: And you know, in the j just person households.

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Speaker 2: We don't steal like that is like something is the

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Speaker 2: coat of honor, you don't steal. And so I told

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Speaker 2: my dad that her parents think I'm a thief and

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Speaker 2: that I.

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Speaker 1: Stole her coat.

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Speaker 2: So he walked over there and confronted her parents.

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Speaker 1: And I was so nervous because he was so aggressive.

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Speaker 1: I was just terrified of what.

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Speaker 2: He's going to do to that to her parents. And

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Speaker 2: he explained how I didn't steal that jacket, and he

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Speaker 2: pretty much I don't know remember exactly what he said,

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Speaker 2: but he really terrified her parents so much so that

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Speaker 2: she never came back to my house.

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Speaker 8: But there's something about the letter that holds you that

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Speaker 8: makes you keep reading. Maybe it's the urgency of the

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Speaker 8: prose itself. Maybe, although you might not want to admit it,

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Speaker 8: it's the lurid details spelling off the pages like cold sewage.

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Speaker 8: Maybe the writer, whoever he is, is making it all up.

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Speaker 8: But if so, you have to wonder what kind of

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Speaker 8: person would even be able to write something like this.

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Speaker 8: This turned me on. I got high panic set in

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Speaker 8: where to put the body? First? He says he drove

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Speaker 8: to the Sandy River and threw Tanya Bennett's purse and

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Speaker 8: walkman into the water. Then he drove back home and

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Speaker 8: dragged the body out to his car. I want the

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Speaker 8: world to know that it was my crime, so I

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Speaker 8: tied a one half inch soft white rope around her neck.

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Speaker 8: I drove her to a switchback on the scenic Road

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Speaker 8: about one and one half miles east of Lateral Falls.

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Speaker 8: I dragged her downhill. Her pants were around her knees

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Speaker 8: because I had cut her buttons off.

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Speaker 1: Now happy faces.

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Speaker 2: On one side of the coin, he's a loving family man,

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Speaker 2: and he's a good friend, and he's.

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Speaker 1: He's a good provider.

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Speaker 2: He's everything that you know as a child you want

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Speaker 2: for a dad. And then on the other side of

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Speaker 2: the coin, he is everything that scares you, everything that

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Speaker 2: could hurt you. He goes from protected or predator and

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Speaker 2: wrapping my mind around it is impossible. I started to

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Speaker 2: notice the shift in the household, probably about when I

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Speaker 2: was in kindergarten first grade.

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Speaker 1: Things started to change in the household.

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Speaker 2: My mom seemed more withdrawn, and I imagine her being

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Speaker 2: isolated in a house with three young children must have

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Speaker 2: been difficult for her and my father being gone.

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Speaker 1: But when he would come home.

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Speaker 2: There seemed to be a distance between my mom and

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Speaker 2: my dad physically as well, that I didn't witness them

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Speaker 2: hugging or being affectionate with one another. I actually don't

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Speaker 2: even recall kissing. I can't even remember if they even

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Speaker 2: kissed each other when they greeted each other. Now, looking back,

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Speaker 2: I see the dynamic between my parents and recalling how

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Speaker 2: critical and degrading he was to my mother. He would

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Speaker 2: put her down for driving, He embarrassed her, He told

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Speaker 2: her all the time about what a horrible housekeeper she was.

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Speaker 2: He complained about her food, he complained about her weight.

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Speaker 2: Everything my mother did was wrong.

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Speaker 5: I was never thad enough or I was too fat.

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Speaker 5: You know, if I ate dinner, old God forbid, if

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Speaker 5: I ate dinner.

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Speaker 2: As a kid, when I was alone with my father,

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Speaker 2: he would bring up that he constantly felt sexually rejected,

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Speaker 2: and he would say that My mom would tell him

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Speaker 2: to go.

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Speaker 1: Put it in a key hole.

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Speaker 3: So what was your father thinking talking about his sex

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Speaker 3: life with his child?

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Speaker 2: My father sex life was always a part of the conversation.

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Speaker 2: I heard it with his friends. I heard it in

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Speaker 2: the flirtation and the sexual harassment of waitresses. I heard

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Speaker 2: it having to hear him tell me these details about

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Speaker 2: their sex life. I never asked my father, it was

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Speaker 2: just part of the conversation constantly. I knew that my

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Speaker 2: father was a very sexual man from a young age.

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Speaker 2: I recall finding hustlers and playboys all around, like all

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Speaker 2: around the house, and when I would go to the

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Speaker 2: truck stops, I would see his offices were lit like

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Speaker 2: discovered and nude calendars. So nude women and pornography was

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Speaker 2: always a part of my childhood.

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Speaker 8: My good.

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Speaker 2: Lie to me.

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Speaker 8: When Bennett's body was found actually about a mile west

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Speaker 8: of Lateral Falls and a mile and a half east

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Speaker 8: of the Vista house, there was a rope around her neck.

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Speaker 6: Ely addition, as the police reports indicate, the buttonfly of

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Speaker 6: bennett jeans had been cut away.

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Speaker 2: In the fin.

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Speaker 8: In the letter continues, she was my first and I

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Speaker 8: thought I would not do it again, but I was wrong.

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Speaker 3: It was clear that Keith had no filter for what

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Speaker 3: was appropriate to say or do in front of his kids,

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Speaker 3: and many of his other impulses were even darker, and

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Speaker 3: he acted upon them.

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Speaker 2: I remember there was a weekend that my dad was

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Speaker 2: back home and he from one of his long hauls

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Speaker 2: and there was a barrel, a rusty barrel that he

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Speaker 2: was burning shrubbery and old debris.

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Speaker 1: From the yard. And he was cleaning the yard.

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Speaker 2: And we had this barn, and behind the barn, I

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Speaker 2: saw my brother and he had a black cat. And

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Speaker 2: I remember how dark the cat's fur was, because it

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Speaker 2: was so shiny. It looked silvery like, almost like glass

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Speaker 2: from the sun hitting the cat's back, hitting the fur.

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Speaker 2: And so I saw my brother just petting this black cat,

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Speaker 2: and how slick and pretty the cat looked, and I

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Speaker 2: wanted to touch this cat too. I wanted to pet

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Speaker 2: and so I went up to my brother and I

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Speaker 2: sat next to him behind the barn, and I started

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Speaker 2: petting the cat with him. And quickly I noticed that

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Speaker 2: my dad had witnessed me petting the cat with my brother.

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Speaker 2: And at this point, the cat is still my brother's

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Speaker 2: lab and then my dad approaches us.

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Speaker 1: He walks up to us, and he says, what do

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Speaker 1: you have there.

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Speaker 2: I remember my dad's sitting down to the other side

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Speaker 2: of Jason and taking the cat in his lap, and

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Speaker 2: he started petting the cat, and both my brother and

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Speaker 2: I were tense, like if we could feel like something's

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Speaker 2: something's wrong because we knew my dad hated cats, absolutely

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Speaker 2: hated them. So for my dad to be sitting next

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Speaker 2: to my brother petting this cat was odd that he

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Speaker 2: would be lovingly petting a cat.

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Speaker 1: And quickly he was. I remember his big hand.

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Speaker 2: Just like engulfing the whole cat, and then all of

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Speaker 2: a sudden, with one hand, he pinned the head down

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Speaker 2: and grabbed it with the other hand, and he's just

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Speaker 2: started squeezing the cat's neck. And then the cat started

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Speaker 2: to like screech and to scream and started clawing for

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Speaker 2: its life on my dad's forearms and.

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Speaker 1: Just was clawing.

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Speaker 2: And I was thinking, and my brother and I were screaming,

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Speaker 2: and we're like stop a dad, Stop a dad, Like

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Speaker 2: why are you doing this, dad, Why are you doing this?

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Speaker 2: And just screaming at him to try to like stop it,

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Speaker 2: like it just it made me so nauseous, Like it

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Speaker 2: just made me.

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Speaker 1: How old would you and Jason have been?

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Speaker 2: We were young, My brother and I were young, we

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Speaker 2: were six seven years old. I don't recall telling my mom,

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Speaker 2: I don't recall telling anybody. And the reason and why

353
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Speaker 2: is it's just like when it came to my father,

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Speaker 2: there was just this thing that people said in the family,

355
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Speaker 2: they would say, Oh, that's just Keith, That's just how

356
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:13,880
Speaker 2: Keith is, and it seemed to be acceptable.

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00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 9: Keith Jessperson takes steps toward a court appearance he's tried

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Speaker 9: to avoid for years, as well as an order and

359
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 9: your plea of no contest to the aggravated murder cat

360
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 9: After prosecutors read off the charges and with the victim's

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Speaker 9: family looking on, Jesperson gave grizzly details of how in

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Speaker 9: nineteen ninety he killed twenty three year old Tanya Bennett

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Speaker 9: in his apartment.

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Speaker 10: And forced my fist into her throat and later grabbed

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Speaker 10: the rope and tied around her neck securely, and she

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Speaker 10: was dead.

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Speaker 2: You know. I slept in the hallway that one night.

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Speaker 2: The second night, I slept on the couch.

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Speaker 1: And kept the TV on so i'd have light.

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Speaker 2: And as I laid on the couch, I looked up

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Speaker 2: the ceiling and I saw markings on the ceiling of

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Speaker 2: some kind of splatter. And then as I was laying there,

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Speaker 2: the cabinet doors in the kitchen were opening and closing,

374
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Speaker 2: and I remember touching my eyes and rubbing my eyes,

375
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Speaker 2: thinking I must be seeing things.

376
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Speaker 1: But I would hear it too. They would open and

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Speaker 1: they would close.

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00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 9: Says, He left the body in the Columbia Gorge, then

379
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Speaker 9: cleaned up his house.

380
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Speaker 10: Washed the carpet, I washed the blood off the walls

381
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Speaker 10: what I could, and eventually painted the walls of the

382
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Speaker 10: house I was in and try to forget about it.

383
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Speaker 2: I would later discover that in that very room where

384
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Speaker 2: I was laying down was where he he murdered Tanya

385
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Speaker 2: Bennett in the most gruesome and brutal way possible, And

386
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Speaker 2: that now I look back and think, was that blood

387
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 2: that I saw?

388
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Speaker 1: And I believe it was.

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Speaker 8: My girl?

390
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:30,679
Speaker 4: My girl? Don't lie to me? Tell me where didiou sleep?

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Speaker 4: Last night?

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Speaker 7: Happy Face is a production of How Stuff Works. Executive

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Speaker 7: producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright, Butcheco Mangesha Ticketer, and

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Speaker 7: Will Pearson. Supervising producer is Noel Brown. Music by Claire Campbell,

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Speaker 7: Paige Campbell and Hope for a Golden Summer. Story editor

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Speaker 7: is Matt Riddle. Audio editing by Chandler Mays and Noel Brown.

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Speaker 7: Assistant editor is Taylor Chacoygne. Special thanks to Phil Stanford,

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Speaker 7: the publishers of the Oregonian newspaper in k t U

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Speaker 7: News In Portland, Oregon

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Speaker 4: Go away where the cold Wan blows