How Arthur Gary Bishop Fooled a Community

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He was an Eagle Scout, a straight A student, and a devout missionary.

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The kind of guy you'd probably let babysit your kids if you didn't know any better.

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Arthur Gary Bishop spent years building the perfect disguise, friendly, helpful, and

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church-approved.

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But behind the name tags and borrowed aliases was someone you absolutely did not want

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living next door.

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Today we're talking about the kind of person who smiles at you in the grocery store and

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is also quietly unraveling into a full-blown monster.

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But before we dive into this story, if you like your true crime brief and bingeable,

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you're in the right place.

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Hit Follow Now for at least two new episodes every week.

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This is 10 Minute Murder.

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Let's get into it.

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Why is it that some of the worst people seem to come wrapped in the most respectable

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packing?

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The clean-cut guy who smiles too much, the one who always volunteers, the one you'd

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trust to watch your kids.

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Arthur Gary Bishop was one of those people.

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Born in Salt Lake City in 1951, he looked like the poster child for doing everything right.

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Straight A student, Eagle Scout, deeply religious.

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His whole family was active in the Mormon church, and like many devout Mormons, Arthur didn't

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head straight to college after high school.

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First, he went on a mission.

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He spent about a year in the Philippines trying to convert others to the faith.

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After that, he came back, enrolled in college, graduated with honors, and landed a solid job

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as an accountant at a card dealership run by fellow Mormons.

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On paper, he had it all, education, community, a decent job, and people who trusted him.

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But Arthur Gary Bishop was hiding something, and it wasn't small.

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There was something deeply wrong with him, and no amount of church going, scout badges

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or straight A report cards could cover it up forever.

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The cracks started showing at Arthur's accounting job.

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He was called embezzling over $8,000 from the Mormon-owned card dealership where he worked.

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The numbers stopped adding up, and eventually, so did his story.

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But this wasn't some dramatic downfall.

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It barely even registered as a bump in the road.

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In court, Arthur played the part.

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He looked sorry.

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He sounded sorry.

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Told a judge he was ready to make it right.

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The judge believed him. Instead of prison, Arthur walked away with a five-year suspended

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sentence, so long as he paid all the money back.

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And he said, yes, he took the deal and then vanished.

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Arthur cut ties with his family and disappeared into a new life, new town, new name, new everything.

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Officially, he was excommunicated from the Mormon church.

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Unaffishably, he kept using the religion as a tool.

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He introduced himself as Roger Downs and leaned hard into the whole clean living trustworthy

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Mormon guy persona.

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And people around him bought it.

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Roger Downs was polite.

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He had a stable job.

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He smiled at neighbors and held the door open.

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He showed up at church, shook hands, made friends.

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But what really helped him blend in was how good he was with kids.

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He volunteered for the local Big Brother program.

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He earned the trust of parents.

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He spent time with the boys in the neighborhood, always under the guise of being a helpful

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role model.

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But it was all a mask.

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The first boy to disappear under this new identity was four-year-old Alonzo Daniels.

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Every victim in this story is heartbreaking, but there's something especially cruel about

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what happened to Alonzo.

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And it started just a few doors down.

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In 1979, four-year-old Alonzo Daniels lived in the same apartment building as the man

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named Roger Downs.

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Roger had just moved in.

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He was friendly and polite.

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The kind of neighbor who waved in the hallway and offered to help carry groceries.

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The Daniels family trusted him.

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So did the police.

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When Alonzo suddenly disappeared, officers knocked on Roger's door and asked if he'd seen

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the boy who'd lived just down the hallway.

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Roger shrugged.

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Said he hadn't.

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But he had.

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Alonzo was inside that apartment the entire time.

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He was alive.

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He had no idea his family was out there desperately searching for him.

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What happened next has never been fully confirmed.

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We don't know exactly how Arthur, still going by Roger, killed Alonzo.

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What we do know is what came after.

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In the weeks following Alonzo's disappearance, Arthur began adopting puppies from local shelters,

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one after another.

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He had been somewhere between 15 and 20 dogs in total.

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None of them survived.

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He later admitted that he killed them because they reminded him of Alonzo.

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The sounds they made, the way they wind, he said it made him feel something that it was

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stimulating.

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He strangled them, beat them, drowned them.

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He had hidden Alonzo in plain sight, just a few doors down from the boys own home and

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then he killed him.

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The violence against the animals kept him calm for a little while, but not forever.

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About a year later, he would do it again.

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Arthur struck again this time at a roller skating rink.

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He approached 11-year-old Kim Peterson and struck up a conversation.

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Then he found a way to see the boy again, pretending he was interested in buying Kim's

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skates.

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The second meeting was when Arthur took him.

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It happened in broad daylight in a crowded public place.

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While Saul Kim leave with the man, but they couldn't agree on what the man looked like.

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Some gave conflicting descriptions.

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This was long before security cameras were standard, so there was no surveillance footage

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to help sort it out.

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The community stayed alert, so did the police.

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Everyone was watching for someone suspicious, but no one suspected Roger Downs, aka Arthur.

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Nearly a year after Kim disappeared, a man named Lynn E. Jones came under investigation

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for embezzling more than $9,000 from his employer.

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It turned out that Lynn E. Jones wasn't a real person.

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It was another alias.

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His real name, you guessed it, Arthur Gary Bishop.

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Once he realized he might be caught, Arthur broke into his old workplace in the middle of

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the night and stole his own personnel file.

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This was before records were stored digitally, obviously.

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That file had the only known copy of his address and personal details.

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Just like that, Arthur got away with the money.

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No skip town, no new name.

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He stayed right where he was, still blending in, still hiding in plain sight.

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Then he abducted another child.

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Four-year-old Danny Davis was at the grocery store with his grandfather.

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The older man had stepped a few feet away to grab something while Danny played with the

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gumball machine.

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Arthur approached the child.

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He offered him some candy.

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Danny said no.

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Arthur started to walk away, then Danny followed him.

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Arthur didn't grab Danny Davis and run.

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He waited.

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When Danny followed him out the store, Arthur walked away with him like it was the most normal

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thing in the world.

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Several people saw them leave together, but the details didn't match.

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Some couldn't even agree if Arthur had been alone or with someone else.

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The police launched a full investigation.

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Arthur was questioned as part of the standard procedure.

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He was calm, polite and cooperative.

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They had no reason to suspect him, so they let him go.

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Two years later, in 1983, another boy went missing.

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Troy Ward had just turned six.

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It was his birthday.

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That morning, he got permission to walk to the park by himself for the first time.

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He promised to be back by a certain time because his family was waiting to celebrate.

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But he never came home.

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People at the park remembered seeing Troy leave with a man.

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But again, the descriptions were all over the place.

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No one could say exactly what the man looked like.

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Only a few weeks later, Arthur targeted his next victim.

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This time, it was summon even closer.

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13-year-old Graham Cunningham was getting ready for a camping trip with a friend.

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The trip was organized through the community's Big Brother program.

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The man who planned it, who had promised survival skills and campfires, was Roger Downs.

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Graham vanished just two days before the trip.

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Roger was questioned.

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But again, it was routine.

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No salted leads, no charges.

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Then things finally started to fall apart.

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Arthur, still going by Roger Downs, was arrested once again for embezzling over $10,000 from

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his job.

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During the investigation, police discovered something that changed everything.

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Roger Downs was also Lynn E. Jones.

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And Lynn E. Jones was Arthur Gary Bishop.

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The layers of aliases started peeling away.

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People came forward who had known him by different names.

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They remembered how close he had gotten to the boys in the neighborhood, how much time he

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spent around the community's most vulnerable.

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Detectives started connecting him to the missing children.

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When they confronted him, Arthur confessed.

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He told them that he had abducted five boys in all.

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Alonzo, Kim, Danny, Troy, and Graham.

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He admitted to harming them.

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Then he led officers to two separate sites where their remains were found.

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In court, the prosecution played a recording of Arthur's confession.

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He described what he had done in disturbing detail.

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He showed no visible remorse.

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At one point in the tape, he said, quote, "I'm glad they caught me because I'd do it again."

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Arthur Gary Bishop was sentenced to death.

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On June 9, 1988, that sentence was carried out.

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Arthur Gary Bishop wore a lot of masks.

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He was the good neighbor, the religious role model, the guy who smiled at him.

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He would politely in the grocery store line and waved the kids on the sidewalk.

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For years, those masks worked.

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He was questioned, investigated, even arrested multiple times.

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But no one saw the full picture until it was far too late.

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The boys he targeted were vulnerable in the purest sense.

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They trusted him.

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Their families trusted him.

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And in return, they lost everything.

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This case isn't just about one man's evil.

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It's about the systems that didn't catch him, the institutions that gave him second chances,

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the faces he changed, the names he borrowed, the trust he weaponized.

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Arthur Gary Bishop fooled almost everyone, but he didn't full time.

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Eventually, the truth caught up.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of 10 Minute Murder, Brief and Bingeable True Crime.

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My name is Joe.

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I'm the host.

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And if you're a first-time listener, a brand new listener to the podcast, or if you've

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It's going to help you catch up on all the back episodes of the podcast.

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And you'll be first in line, so to speak, when the new episodes come out.

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If you want to get in touch with me, Joe@10minuteMurder.com, that's my email address.

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And you can find the links to follow me on social media in the show notes, or again, at 10minuteMurder.com.

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And I want to remind you that if you hear me cover a story that you've requested, that you've

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sent me a message saying, "Hey, would you talk about this case?"

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And you hear me cover it here in this podcast.

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Anyone that you think could be into "Breath and Bingeable True Crime."

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And maybe true crime is not exactly your thing, and I get it.

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That's why I created another podcast called 10 Minute Mystery.

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There's less murder in that one.

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There's some, I dabble in some murdery kind of cases, but for the most part, it's about

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just plain old mysteries.

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News that are strange and weird, so check that out as well.

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And that's going to do it.

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That's your episode for today.

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Again, thank you so much for listening to 10 Minute Murder.

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Bye.