Jesse James Hollywood: The Killer Who Inspired Alpha Dog

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Jesse James Hollywood had money, muscles, and a last name that felt a little on the nose.

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By the time he was 20, he dropped out of school, started selling drugs, and had a small crew

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of rich kids doing whatever he told him to do.

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One of them owed him money.

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A lot of money.

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And Jesse decided the best way to send a message was to kidnap a teenager.

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This is what happens when ego, power, and very bad decision-making come together in the

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San Fernando Valley.

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Before we dive in, if you like your true crime brief and bingeable, you're in the right

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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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[Music]

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In the early 2000s, Jesse James Hollywood was living like the lead in a teen drama.

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San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles private school, well off parents.

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He had money, grades, friends, and a name that sounded like it was made for a movie poster.

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Everything in Jesse's life came easy.

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Nice things, social status, the kind of confidence that only seems to exist in zip codes with

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gates.

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Then he hit his teenage years and it took a sharp detour.

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He stopped caring about school and shifted to focus on the gym.

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Jesse had always been athletic.

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He had done well in baseball, but now he was chasing something more extreme.

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Powerlifting, bodybuilding, supplements, the whole bigger is better spiral.

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That shift came with the personality change too.

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He got volatile, angry, and eventually violent.

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Bad enough that he assaulted a teacher and got himself expelled.

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That should have been a wake-up call.

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And for a minute, it almost was.

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Jesse's switch schools dropped the weights, picked up a baseball bat again, but then came

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an entry that benched him for good.

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No sports, no school, no real direction.

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What came next was a hard left into something more profitable and a lot more illegal.

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There were later charges, ones that never stuck against Jesse's father that suggested that

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the Hollywood family wasn't exactly unfamiliar with narcotics.

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Jesse, for his part, started selling.

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His customers, mostly the same rich kids he'd grown up with, kids who didn't need money,

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but liked the thrill.

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Jesse took their cash, gave them the product, and slowly built a little crew of loyal hangers

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on.

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But when they weren't buying from him, they were doing him favors.

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Some dumb, some dangerous.

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And all of it was just starting to spin out.

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Jesse James Hollywood had a long memory, especially when it came to money.

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And $35,000 wasn't the kind of debt he was going to let slide.

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Even if the guy who owed it to him used to be one of his best friends.

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Benjamin Markowitz and Jesse had a history.

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They played on the same junior baseball team, trained in the same gym, probably knew each

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other's moms.

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But that was a long time ago.

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Now Benjamin was deep in Jesse's drug operation and even deeper in debt.

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And Jesse had reached his limit.

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He wanted to send a message, not a phone call, not a threat, something physical, something

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that would shake bin up and force him to pay attention, maybe even scare him into coughing

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up the money.

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At the time, Benjamin was still living at home with his parents and little brother Nicholas,

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just a regular suburban set up in the same part of L.A., where Jesse had built his little

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empire.

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Tight knit neighborhoods, familiar faces, the kind of place where someone walking by

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might stop and say, "Hey, tell your mom I said hi."

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But Jesse wasn't stopping to say hi.

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He and his crew loaded into a van.

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White with a sliding door straight out of a bad movie.

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The plan, fine bin, grab him off the streets, let him know in no uncertain terms that Jesse

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meant business.

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But Jesse didn't see Benjamin first.

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He saw Nicholas.

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15 years old, just a kid.

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Maybe heading to a friend's house, maybe just walking to get some air.

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Either way, he was in the wrong place at the worst possible time.

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In that moment, Jesse made a snap decision that would shape everything that followed.

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To him, it didn't matter which markowitz ended up in the van.

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Nicholas would send the same message.

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Maybe louder, maybe clearer.

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Jesse told his guys to pull over.

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Nicholas noticed something about the van, or maybe the way it slowed down, or the faces

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inside, whatever it was, he ran.

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He ran like a kid who knew exactly what kind of danger he was in.

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But they chased him, outnumbered him, and beat him until he couldn't run anymore.

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And then they threw him into the van.

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Not just kidnaps, but taken by people who used to be in his own house.

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People who used to eat snacks from his kitchen.

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The same ones who probably high-fived his brother after baseball games.

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That kind of betrayal doesn't feel dangerous at first.

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It just feels confusing.

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So when things calmed down, some kind of uneasy peace settled in.

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Jesse's gang didn't tie Nicholas up or throw him in the basement.

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They didn't treat him like a hostage, not yet.

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They'd taken him, but for now, it looked like they were going to play it cool.

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And that's when things really got dangerous.

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What happened next was the kind of chaos that doesn't look like chaos.

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At least not right away.

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Los Marcowitz, just 15, ended up spending three days with the same crew that had beaten him

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and thrown him into a van.

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But somewhere in that mess, the energy shifted.

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Maybe they got him drunk.

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Maybe they gave him something stronger.

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Maybe they convinced him it was all just for show.

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That no one was really going to get hurt.

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Or maybe for those three days, Jesse hadn't actually made up his mind yet.

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Whatever the reason Nicholas stayed, he drank with him.

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He partied.

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Other people saw him, friends, even parents.

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People who might have been able to say, "This doesn't feel right."

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But no one stepped in.

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Or if they did notice, they didn't do much about it.

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And Jesse, he gave it just enough time to feel like things were settling in.

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Then on August 9, 2000, he told the crew Nicholas was going home.

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Naturally, they threw a party to celebrate.

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One more night of drinks in Bervado before Nicholas would supposedly be dropped off safe

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and sound.

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Which delivered?

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That reminder complete.

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Jesse had made his point, right?

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But something was knowing at him.

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Nicholas wasn't just a teenager who'd been scared.

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He was a minor, a kidnapped minor who'd been drugged, given alcohol, and passed around

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from house to house by a bunch of 20-year-old dealers.

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Jesse had crossed more than one legal line, and now he had a witness.

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So while everyone else partied, Jesse stepped outside and made a phone call.

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Not to Nicholas' family, not to Ben, but to his lawyer.

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The advice was blunt.

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Kidnapping could get you life in prison.

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Period.

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And just like that, Jesse's brain started working again.

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Only this time it wasn't about sending a message.

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It was about self-survival.

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Ben wouldn't go to the cops.

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He couldn't.

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He was buying drugs, and he knew Jesse had dirt on him.

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But Nicholas had no reason to stay quiet.

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He was clean, innocent, and now a liability.

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So Jesse made another phone call.

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This one too, Ryan Hoyt, a gang member who also happened to owe him money.

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Jesse offered to wipe the debt clean.

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All Ryan had to do was handle the Nicholas situation.

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Ryan agreed.

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That night, the group loaded into the van, but instead of heading to Nicholas' house,

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they drove out to the Santa Yinez Mountains, somewhere remote, quiet, already prepped

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with a shallow grave.

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Nicholas was told to get out.

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He must have realized what was about to happen.

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You don't stand next to a grave and think you're being dropped off.

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He pleaded and begged.

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They taped his mouth shut and hid him in the head with a shovel.

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He fell into the grave where Ryan shot him nine times.

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Four days later, Nicholas' body was found.

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And because Jesse and his crew had paraded him around town, taken him to parties, let people

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see his face.

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They weren't exactly hard to track down.

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Four gang members were arrested almost immediately.

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Ryan Hoyt, among them.

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But Jesse, he was already gone.

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He'd skipped town, made his way to Brazil, and moved in with his godfather, who, according

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to reports, had no idea Jesse was now wanted for murder.

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Jesse reinvented himself, learned Portuguese, changed his name, got a woman pregnant.

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He believed that having a child in Brazil might shield him from extradition.

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He didn't.

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Shortly before his son was born, Jesse was arrested while heading to the mall to meet

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a cousin.

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Back in the States, the rest of his crew had already served five years by the time Jesse's

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trial began.

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It lasted weeks.

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The jury took three days to deliberate.

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Ryan Hoyt had already been sentenced to death, though that would eventually be commuted

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to life in 2024.

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Now it was Jesse's turn.

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He was found guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping.

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Life in prison, no possibility of parole.

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Thanks for listening to Ten Minute Murder, Brief and Bingeable True Crime.

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I'm Joe, I'm the host, and if you're a new listener, subscribe where you are listening

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right now, please.

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Follow the podcast on social media, links are in the show notes, right here in this episode

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or at Ten Minute Murder.com.

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She walked up on a Gila Monster.

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And Tbh I had to look up what a Gila Monster was.

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I heard of it before.

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Is it Gila Monster or a Gila Monster?

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I don't know how to pronounce it.

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Classic Joe.

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Whatever it was, I thought it was a mythical creature, like a unicorn, but it turns out

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it's real.

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And whoever named it that, being go, you got it right because look at a picture, that thing

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is absolutely a Gila Monster.

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When I'm out for walks like that, I tend to do a similar thing.

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I disassociate a little bit.

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Thinking and worrying about things beyond my control is where I shine.

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Anyway, I appreciate the email, appreciate you listening Carla.

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Please be careful.

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I can't afford for listeners to start getting eaten by wildlife monsters.

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Alright, that's going to do it for this episode.

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If you're in the middle of a binge, listen, keep at it.

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Thank you so much for listening to Ten Minute Murder.

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[Music]