Transcript
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[Music]
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Sean Vincent Gillis wasn't the guy you'd stop and chat with on the street,
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or even make eye contact with if you could help it.
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He was just another loner in Baton Rouge glued to his computer and giving his neighbors
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the full-blown creeps.
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But what no one could have guessed was that Sean wasn't just weird.
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He was a full-blown nightmare. One so twisted, he made the other area serial killers
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look like they were still on training wheels.
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In this episode, we're peeling back the layers of how a guy who started as your standard
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garden variety creep turned into a monster who left a trail of death behind him.
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We're talking peeping Tom's, tired tracks, DNA evidence, and a hard drive so disturbing
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it could make your stomach turn.
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This isn't just a story about murder.
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It's a reminder that sometimes evil doesn't wear a mask.
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It just sits there hiding in plain sight, hoping no one notices.
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Before we dive into the story, if you're into brief and bingeable true crime,
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you found your home here.
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I drop at least two episodes per week, so hit the follow button now.
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Welcome to 10 Minute Murder.
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On May 27, 2003, Derek Todd Lee, the Baton Rouge killer, was finally in cuffs.
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Queue the collective sigh of relief from Baton Rouge.
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The boogeyman was behind bars, and surely the nightmare was over.
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Case closed, right?
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Well, not so fast.
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Because even with the prime suspect tucked away in jail, the killings did not stop.
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As you can imagine, there was probably a collective face palm
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among the investigators when they realized, hey, wait a second,
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these other murders?
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Yeah, they don't match Lee's ammo at all.
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Then came the moment every true crime junkie lives for,
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and every investigator dreads.
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The horrifying realization that Baton Rouge wasn't dealing with just one monster.
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There was another predator stalking the streets.
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This revelation sent them straight into the orbits of Sean Vincent Gillis,
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a man who would make Derek Todd Lee look almost ordinary.
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But not quite.
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Sean Vincent Gillis entered the world in Baton Rouge in 1962,
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and Chaos was already waiting for him, arms wide open.
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His father, Norman, was no stranger to instability.
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Mental illness and alcoholism had him in a chokehold.
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But these things really escalated shortly after Sean was born.
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And what can only be described as a true, what the hell moment,
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Norman pulled a gun during an argument with his wife, Yvonne.
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Target?
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Not her, not himself.
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No, it was Baby Sean.
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Thankfully, no one was physically hurt during this domestic horror show.
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But Yvonne got the wake-up call that she needed.
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Norman was a clear and present danger.
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So Norman packed his bags, or maybe just slithered out the door,
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and Yvonne became a single mom, raising Sean with help from her parents.
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Yvonne really held things down for a while,
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keeping a steady job at the local news station,
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and doing her best to give Sean a normal life.
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On paper, it looked like she was thriving.
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He was polite, earned good grades, had friends,
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gold star for parenting, right?
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Well, maybe.
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Or maybe Yvonne just didn't see the storm clouds gathering inside her son.
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The neighbors and school friends, however, were a little less oblivious.
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According to them, Sean was running with a group of kids
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dabbling in devil worship.
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That's not exactly the kind of extra curricular you'd put on a college application.
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And then there was the garbage can incident.
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At 3am one night, Sean's neighbor, Carolyn, was jolted awake by a racket outside.
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There stood Sean, pounding on garbage cans like he was auditioning for Blink 182.
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Carolyn would later describe him as, quote, "an angry young boy,"
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which feels like the understatement of the century.
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When another neighbor asked Sean why he took his rage out on innocent garbage can lids,
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he reportedly said it was because he didn't have a girlfriend.
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Poor Sean's love life, or lack thereof, was apparently trash cans smashingly frustrating.
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His budding criminal career officially started at 17 years old.
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Though nothing major at first, just the usual menu of youthful mischief,
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traffic violations, DUIs, possession of marijuana, and contemptive court.
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But even then, the seeds of something far darker were clearly being planted,
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and those seeds were about to grow into a nightmare.
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When Sean turned 30, his life veered straight off the rails and into the abyss.
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Still living at home with his mom, Sean dabbled in odd jobs,
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emphasis on odd because he couldn't hold one down for very long.
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Instead, he spent most of his time growing a pornography collection that could only be described
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as "concerning." Meanwhile, Yvonne was thriving. She landed a new job in Atlanta and decided it was
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time to leave her 30-year-old man-child to fend for himself. Big mistake, Sean didn't use his
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newfound independence to, you know, get his act together. Instead, Yvonne had to regularly
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send him money just so he could scrape by. This financial lifeline did not soothe Sean's mounting
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resentment, though. To him, his mom's move was abandonment, plain and simple. His reaction,
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standing at his windows in the dead of the night and screaming into the void,
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terrifying the neighbors. Then, in 1992, Sean's antics got even creepier. A neighbor caught him peeping
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through their window. When confronted, Sean calmly explained that he was just looking for his cat.
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Sure, a likely story. From that point on, the neighborhood collectively kept track of him like a hawk
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looking for a mouse. But not Terry Lomon. To Terry, Sean was a charming young man who treated her with
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respect. They started dating, and while Terry found Sean's disinterest in sex, a little odd,
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she didn't think much of it. Which she didn't realize was that Sean's lack of interest in the
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bedroom was directly tied to his much more sinister hobbies. Thanks to the rise of the internet,
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Sean discovered an endless buffet of disturbing content. "Rape, murder, dismemberment, you name it."
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And it didn't stop there. In a particularly chilling moment, Sean shared pictures of dead women
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with Terry. Shocked, but inexplicably unfazed, Terry brushed it off and they continued their relationship
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for another decade. She couldn't have known that Sean's fascination with violent imagery wasn't
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just an obsession. It was the blueprint for what was to come. According to Sean Vincent Gilles,
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his killing spree began for a simple, almost laughable reason. He was stressed. Most people
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under stress might binge watch TV or take a walk. But not Sean. His version of stress relief
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was breaking into the home of 82-year-old Anne Bryan, a resident of an upscale retirement
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community in Baton Rouge with the intention of raping her. When Anne screamed, Sean decided that
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raping her was too much trouble. So instead, he stabbed her. Not once, not twice. Over 50 times.
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Anne Bryan, a woman who had likely suffered life's ups and downs with grace and strength,
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was brutally murdered by a man who claimed he was simply overwhelmed. Sean fled the scene,
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leaving behind a crime so horrific, it shocked even seasoned investigators. Unfortunately,
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it was only the beginning for Sean. For years, Sean went on to leave a trail of carnage across Baton
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Rouge, a series of murders that showcased not only his brutality, but his dark, twisted humor.
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Former DA Prem Burns recalled one victim found posed on her back near a dead-in sign.
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Quote, "which I thought was his humor in a very sick kind of way." Dead-in. Burns explained.
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One of Sean's most chilling kills was that of 52-year-old Hardy Schmidt in 1999.
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Hardy was out jogging when Sean spotted her, and for reasons that only makes sense in the black
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hole of his mind, he decided to have her. Over the next three weeks, he obsessively stalked her
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until the opportunity arose. Sean ran Hardy down with his car like she was roadkill. Then used
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heavy-duty plastic wire to drag her into the vehicle. What followed was as depraved as it gets.
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He raped and murdered her, leaving her body in the trunk of his car for two days before dumping her,
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like garbage into the bayou. And yet, Sean was not done. His eighth and final known victim,
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43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnson, would be the one who'd led authorities to his door.
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Donna's body was discovered in a drainage canal in Baton Rouge, and the sheer brutality of this crime
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was almost beyond comprehension. Sean had raped her and then mutilated her body in ways that
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were grotesque, even by his standards. Her breasts were slashed, a tattoo on her thigh was gouged out,
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and her left arm had been severed at the elbow. It was Donna's murder that finally ended Sean's
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reign of terror, but only after years of death and destruction. Sean Vincent Gillis may have
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started killing because of stress, but what he left behind was a city that would never forget
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the horrors of his so-called relief. Once investigators wrapped their heads around the fact that Baton Rouge
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wasn't haunted by just one serial killer, they revisited Donna Bennett Johnson's crime scene
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with fresh eyes, and the new determination to find this second predator. There, in the muck
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and chaos of the drainage canal, they discovered something crucial. Tire tracks. It wasn't just any
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ordinary set of tracks. These belonged to a specific tire model that, as luck or karma would have it,
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had only been manufactured for a short three-year window. Even better? Only 90 sets had been sold in
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Baton Rouge. That's not exactly a needle in the haystack. It's more like finding a neon sign
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pointing directly to your suspect. With this lead in hand, detectives followed the trail until they
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arrived at Sean Vincent Gillis' doorstep. Calm and polite, because of course he was, Sean agreed
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to provide a DNA sample, and that's where his story started to unravel. The DNA was a match.
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Sean's genetic calling card had been left at multiple assault and murder scenes, tying him to a
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string of unspeakable crimes. But what truly nailed him was that investigators found his computer,
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next. Sean's hard drive was a digital horror show. Among the 45 pictures of Donna Bennett Johnson's
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medallated body, or countless other photos, images of previous victims, some of those unknown to
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the police, others whose stories hadn't even come to light yet. It wasn't just a confession,
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it was a grotesque scrapbook of his atrocities, laid bare in the cold, unfeeling glow of his monitor.
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Sean Gillis wasn't just guilty. He was methodically documenting his evil, as if preserving it for
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posterity. And that computer, more than anything else, sealed his fate. Sean Vincent Gillis was
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slapped with several counts of first degree murder, but even from behind bars, he couldn't resist
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feeding his dark, twisted ego. And letters sent from prison to a friend of Donna Johnson's,
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Sean offered up chilling, almost casual confessions that read like they were plucked straight from a horror novel.
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"She was so drunk, it only took about a minute and a half to succumb to unconsciousness and then death.
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Honestly, her last words were, I can't breathe. I still puzzle over the post-mortem dismemberment in
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cutting. It must have been something deep in my subconscious that really needs this kind of macabre
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action." If Sean thought his prison pin-pow musings were going to stay private, he was dead wrong.
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These letters were introduced in court, turning the final screw in his defense into an iron spike.
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Unsurprisingly, the jury didn't take kindly to this graphic and disturbingly introspective admission.
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He was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to life in prison. Today, Sean Vincent
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Gillis resides at Louisiana State Penitentiary, where he will likely die. There, he spends his days
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doing the one thing he can't escape, living with himself. A man who claims stress drove him to murder,
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now has a lifetime to sit in solitude and reflect on the horrors he inflicted on others.
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Baton Rouge may never fully heal from the terror Sean and his ilk unleashed, but at least for now,
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the streets are free from one more monster. And Sean, well, he'll rot away in the shadows just where he
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belongs. That's 10 minute murder for today, brief and bingeable true crime. I'm Joe,
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I'm the host and thank you for checking the time to listen. As always, if you're a new listener,
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make sure you hit subscribe, if you're an OG listener, follow on social media. That way,
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you'll be more up to date with what's happening with the podcast. And if you are following on social
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media, you'll know that I finally got unlazy and at the urging of a bunch of you, I have updated
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the merch shop. It's just me doing all this, so sometimes I just don't have enough time to cover
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everything and some things get pushed to the back burner. That was one of them. So finally,
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yesterday, I updated the merch shop. So if you go to 10minuteMurder.com, up in the top right hand
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corner, you're going to see a little button that says store. If you click that button, you can get 10
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If you want something that does have the logo on it, the new updated 10 minute murder logo,
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the official logo, it's there as well. So 10minuteMurder.com, the merch store is live and updated.
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And that's going to do it. That's your story for today. Thank you so much for listening to 10 Minute
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Murder.
