The Internet’s First Real-Life Horror Story: The Sharon Lopatka Case

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The internet has always been a little weird, but back in the 90s, it was a lawless wasteland

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where you could get a Game Boy, a haunted doll, and if you knew where to look, something

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a whole lot worse.

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And in the middle of all that chaos was Sharon LaPodka, a woman who wasn't just browsing

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the darkest corners of the web, she was actively shopping.

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Sharon didn't want just anything, she had one very specific, very disturbing request.

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And while most people took one look and backed away immediately, one man did not.

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Enter Bobby Glass, a government employee, a father, and as it turns out, the worst possible

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person to say yes.

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What happened next?

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Like and tell you that when the police showed up at Bobby's trailer, they weren't there

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to chat about dial-up speeds.

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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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There was a time, not too long ago, when the internet was a mysterious and futuristic concept,

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like flying cars or robot butlers that actually worked.

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Most people hadn't even logged on, let alone wrap their heads around the fact that tucked

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inside anonymous chat rooms and entire underworld was brewing.

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Information had never been so easy to access, so free, so unregulated.

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So if you wanted to talk to strangers across the world, it was just a few keystrokes away.

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But here's the thing.

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When you give people unlimited access to one another, you don't just get polite discussions

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about book clubs or casserole recipes.

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You also get the kinds of conversations that make you stop, mid-scroll and ask yourself,

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what in the Kentucky Fried Hell am I reading?

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Because just as the internet opened the floodgates for everyday conveniences, shopping, entertainment,

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and whatever the early version of memes were, it also became a marketplace for things

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far darker than off-brand Tupperware.

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This was the '90s.

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The internet was growing faster than anyone could regulate and beneath that shiny, wow,

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look, we can email each other exterior, there was demand for things that most people didn't

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even want to imagine.

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Some of it was harmless, video games, collectible figurines, weirdly specific beanie babies,

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resell markets, but some of it, some of it was deeply profoundly disturbing.

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And stepping into this uncharted digital territory, both as a seller and a seeker, was

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35-year-old Sharon LaPatka, a woman with some very particular demands of her own.

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Sharon Dienberg was born in 1961, the oldest of four daughters and a strictly Orthodox

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Jewish family.

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And from the outside looking in, she checked every single box of a textbook, Good Girl.

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She was active in her Baltimore synagogue, which wasn't surprising considering her father

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was a canter at the largest Orthodox Jewish congregation in the city.

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Her Sharon was genuinely devout, were just following the script laid out for her, is up for

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debate.

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But either way, she played the role.

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At school, she was extremely well-behaved and thriving.

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She got good grades, sang in the choir, and joined multiple sports teams.

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She had plenty of friends, and by all appearances, she was as normal as normal could be.

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But here's the thing about normal.

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It doesn't always fit everyone.

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And for Sharon, it chafed like an itchy sweater that she couldn't take off.

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The rigid expectations, the structured life, it wasn't enough.

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But breaking free as a straight-A, well-mannered teenager and religious household, not happening.

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A adulthood, though, that was another story.

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Once Sharon found her way out, there was no turning back.

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Sharon Dienberg found her escape hatch in the form of Victor LaPodka, a slightly older,

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mild-mannered construction worker she met after high school.

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She was reliable, steady, and sweet enough.

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But the real selling point, he was Catholic.

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Marrying outside the faith was the equivalent of lighting a match and tossing it over her shoulder

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as she walked away from her orthodox upbringing.

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Her parents were predictably horrified, but Sharon had made a permined.

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She and Victor packed up and moved to Hamstead, Maryland, putting even more distance between

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her and the life that she no longer wanted.

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While Victor stuck to his construction work, Sharon built something of her own.

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With no kids to occupy her time, she became a full-fledged entrepreneur, tapping into the

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gold rush of the early internet.

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She started an online advertising business, writing marketing materials and mailing them

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out.

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She also ran psychic and horoscope websites.

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Collecting a cut from the hotline numbers, she plastered across her growing network of pages.

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And business was booming.

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The internet wasn't just growing, it was exploding.

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Every day more people logged on and where there were people, there was demand.

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Some of it was innocent enough, chopping, self-help, those sketchy weight loss ads that promise

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miracles.

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But then there was the darker side.

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And Sharon, she was happy to cater to that market too.

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Under the alias Nancy Carlson, she started selling pornographic images and videos featuring

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women being abused.

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Following the Sharon's own descriptions, some of the women were willing participants, women

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who liked being drugged or knocked out before sex.

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Others she claimed had no idea what was happening to them.

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And here's where things took an even sharp return.

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Selling content to an increasingly depraved audience seemed to awaken something in Sharon,

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something she was ready to act on.

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She started small, selling her own used underwear to strangers online.

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That wasn't enough.

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She wanted more.

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She started frequenting chat rooms, making posts that left no room for misinterpretation.

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Sharon was a masochist and she wasn't shy about it.

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She wanted to be tortured, strangled, and used during sex.

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And she wasn't looking for roleplay.

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She wanted the real thing.

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Her ultimate fantasy, she wrote, was to be strangled to death while having sex.

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Most people obviously recoiled, some tried to talk her out of it, but Sharon wasn't interested

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in debates, interventions, or moral objections.

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She wasn't looking for someone to tell her that she needed help.

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She was looking for someone who would say, "Yes."

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Sharon's online posts were the kind of posts that you stop and think, "Okay, but you're

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joking," right?

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Spoiler, she wasn't.

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Some members of the online community tried to intervene, urging her to seek help, to

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reconsider, to, at the very least, not go through with what she was openly plotting.

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Sharon didn't want their concern.

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She wanted commitment.

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"I want the real thing."

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She shot back at anyone who tried to talk her out of it.

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I did not ask for you preaching at me.

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Most people backed away, immediately, but one man did not.

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His name was Bobby Frederick Glass, and if the internet had become a breeding ground for

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deviant behavior, he was already deep in the swamp.

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On paper, Bobby Glass seemed like a decent guy.

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Forty-five-year-old computer analyst at the Kataba County Government in North Carolina.

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It spent over 16 years in his job without raising a single red flag.

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His father had been a well-respected government figure with a problematic antebellum mansion

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to prove it.

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Bobby, however, was not his father.

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He was a walking contradiction, married for 14 years, a father of three, living with his

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family in a trailer tucked away in the woods.

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But instead of spending his evenings with his wife and kids, Bobby was glued to his computer.

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Lost in a digital world, his wife Sherry had no part in.

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Until of course, she decided to look in for herself.

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One night, fed up with the secrecy, Sherry went through Bobby's emails.

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What she found wasn't just disturbing.

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It was enough to make her pack up her kids and leave.

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The message is detailed as fantasies of sexual violence and stomach-churning detail.

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Bobby had lost his family, but online he had just found his perfect match.

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Sherry and Bobby met in a chat room, and for the first time she had someone who wasn't

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just humoring her, he was in.

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"If you put all their messages together," said Captain Danny Barlow of the Caldwell County

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Sheriff's Department, "you would have a very large novel."

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Not just a novel, a 900-page long blueprints of what they were going to do.

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For months, they had planned every detail, and in October 1996, Sherry put that plan into

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motion, leaving Maryland to meet Bobby in Georgia.

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Before she left, she left Victor a note, "If my body is never retrieved, don't worry.

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Know that I am at peace."

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"That's not the kind of thing you want to find on a post-it from your wife.

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She also urged him not to go after Bobby if anything happened to her.

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That was an immediate no from Victor who marched straight to the police with the letter.

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Investigators traced Sherry's digital footprint to Bobby's trailer in North Carolina.

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They watched him for days, hoping to see any sign that Sherry was alive.

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When nothing surfaced, a judge issued a search warrant.

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Inside, the place was an absolute disaster.

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Rodding trash, abandoned children's toys, filth everywhere, but worse than the mess were

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the things that shouldn't have been there."

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Sherry's belongings.

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And then, outside, a shallow grave.

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Bobby Glass confessed almost immediately.

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He said Sherry had stayed with him for three days, indulging in their darkest fantasies,

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before things took a turn.

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"I don't know how much I pulled the rope," he told investigators.

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"I never wanted to kill her, but she ended up dead."

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The autopsy told a different story.

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Bobby Glass had been strangled multiple times over a period of time.

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The coroner ruled her death in accident, but investigators were not buying it.

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They had 900 pages of proof that Bobby had absolutely intended to kill her.

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He was charged with first-degree murder, but cut a deal, pleading guilty to voluntary

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manslaughter and sexual exploitation.

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His sentence, "A whopping 36 to 53 months."

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But there was one last twist.

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When investigators combed through his computer, they found a massive stash of child pornography.

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That got him another 27 months in federal prison, to begin after his state sentence was up,

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not that he ever served it.

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In 2000, just a month before his federal time was set to begin, Bobby Glass died of a heart

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attack.

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One final plot twist.

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And this twisted chapter was closed for good.

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Thanks for listening to "10 Minute Murder."

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If you liked this episode, hit subscribe and leave a review.

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It helps more true crime fans find the show.

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And if you're into mysteries, something with a little less murder, you can check out my

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other podcast, "10 Minute Mystery."

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Same brief and bingeable vibe as this one, just with more mystery.

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You can find everything at 10minutemurder.com.

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