Transcript
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[Music]
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Today we pull back the curtain on Amy Archer Gilligan, a church going widow with a warm smile,
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and a nursing home that locals would come to call the murder factory.
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In a quiet Connecticut town, residents walked in healthy and left in caskets.
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Their fortunes conveniently funneled to Amy.
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But one grieving sister armed with a suspicious letter and unshakable determination,
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dared to ask, "Why are so many people dying in Amy's care?
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And why did they all seem to enrich her on the way out?"
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This isn't just an ordinary story.
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It's a descent into greed, deception, and a trust so deeply betrayed it changed a community forever.
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But before we get into that story, if you like your true crime brief and bingeable,
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you found the right podcast.
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I give you at least two episodes per week, so hit that follow button now,
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and welcome to 10 Minute Murder.
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[Music]
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In the suffocating heat of a Connecticut summer in 1916,
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a determined woman sat across the desk from a man she hoped could deliver justice.
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Nelly Pierce clutched a worn envelope. Her brother's name scrawled in a familiar hand,
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and a slim stack of papers filled with grim accusations.
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Her voice, though trembling, cut through the room like a blade.
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Someone had murdered her brother, and she believed she knew exactly who it was.
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Nelly had tried before.
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She presented her case to the district attorney who dismissed her with a smirk
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and a condescending pat on the shoulder.
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Now she pinned her last hope on the editor of the Hartford Current.
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If the law wouldn't listen, maybe the press would.
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Maybe the truth about Amy Archer Gilligan would finally see the light of day.
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Amy Archer Gilligan, kindly, church-going Amy, was no ordinary suspect.
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In the Gentile community of Windsor, Connecticut, Amy was a picture of Piety,
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a plump, middle-aged widow with a generous smile and a reputation for helping the needy.
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But Nelly was convinced that beneath her unassuming exterior,
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lay something monstrous, a predator hiding in plain sight.
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Amy's story began far from the whispers of suspicion that now swirled around her.
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Born on Halloween in 1873, Amy Duggan was the eighth of 10 children.
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She grew up in a modest home, did well enough in school,
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and seemed to avoid the threats of madness that plagued some of her siblings.
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Her life unfolded quietly, without much to suggest the darkness that would later come to define her.
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By the dawn of the 20th century, Amy had married, given birth to a daughter and found her calling.
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In 1901, she and her husband were hired as live-in caretakers for the elderly John Seymour
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in Newington, Connecticut. After Seymour's death, three years later, the couple remained in the home,
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transforming it into a business. Sister Amy's nursing home for the elderly.
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It was here that Amy's story truly began to curdle, though no one suspected it. Yet.
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As the name suggested, Amy, her husband James and their young daughter Mary were asked to stay on
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as managers of the new nursing home. What might seem like a modest endeavor today was,
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at the time, a groundbreaking move. The archers were, in many ways, pioneers in elder care.
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In the early 1900s, care homes, as we know them, didn't exist. The responsibility for aging
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relatives typically fell to younger family members, with generations living under one roof
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and sharing the burden of care. But societal shifts at the turn of the century began to upend this
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tradition. Younger generations, particularly in rural America, moved to bustling cities,
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lured by the promise of jobs, culture, and opportunity. While that migration spurred economic growth
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and shaped the modern United States, it left behind a critical void. Elderly patients and grandparents
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were often abandoned, with no one left to care for them in their twilight years. This new reality
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created a niche for families like the archers. They filled the gap by running facilities designed
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to house and care for the aging population. However, with little regulation or oversight to ensure
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patient well-being, these homes often operated in a gray area. One ripe for exploitation.
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It's no surprise, then, that sister Amy's nursing home for the elderly thrived.
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When the owners of the original house decided to sell a few years later, the archers used their
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earnings to strike it out on their own. Moving to Windsor, Connecticut, they launched a new facility.
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The archer home for the elderly and infirm. The model was simple. Borders could pay between
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$7.25 weekly or opt-in to a one-time life care payment of $1,000, a sum equivalent to about $26,000
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today. For many in Windsor, it seemed like a bargain. For the archers, it was a lucrative business model.
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But beneath the polished surface, not everything was as it seemed. Complaints from the residents and
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family began to mount. Three years after the opening, the archers faced a lawsuit from the McClintock
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family who accused them of neglecting a relative in their care. The matter was quietly settled out of
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court with the archers paying a hefty sum, $5,000, about $133,000 in today's money. For the McClintox,
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the settlement may have closed one dark chapter, but for the other residents of the archer home,
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the horror was only beginning. It began as many dark tales do, with death. In 1910, the archer
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household fell into mourning. James archers sudden death left behind his 12-year-old daughter Mary,
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and his widow, Amy, who now had to manage both the care of the home and their mounting debts.
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Bills came quickly. Mary's private school tuition, back taxes from the previous year,
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and Amy, now wary and alone, scrutinized every expense. But it wasn't enough. The archer
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home for the elderly and infirm teetered on the edge of financial collapse. Yet, in her grief,
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Amy found a lifeline. Weeks before his death, James had taken out a life insurance policy. The policy
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paid out swiftly, providing the funds to cover their debts and to keep the care home running.
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For the next three years, Amy managed the business, ensuring Mary's education continued,
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and maintaining a facade of normalcy. In 1913, Michael W. Gilligan entered her life. A wealthy
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widower, Michael seemed to offer Amy the stability and support that she wanted to need it. Their
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marriage was swift, but tragedy struck again. Imagine that. Just three months later, Michael suddenly
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died from what was officially ruled a heart failure. His funeral was quick, but unsettling questions
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lingered. Before his death, Michael had rewritten his will, leaving everything to Amy and bypassing
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his four sons. Though they contested it, the will held up in court, and Amy inherited his entire
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fortune. With her wealth secured, Amy poured resources into the care home. For some residents,
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life continued comfortably. For others, however, Michael's death marked the start of a far
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darker chapter at the Archer home. For many residents of the Archer home, for the elderly and
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infirm, walking in on their own two feet didn't guarantee they wouldn't leave in a casket.
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Even those who seemed healthy and vibrant often met sudden, mysterious ends. Take Franklin R. Andrews,
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for instance. Franklin wasn't even a resident. He was a handyman who helped with odd jobs around
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the property. On May 29, 1914, he spent the day painting a fence in the warm Connecticut Sun.
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When his work was done, he stepped back inside, only two collapsed hours later and died.
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The official cause of death was listed as a stomach ulcer, but Franklin's family wasn't convinced.
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Their suspicions grew when his sister, Nellie Pierce, found a troubling letter among his belongings.
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It was a demand for a large sum of money, signed by none other than Amy Archer Gilligan herself.
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That letter spurred Nellie into action, digging into Amy's past and her home's history.
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Nellie uncovered a horrifying pattern. Franklin's death wasn't an anomaly. It was part of a grim trend.
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Numerous residents had died after giving Amy significant amounts of money. Between 1911 and 1916,
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48 patients had died in her care. In a know what you're thinking. At first,
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that number doesn't seem shocking for a facility catering to the elderly, but a closer look proved
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damning. The Jefferson Street Home in Hartford, a comparable care home operating at the same time,
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reported similar death totals with seven times as many residents. The numbers left little doubt,
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staying at Amy's home was a death sentence. Nellie's investigation also revealed that many deceased
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residents had paid Amy large sums of money before their untimely deaths, often through life-care
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plans that transferred their entire savings to her. Tragically, most didn't live long enough to
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benefit from the care that they'd paid for. Arms with this evidence, Nellie went to the district
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attorney, but the DA wasn't swayed. He reviewed the figures, read the letter, and looked at Amy herself.
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She hardly fit the image of a murderer. Twice widowed, single mother, and respected community figure.
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Amy was small, soft-spoken, and devout. She never missed church, had paid for a stained glass window
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at the local chapel and seemed tirelessly devoted to the elderly and her daughter's education.
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To him, the claims seemed baseless. Amy was above suspicion. He dismissed Nellie outright,
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but Nellie wasn't done. Desperate to expose the truth, she turned to the local press,
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determined to uncover the horrors lurking behind the Archer Holmes walls.
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The Hartford Current took notice of the alarming number of deaths at Amy's home,
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branding it with a chilling new nickname, the Murder Factory. A series of damning articles
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brought fresh attention to the case, and the resulting public pressure forced the authorities to act.
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Police launched an investigation and exhumed five bodies, including Franklin Andrews
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and Amy's second husband, Michael Gilligan. The results were as shocking as the suspicions.
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All five had died from arsenic poisoning. Testimony from local shot keepers revealed that Amy had
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been purchasing large amounts of arsenic, claiming it was for a rat infestation on the property.
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But the evidence didn't stop there. Investigators discovered that Amy had been convincing her patients,
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and even their family members, to buy arsenic themselves, under the guise of it being used for
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medical treatments. In a grotesque twist, her victims had knowingly provided the very poison
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used to kill them. The unraveling of Amy's schemes didn't end with the poisonings.
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Closer scrutiny revealed that the will Michael Gilligan had signed just months after marrying Amy
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was a forgery, created by Amy to ensure that she inherited his entire estate. The Murder Factory
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was no longer a whispered suspicion. It was a gruesome reality, meticulously orchestrated by its
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caretaker. By the time Amy Archer Gilligan faced trial, her carefully constructed life had
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crumbled. A jury found her guilty of murder, and she was sentenced to death. But the story didn't
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in there. Amy appealed her conviction, earning a retrial where she changed her plea to not guilty
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by reason of insanity. This time, the court spared her life, sinnancing her instead to a life in
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prison. After serving several years behind bars, she was transferred to a mental hospital,
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where she would remain for the rest of her days. Amy died in 1962, confined within the same walls
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that house two of her siblings. Both suffering from mental illness. Her legacy was no longer one of
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benevolence or care but of betrayal, greed, and chilling murder. Justice had finally caught up
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with a woman behind the Murder Factory. That's 10 minute murder for today,
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brief and bingeable true crime. I'm Joe, the host, thank you for taking the time to listen to the
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podcast and a fun fact about the podcast. The Murder Factory is a name that I considered
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calling this podcast. It was on the short list. It wasn't toward the top, but I liked the name,
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and it was before I thought of the concept of 10 minute murder. I thought about making a podcast
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in the before times. I made it, I started it during the pandemic times, but I had the list of things
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that I thought maybe I would want to do on a podcast and the Murder Factory was on that list.
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I'm glad I didn't use it now because I mean it is a good name, I think it's a good name for a podcast,
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but I think that I most definitely more aligned with the 10 minute murder type of vibe. As we all know,
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there are times when I can't focus for an hour or two hours to listen to a podcast or it just
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flat out puts me to sleep. So 10 minutes seem like the ideal amount of time that I can tell a story
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and get all the facts in that are relevant and the details that are interesting and make the whole
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podcast, but Murder Factory is kind of a cool name. So hey, if you're a new listener to 10 minute
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murder, make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening right now. Follow me on social media,
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links from the show notes or you can go to 10minuteMurder.com and find all the information about the
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podcast there. 10minuteMurder.com. And that's going to do it. That's your episode for today. Thank you
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so much for listening.
