WEBVTT
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A previous romantic partner had recalled a frightening incident. Resolved
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to escape the highly explosive relationship, she had abandoned her
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things in their shared apartment, only returning when it could
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be confirmed that Steve wouldn't be home. She returned to
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try to collect her things, to find that he'd laid
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out her stuffed animals and dolls decapitated. Hi, Cassie, Hi, Caitlin, Hi,
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creepy people. Hello. Hello, This is PNW Hans and Homicides,
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where we chat about true crime, the paranormal, and all
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things spooky in the PNW. If you're nicety, which is
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the Pacific north West, if you didn't know what that meant,
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I don't want. I think it means like penis not well,
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peanut butter, no waffles, Like we don't want them to
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think those things about us. So that's right. Yeah, I
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definitely don't want either of those associations. Oh my goodness.
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We also do a little tarot reading at the end
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of every episode for a little bit of deeper insight
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into our.
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Topic, especially for our palate cleanser at the end of
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Caitlin's episodes, which today, Yeah, that is what's going on
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that's what's happening.
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You're like, that's that's what's gonna happen. We're doing that
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to your ear holes.
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So that's what's happening to us today.
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Sorry, I guess, Oh my goodness. Yeah, all right, Well,
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and I think I'm gonna be giving you guys. I
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don't know, maybe a little bit of a surprise. I
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don't know if anybody's paying attention, maybe they already know.
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I don't know. Well, should I get into it? I
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feel like that's a lot of tom foolery for the
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front end.
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Yeah, let's get into it. I'm ready.
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Or were you talking about the teaser post on Instagram? Yeah?
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I was like, I don't know what's happening, but I
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did the post.
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All right. Jamie Sue Heigel Scherer, twenty six at the
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time of her disappearance, lived in Redmond with her husband
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Steve Schuer. That Sunday afternoon in September of nineteen ninety,
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Jamie's mother, Judy was looking after the couple's young son. Normally,
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Steve would repeatedly call to check in anytime Jamie had
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visited her parents' home, calling to ensure her safe arrival.
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Several more times thereafter, before finally insisting that she returned home.
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It's one thing to call and make sure that you're
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her wife made it to where she was going, but
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then to like keep calling. I was about to ask,
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was she picking up? Is that why? Like was she
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not picking up? Is that why he kept killing or
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they were definitely picking up the phone.
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Okay, if that sounds a little toxic, yeah, a little bit,
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like I don't know the story.
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Yeah, yeah, but that Sunday he hadn't checked in for
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five hours, completely unheard of, because he would call sometimes
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in fifteen minute intervals the entire time she was gone.
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WHOA if someone, dude, if someone's doing that to you,
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that's intense.
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That's entirely too.
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Much, very controlling, like just making sure that you're not
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like doing anything they wouldn't want you to be doing well.
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And really I think it was just like the point
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of like pestering her so that she would just come home.
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Yeah, that is so ugh.
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I don't like that, Like she's at her parents' house.
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Yeah, So I.
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Think it goes without saying that. We as a podcast,
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we hate that unless.
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You're both like, if you both want to be on
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the phone every fifteen minutes. Like, if you're both into it,
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go like you do, you go for it, be codependent
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if that's what you want.
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If you are both into that, I have to insist
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that you see a therapist. There's just no ifs ands
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or butts about that. I need you to just go
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see someone. I feel like, yeah, I gotta talk to somebody.
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Some people just like to be of each other's butts
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all the time. And that's fine if that's what you want.
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That's deep in there, that's so deep, so deep. As
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a girl, Jamie had been incredibly petite, though even as
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an adult woman, she'd really never topped about ninety five pounds.
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Very small, yes, and she was just over five feet
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like super short, very.
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Petite, like you said.
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The whole family played softball in local leagues, including Jamie.
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The Hagel children had what many might consider an idyllic upbringing,
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swimming in Lake Samamish, climbing trees with their friends, and
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in Jamie's case, riding horses.
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Very PMW stuff, you guys, that's the dream for Kate,
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like as a little girl, the horses.
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The family traveled back to North Dakota to visit extended
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family for holidays. Though they weren't the lone settlers in
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their newfound home state. They joined two of Jodie's brothers
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who had previously settled into Washington. Jamie was a sweet
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child and growing up had really close relationships with I mean,
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ultimately it seems like her entire family, but with both
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of her parents. As she went on to high school
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at Samamish High, little changed. So I'm sure that there
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were probably moments when she was a teen that, like
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her parents and her thought, but she never became like
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one of those super combative, you know, teenagers. Not a rebel, No,
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doesn't seem like it. Her sophomore year, Jamie began dating
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her high school sweetheart, Greg. Her family approved of their
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relationship and all got along really well, so pretty wholesome. Yeah,
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I feel like most of the time, your parents don't
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always love who you're dating when you're a teenager.
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Yeah, a lot of the time.
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Yeah, yeah, I mean the couple dated for nearly six years,
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the remainder of their time in high school and for
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some time after graduation as well. Greg would say in
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hindsight that Jamie had been his first love. Oh I know.
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Though eventually they grew apart as a couple, the two
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would remain friends.
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That's very sweet.
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I know, it's just so heartwarming. I like that. Eventually
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Jamie would meet someone new and very different from her
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first love Greg. It happens, yep, sure, yes. Steve Shearer
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was a twenty four year old motorcycle riding man that
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and this is a quote none of Jamie's family particularly
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cared for.
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Oh oh, she was getting into her rebel phase now,
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uh yeah, yeah yeah, and that was from the very beginning, Like,
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just didn't give off good vibes from the start. Man.
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Though not physic imposing at five seven, his abrasive personality
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hardly made it easier to like him. He's tall to her, though,
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Yeah exactly.
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Yeah, he's got that like short man syndrome.
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Oh my god, was he ever? Oh boy, call him Napoleon.
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Though Steve didn't seem to have steady work, typically, he
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did always drive nice cars and always seemed to make
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or at least have more than enough money. Nice Okay,
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you yeah, jealous? He'd right, Okay, I don't need to
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make money. I would just like to have some acin
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has cheeseburger, He'd told Jamie early on in their relationship
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that he came from a wealthy family.
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I feel like, by the way you said that he
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told her that it might not be true.
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Well, it's not exactly that it's untrue. I just feel
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like it's just a gigantic eye roll for me, oh,
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because it's like, okay, right, but dude, you're like twenty four,
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so I think most people would be hoping that maybe
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you'd be making some of your own money.
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I see, yeah, okay, huh ah, it's my family's money.
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How sexy is that so sexy? I love your daddy's money.
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Just go straight to the source, I know, just go
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for daddy. Yeah, well, wasn't really an option. Steve Frank
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Shearer was born just before nine am on November fourth,
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nineteen sixty one, in California, to parents David and Sherry.
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His father, David, was a bricklayer at the time, but
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once the family relocated to Washington, he started a construction company,
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Shearer Quality Homes in Effett. It quickly became a success
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as the new suburban neighborhoods around Seattle began to expand.
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In addition to their home in Lynnwood, they had multiple
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vacation homes in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Palm Desert, California, near
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the desirable affluent area of Rancho Mirage, Verfa.
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I've never heard of that.
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It's where, it's not far from like where they do Coachella.
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A lot of people go there to retire. There's a
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lot of celebrities with homes down there, a lot of
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like you know, high end hobbies like girls. David would
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die by suicide at age forty four, when Steve was
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just twenty two years old. Sit Reportedly he and his
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wife Sherry had frequent argued about his excessive drinking. On
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Thanksgiving nineteen eighty two, David decided to head down to
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their home and Palm Desert, telling Sherry he intended to
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get himself together, referring to his drinking, which I don't
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exactly think of like getting myself together as being like,
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here's the step I'm going to take. I'm going to
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go and spend a family holiday that's all about getting
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together and eating and being thankful by myself alone in
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one of our vacation properties. Doesn't really read like super
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serious about being sober and you know, fixing the problems
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in my marriage. It sounds like a maybe like a
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last get drunk, you know, yeah, I mean like a
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last hurrah. Yeah, that's the word. I was like, there's
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a word for this. Yes, there's a lot of words
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for them, and it actually there's it's not gonna go
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well obviously I led with, you know, the the unaliving, So.
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Like that's what I would want to think when someone's
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doing that, like not that they're gonna.
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Go right unlive themselves.
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That they're gonna go have like a last hurrah and
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then go to rehab, right.
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Right, right exactly. Yeah, you'd want to think like, Okay,
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he's having one last binge and then you know things
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are going to get better from here. And sadly that
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just obviously wasn't the case. However, when David called late
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that night, clearly heavily intoxicated, Sherry became concerned, though she
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didn't take what sounded like claims of suicidal ideation seriously.
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He had told her he had a gun in his possession.
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She wasn't aware of any besides a thirty two caliber
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that he had been given to him by his father.
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She believed that weapon to be back in their Washington
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State home, though she may not have believed every detail
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he shared as they fought bitterly over the phone. Something
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did compel her to get on a plane to California
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later that night. Wow, she got a really bad feeling
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either way.
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Yeah.
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I think, honestly, if your husband's talking like that, even
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if you don't believe him, I feel like I would
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be doing the same thing, right. I feel like you
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should just default to believing people. Yeah, yeah, it's kind
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of a serious thing to like roll the dice, just
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my two cents. But when she arrived at their Palm
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Desert home, she would find her husband David dead of
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an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. By
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the time ems arrived, Rigrimordes had said in there was
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a bullet hole marked by blood spatter, but the bullet
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itself was not recovered. The detective believed it had descended
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to the floor between studs, rather than penetrating through the
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nearby wall. So the interesting thing about this is, I
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feel like, because because that bullet wasn't recovered, it was
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a through and through shot and they didn't recover that.
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At the scene, there were definitely some people that It's
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like there was almost like kind of chatter about like ooh,
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are we sure this was a suicide, and like, right,
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kind of seems a little fishy, and later events will
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make that seem like, oh, maybe we should look at
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that a second time. I don't think it ever got
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looked at a second time. Whohoa, that is weird. They
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couldn't like pull up the floorboards. I just think that
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when it was like seemingly such an apparent suicide, they
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were like, we're not gonna do that. But yeah, yeah, personally,
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I do think that based on the information that I have,
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more than likely it's a suicide. That piece of it
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is like a little bit wonky or kind of rolls
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around in the back of your mind like, ooh that.
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I wish they had just recovered it so that we
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could just like everybody could feel like we had everything.
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But the house itself showed no signs of forest entry,
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nothing was missing, and generally it appeared the house was undisturbed.
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David's body showed no signs of a struggle or defensive wounds.
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His toxicology report revealed a blood alcohol level of point one,
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which is pretty high. Yeah, I mean, it's odd as
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high as I was expecting. Yeah, I kind of thought
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the same though, no note had been left behind. His
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death was officially a suicide. He'd been in good health,
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and his untimely death was a shock. So I think
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that's the other thing that maybe gives people pause is that,
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like I feel a little bit weird that there's not
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a note. Not everyone leaves a note, but I feel
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like if you have a family, more often than not
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there's a note, right right.
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But if you're in like that drunken, yeah, say you're
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like not always yourself and you're.
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Maybe not down and yeah, maybe not feeling like the