April 9, 2026

MELISSA GILBERT BREAKS SILENCE, CRUISE SHIP MYSTERY REIGNITES & SERIAL KILLER FINALLY ON TRIAL

Show Notes
Transcript

A Little House on the Prairie reunion nobody wanted, a 28-year-old disappearance finds new leads, and a man who already admitted it — in court at last.

Garret Fisher covers three stories that have been years — in some cases, decades — in the making. The West Wing's Timothy Busfield is back in headlines as wife Melissa Gilbert goes on national television to defend him, revealing she knew about prior allegations before they married. Then: Amy Bradley disappeared from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in 1998 at age twenty-three, and a Netflix documentary may have cracked the case wide open — the FBI has now questioned two people of interest with trafficking ties. And in Orlando, a man already serving 110 years for murder in California finally went on trial this week for strangling Theresa Ann Green and locking her in a car trunk.

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Caalaroga Shark Media, Good Morning, Thursday, April ninth, twenty twenty six.

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I'm Garrett Fisher, and this is Daily Crime and Justice.

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Three stories today and they span thirty years of waiting. First,

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Timothy Busfield. You heard this story from us back in

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January when he was arrested, and again when a grand

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jury indicted him in February. Now, his wife, Melissa Gilbert

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Laura Ingleswilder herself sat down with George Stephanopoulos on Good

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Morning America to defend him. She knew about prior allegations

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before she married him. She's staying and she had a

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lot to say. Second, Amy Bradley, twenty three years old

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a Royal Caribbean cruise March nineteen ninety eight. She vanished.

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Her family never stopped looking. A Netflix documentary reignited the search,

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and this week we learned the FBI has now questioned

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two people with ties to human trafficking. There may also

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be a second source saying Amy had a child after

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she disappeared. She might still be alive. And Third, a

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trial that took twenty two years to start. Demorris Hunter

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is already behind bars in California for murder, serving one

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hundred and ten years, but in Orlando this week he

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finally went on trial for strangling Teresa Ann Green in

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two thousand and two and putting her body in the

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trunk of her car, and the case turns on a

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single chilling admission he made the same night it happened.

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I did something really bad. Let's get into it. Let

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me bring you current on the Timothy Busfield case, because

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things have moved considerably since we last covered it. Quick

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timeline for anyone who missed the earlier episodes. January twenty

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twenty six, Busfield, sixty eight years old, best known as

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Elliott Weston on The West Wing and as the husband

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who came in Field of Dreams, turned himself into Albuquerque

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police on charges of criminal sexual contact of a minor.

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The allegation stem from his time directing episodes of The

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Cleaning Lady, a Fox series that filmed in Albuquerque between

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twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four. Twin boys who

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were child actors on the show told police he had

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touched them inappropriately. The older boy said it started when

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he was seven. He was held briefly, then released. The

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case went to a grand jury February twenty twenty six,

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that grand jury indicted Busfield on four counts of criminal

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sexual contact of a child under thirteen, not three counts four.

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The indictment upgraded the case and locked in formal charges.

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Trial is now scheduled for twenty twenty seven. A status

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hearing is expected this month, and then this week, April

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sixth Melissa Gilbert sat down with George Stephanopoulos on Good

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Morning America, and she made some news. Gilbert is famous,

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of course, as Laura Ingalls Wilder on Little House on

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the Prairie, a role she played as a child, a

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detail that carries an uncomfortable weight when you're sitting across

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from a morning news anchor defending your husband against child

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sex abuse charges. She married Busfield in twenty thirteen. They've

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been together for over twelve years, and she's not going anywhere.

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But she also walked into that interview with her eyes open.

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Here's what Gilbert said about knowing what she was getting into.

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She told Stephanopoulos that she was aware of prior allegations

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against Busfield before they got married. These allegations have been

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out in the ether for a very long time, she said.

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When Tim and I got together, the internet existed. I

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didn't go into my relationship with him blind, and she

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had a line that was clearly rehearsed but landed anyway.

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I'm neither naive nor am I complicit. Those prior allegations

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are worth understanding because they're now part of the criminal complaint.

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In nineteen ninety five, or a seventeen year old girl

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said Busfield groped her on the set of Little Big League,

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served her alcohol, assaulted her, and attempted to have sex

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with her. She later filed a lawsuit. Busfield countersued for defamation.

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Both cases settled cost him one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

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No criminal charges were filed. In twenty twelve, a twenty

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eight year old woman accused Busfield of putting his hands

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under her clothing and touching her genitals in a Los

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Angeles movie theater. Busfield claimed the contact was consensual. Prosecutors

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looked at the case and declined to pursue it, saying

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they had slim evidence. Gilbert says she talked to Busfield

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about both incidents before they got married. She heard his

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side of the story, she believed him, and she points

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out correctly that no criminal charges resulted. From either of

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those cases. The defense's position in the current case is aggressive.

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Busfield's civil attorney, Larry Stein, appeared alongside Gilbert in the

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Good Morning America interview and took direct aim at the

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children's testimony. Stein alleged that one of the boys said

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he had not actually been having nightmares about Busfield, that

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the father had described the nightmares and the child had

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gone along with it rather than disappoint him. Stein also

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alleged the parents fabricated the story because their sons weren't

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asked back for the show's final season. The boys are

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victims in this case, Stein said, they're victims of the parents,

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not victims of tim That is the defense's theory, and

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I want to be clear about this. Those are allegations too.

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Busfield is presumed innocent. The trial doesn't start until twenty

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twenty seven. There's a lot of process left. But I

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will say this, the criminal complaint references a child who

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was diagnosed with PTSD following the alleged contact. The original

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allegations weren't made by a father describing his son's bad dreams.

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They came from a seven year old child who told

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people what happened. That's not nothing. The defense's version of

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events requires believing that both parents coordinated a false accusation

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coach their children, and that the children have been maintaining

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that story ever since. That's possible, it's not likely, and

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Melissa Gilbert acknowledged something important at the end of that interview.

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She said, this has been the most traumatizing experience of

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our lives. Our life as we knew it is done.

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We are grieving what we had. All of our plans,

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all of our ideas, all of our projects. For Tim,

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it's done, it's canceled. Even if he's exonerated, he will

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always be that guy. She's right about that last part,

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and she added, if I thought for a second that

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Tim Busfield hurt a child, he'd have a lot more

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to worry about than prison. Look, I'm not gonna tell

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Melissa Gilbert what to think about her own husband. Spouses

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are often the last to know, and sometimes they're the first.

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I genuinely don't know which. This is what I do know.

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A grand jury heard the evidence and indicted on four counts.

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The case is going to trial, and somewhere in Albuquerque,

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there are children who told a story, and at least

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one of them has the PTSD diagnosis to prove something happened.

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We'll follow the bus Field case as it heads toward

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trial status. Hearing expected this month coming up. A twenty

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three year old woman disappeared from a cruise ship in

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nineteen ninety eight. Twenty eight years later, a Netflix documentary

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and a Caribbean casino computer might finally be pointing investigators

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in the right direction. Amy Bradley is missing, but maybe

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not for much longer. We haven't covered Amy Bradley on

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this show before, so I'm going to give you the

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full story because it's one of the most haunting cold

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cases in American history, and this week it got a

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genuine new chap. March nineteen ninety eight, Amy Lynn Bradley

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is twenty three years old. She's just graduated from college.

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She's about to start a master's degree in sports psychology.

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To celebrate, she takes a seven day Royal Caribbean cruise

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with her family. Her parents Eva and Ron, and her

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brother Brad. They bored the Rhapsody of the Seas. The

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ship is headed through the Caribbean toward Kurassau. The night

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of March twenty third into the early morning of March

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twenty fourth, Amy and brad go to the ship's nightclub.

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They stay out late. By most accounts, Amy was having fun,

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normal vacation behavior, nothing wrong. Somewhere in the hours after that,

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Amy Bradley vanished. By the time her family realized she

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was gone, the ship was on its way to Curasao.

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A full search of the vessel found nothing. Royal Caribbean

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notified authorities, an investigation began. Official thinking initially was that

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she may have gone overboard accidentally or by suicide, but

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her family rejected that theory from day one. There was

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no evidence of it, and people who knew Amy said

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she was not suicidal. She was excited about her future.

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She was on vacation with her family. No body was

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ever found, but Amy Bradley was, or at least someone

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who looked exactly like her seen again. In the months

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and years after her disappearance, multiple credible witnesses reported seeing

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a woman matching Amy's description alive and in the Caribbean.

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A scuba diver in Porto Marie, a tourist shopping in Barbados.

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A United States Navy petty officer stationed in Curosow who

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said a woman approached him said her name was Amy

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Bradley and said she'd been kidnapped. He reached for a

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phone she ran. Amy Bradley has never been found. Her

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case has never been closed. Then, in the summer of

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twenty twenty five, Netflix released a three part documentary series

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called Amy Bradley Is Missing. Director Aery Mark had spent

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years working alongside the Bradley family and their private investigator,

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and the documentary did what good true crime does. It

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put the case in front of millions of new eyes

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and generated new leads. This week, Mark gave an interview

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to The Hollywood Reporter and he had several significant updates. First,

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two people of interest with ties to human trafficking have

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been questioned by the FBI in connection with Amy's disappearance.

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Mark said this is a pretty new development and called

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it a big deal. He and the Bradley family's private

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investigator believe they may have identified a specific trafficking ring

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operating in the Caribbean, a dominant group, and that this

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ring may be connected to what happened to Amy on

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that ship. The trafficking theory isn't new, It's been the

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family's belief for decades, and the witnesses who reported seeing

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Amy alive after her disappearance generally placed her in the Caribbean,

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which is consistent with someone who was trafficked rather than

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someone who fell overboard. What's new is the FBI appears

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to be taking it seriously enough to interview specific individuals.

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Second development, a source has told investigators that Amy may

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have had a child after she disappeared. This is not

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something to gloss over. A second source, surfacing in October

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twenty twenty five, reportedly corroborated an earlier claim made to Mark.

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If it's true if Amy gave birth to a child

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after she vanished from that ship, it would almost certainly

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mean she is alive. You can't give birth if you're dead,

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and it would mean she has been alive somewhere in

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the Caribbean for the better part of three decades. Forensic

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expert Peter Valentine, chair of the Forensic Science Department at

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the University of New Haven and a former Connecticut State

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Police detective, told reporters that if DNA from such a

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child could be recovered, it would shift the case entirely,

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giving investigators a geographic anchor for where Amy might be

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and who might have access to her. Third a casino

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in the Caribbean. Amy's family has maintained a website amy

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Bradley is Missing dot com for years. The site serves

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two purposes, a clearinghouse for information about the case and

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a kind of beacon for Amy herself. Each visit to

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the site records the IP address of the device that

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accessed it. The family's private investigator monitors those hits from

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certain parts of the Caribbean. In twenty twenty three, an

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IP address from a public computer inside a casino in

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the Caribbean access the site. The family's investigator tracked down

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the casino's general manager and had a conversation with him.

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The manager, according to Mark, confirmed that he recognized Amy Bradley.

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He said she had been in that casino and that

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she had potentially used that public computer. Then the investigator

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tried to follow up, tried to record the conversation, and

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the manager completely clammed up. Valentine's interpretation of that reversal

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is worth noting. He suggested the manager may have been

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genuinely afraid that if someone had been using Amy against

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her will, a casino operator who started cooperating with American

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investigators might face serious consequences from the people who controlled her.

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The FBI has responded to all of this by raising

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the reward in Amy's case from twenty five thousand dollars

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to one hundred thousand dollars. An updated missing person's flyer

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has been released showing what Amy might look like today

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at fifty one years old. Brad Bradley, Amy's brother, had

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a simple message when he spoke to the Hollywood Reporter.

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Somebody knows something. The whole case comes down to someone

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coming forward with what they know. He's right. The FBI

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has suspects, they have leads, They have a casino manager

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who recognized her face and then went silent. What they

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don't have is someone willing to say what they know.

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Amy Bradley was twenty three years old on March twenty fourth,

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nineteen ninety eight. She was celebrating her graduation. She had

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a future she was excited about. She had a family

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that never stopped looking for her. If she's alive and

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there is more reason to believe she might be than

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at any point in the past twenty eight years, she

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deserves to come home. Amy Bradley. Someone has to say

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your name still ahead. He told someone he did something

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really bad, then he got in a dead woman's car

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and drove away. Twenty two years later, Demorris Hunter is

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finally on trial. I want you to think about what

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it means that this trial is just now starting. The

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year was two thousand and two. Teresa Ann Green was

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thirty eight years old. She was a hospital secretary living

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in the College Park neighborhood of Orlando. She was a mother.

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She had a son named Octavius. She had a life.

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On the night of May twenty fifth into May twenty sixth,

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two thousand and two, Teresa went to a party. It

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was at the apartment of her neighbors, Joyce and Joseph Butler,

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who lived in the same building, Bay Run two apartments.

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Another guest at that party was a man named Demorris Hunter.

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He was living in the building under an alias Michael Barry.

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At some point near the end of the night, Teresa

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and Hunter left the party at the same time. Witnesses

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told police they saw both of them fall down the

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stairs an accident, not a fight, and then both of

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them get up and go into Teresa's apartment. That's the

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last confirmed sighting of Teresa Green alive. Hours later, the

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party had ended. The Butler's had gone to sleep. Hunter

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came back. He knocked on the butler's door and he

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told Joseph Butler that he had done something really bad. Butler,

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according to testimony, didn't want to hear it, didn't ask questions,

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turned Hunter away. The next morning, Hunter was seen driving

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Teresa's car. He left it in the parking thought of

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a Walgreens in Sanford, Florida, and disappeared. Police found Teresa

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Ann Green in the trunk of that car. She had

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been strangled to death. Hunter fled, and this is where

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the story gets complicated because Demores Hunter was not a

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man who disappeared quietly. Hunter had a criminal history in

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California going back years. He was eventually convicted in California

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for the murder of another woman, a separate killing unrelated

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to Teresa Green, and sentenced to one hundred and ten

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years in prison. While he was sitting in a California

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facility working his way through that sentence, investigators in Orange County, Florida,

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were building their case. In twenty fourteen, an Orange County

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grand jury indicted Hunter for Teresa Green's murder. In twenty fifteen,

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he was extradited to Florida to face the charges. He

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has been sitting in the Orange County Jail ever since.

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More than a decade. The case has been delayed repeatedly.

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COVID slowed court proceedings across the country. Hunter had a

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heart attack at some point during the weight which caused

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additional postponements. He has been assigned at least six different

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public defenders over the years. Every time the case seemed

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ready to move, something pushed it back. Twenty two years

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after Teresa Green was found in that trunk, jury selection

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began on March thirtieth, twenty twenty six. Opening statements were

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delivered on April sixth, two days ago. Here's where things

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stand heading into today. April ninth. The prosecution laid out

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a case built around three pillars. Hunter's presence with the

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victim on the night she was killed, his admission to

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Joseph Butler that he did something really bad, and his

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behavior the following morning driving her car, abandoning it and

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leaving town. DNA and blood evidence was collected from Green's apartment.

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Fingerprint testimony has been entered, and the sun Octavius Hayes

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has taken this and a grown man now testifying about

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the moment he came home and his mother wasn't there.

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Joyce Butler, one of the party hosts, has already given

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complicated testimony. She admitted on the stand that she previously

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lied to investigators. What she lied about and when she

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told the truth are questions the jury will have to weigh.

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The defense delivered their own opening. They have a client

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who is already serving more than a century in prison

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in California. There is not a lot of leverage here,

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but they will contest the evidence, question the witnesses, and

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do what defense attorneys do. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

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That's significant. If Hunter is convicted of first degree murder

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in Florida, a state that now allows the death penalty

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by an eight to four jury vote under a law

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sign by Ronda Santis in twenty twenty three, he could

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be sentenced to death. He is fifty nine years old,

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he is already serving one hundred and ten years in California.

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In any practical sense, he will I'll never be free

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regardless of what happens in this courtroom. But Teresa Green's

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family has been waiting for twenty two years. Her son Octavia,

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sat in that courtroom two days ago and told the

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jury what it was like to come home. There's no

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sentence that gives him his mother back. But there's a

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difference between a man who killed your mother walking around

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free or sitting comfortably in a California facility under a

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different name, and a man who is convicted in the

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room where your mother's case is finally heard. The trial

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is expected to run for several weeks. We'll track it.

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Teresa Ann Green, thirty eight years old hospital secretary, mother

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found in the trunk of her own car in a

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Walgreens parking lot. She deserved better than twenty two years

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without a trial. Someone has to say your name. That's

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daily Crime Injustice for Thursday, April ninth, twenty twenty six.

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Timothy Bussfield indicted on four counts of criminal sexual contact

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of a child under thirteen. Trial set for twenty twenty seven.

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Melissa Gilbert is staying, says she knew about prior allegations

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before she married him, and promises that if she thought

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he hurt a child, prison would be the least of

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his problems. The defense says the parents coach the kids.

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A grand jury says otherwise. Amy Bradley disappeared from a

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royal Caribbean cruise ship in nineteen ninety eight at twenty

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three years old. This week, the FBI has questioned two

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people with trafficking ties. A second source says she may

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have had a child. A casino manager in the Caribbean

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recognized her face, then went silent. The reward is now

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one hundred thousand dollars. Somebody knows something. And Demorris Hunter,

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convicted murderer already serving one hundred and ten years in California,

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is finally on trial in Orlando for the two thousand

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and two strangulation of Teresa Ann Green, whose body was

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found in the trunk of her car. He told someone

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the same night he did something really bad. Twenty two

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years later, a jury is finally going to hear about it.

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Do better. Disclaimer. Daily Crime and Justice is produced with

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the assistance of AI powered research tools and is intended

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for entertainment and informational purposes only. While we make every

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effort to ensure accuracy. Information is sourced from publicly available

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Internet sources and may contain errors or omissions. All persons

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charged with crimes are presumed innocent until proven guilty in

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a court of law. We are not lawyers and Nothing

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in this podcast constitutes legal advice. We get things wrong

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sometimes when we do, we'll tell you