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Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Read Carter, and welcome
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to Celebrity Trials, your daily dose of courtroom drama. It's Tuesday,
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July eighth, and we've got three explosive stories for you
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today that prove this show's evolution is exactly what you need.
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Although the Ditty trial may be over, this new version
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of Celebrity Trials will continue to bring you the latest
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on all the courtroom dramas that matter. Because here's the thing.
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We call this Celebrity Trials not because they're all celebrities
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going in, but because they damn sure our celebrities by
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the time the verdict comes down. Today, we're diving into
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a bombshell government memo that's raising serious questions about why
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Glaine Maxwell is rotting in prison while the Feds claim
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there's no Jeffrey Epstein client list. Then we'll continue our
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Brian Cooberger series with the Hunt six weeks of terror
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in Idaho as investigators for a killer who thought he'd
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committed the perfect crime. And after the break, we'll take
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you inside the Preppy Party murder trial in Connecticut, where
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teenage violence turned a high school gathering into a bloodbath.
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Let's start with the Epstein revelation that has social media
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absolutely losing its mind. Yesterday, the Department of Justice and
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FBI released a memo that sending shockwaves through everyone who's
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been following the Jeffrey Epstein case. After conducting what they
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call an exhaustive review, federal investigators are now claiming there
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is no client list, no evidence of blackmail, and no
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basis for further charges. Let me read you the key
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line from this memo. This systematic review revealed no incriminating
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client list. There was also no credible evidence found that
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Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. Folks,
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this is either the most shocking investigative conclusion or the
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most brazen cover up I've ever seen, Because if there's
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no client list and no conspiracy, then why the hell
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is Gallaine Maxwell serving twenty years in federal prison. The
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Hodge Twins summed it up perfectly on x Ghlaine Maxwell
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is in prison for twenty years for sex trafficking kids
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with Epstein, and the DOJ and FBI just said that
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there is no client list, he didn't blackmail nobody, and
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nobody else is getting charged, so they sex trafficked kids
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to nobody. That post was viewed two point four million
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times because it captures the absurdity of this situation. You
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can't traffic children to nobody. You can't run a criminal
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enterprise with an army of one. But here's what really
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gets me fired up. This memo comes from the same
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Trump administration that promised transparency and accountability. Attorney General Pam
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Bondi said in February that the client list was sitting
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on my desk right now to review. FBI Director Cash
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Ptel promised there would be no cover ups, no missing documents.
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So what happened? Did the list magically disappear? Did the
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evidence evaporate? The memo claims they reviewed video evidence that
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could not be released because it depicted acts of child abuse.
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But if they have videos, don't those videos show who
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was involved? As author Nigel Cawthorne told Newsweek, if they
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don't have the client list that Epstein compiled himself, then
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they could compile a list from the video. Surely this
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whole thing stinks and it raises massive questions about Maxwell's conviction.
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Her legal team is probably already working on appeals based
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on this memo. If she was truly trafficking children to nobody?
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Then what exactly was her crime? Remember? Maxwell was convicted
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of grooming girls for Epstein to abuse. The government successfully
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argued she was part of a conspiracy. But a conspiracy
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requires multiple people, and now they're saying there's no evidence
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of other participants. Legal expert Tim Young captured the contradiction perfectly. Well,
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then I guess Galaine Maxwell was trafficking children to no one.
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Why would she be in jail? Then this case is
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far from over. Maxwell's attorneys are going to use this
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memo as ammunition, and rightfully so. You can't have it
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both ways. Either there was a conspiracy involving multiple people,
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or there wasn't. Either Epstein had clients and co conspirators,
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or he was just a lone predator with a very
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expensive hobby. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but
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this memo feels like the government trying to close the
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book on a case that was too embarrassing, too complicated,
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and too politically dangerous to pursue fully. Now let's return
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to Idaho, where we left Brian Coberger thinking he'd committed
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the perfect crime while an entire community lived in terror.
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It's November thirteenth, twenty twenty two, just hours after four
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University of Idaho students were brutally murdered in their sleep.
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The survivor roommates have finally called nine one one. First
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responders have arrived at the scene, and Moscow, Idaho, a
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quiet college town that hadn't seen a murder since twenty fifteen,
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is about to become the center of one of the
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biggest man hunts in state history. The Moscow Police Department
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was completely overwhelmed. This was a small town force suddenly
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dealing with a quadruple homicide that would attract national attention.
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They had to process a crime scene with four victims,
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interview dozens of potential witnesses, and somehow catch a killer
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who left almost no trace. But Coburger had made mistakes.
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He just didn't know it yet. The first break came
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from that k bar knife sheath left on Madison Mogan's bed.
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The sheath contained male DNA that didn't match anyone in
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the house. But in November twenty twenty two, that DNA
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was just evidence without a suspect. It would take weeks
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before investigators could use it to identify their killer. Meanwhile,
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the community was an absolute panic. Students fled campus in droves.
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Parents drove from across the country to bring their children home.
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The University of Idaho moved to hybrid learning because so
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many students refused to return. Local businesses lost customers, Restaurants
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sat empty. The normally vibrant college town felt like a
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ghost town as residents locked their doors and looked over
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their shoulders and all the while, Brian Cooberger was just
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eight miles away in Pullman, Washington, attending his criminology classes
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and pretending to be a normal graduate student. He was
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literally studying criminal investigations while being the subject of one.
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The investigation generated over one thousand, four hundred tips from
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the public. Investigators interviewed hundreds of people. They cleared the
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surviving roommates, They cleared other friends and boyfriends. They examined
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every piece of digital evidence they could find. But for
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six weeks, they had no suspect, no arrests, no answers
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for the families or the community. The breakthrough came in
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an unexpected way, a public appeal for information about a
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white Hundaii lantra seen in the area around the time
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of the murders. Investigators didn't know who owned the car,
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but they knew it was connected to the crime. Somehow,
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that appeal led them to Coburger, who owned a white
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twenty fifteen Hyundai Elantra. But it wasn't just the car,
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it was everything else that came together once they started
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looking at him. His phone data showed he'd been near
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the King roadhouse twenty three times between August and November.
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His Amazon purchase history showed he'd bought a k bar
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knife in March. His behavior after the murders was suspicious.
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He'd driven cross country to Pennsylvania just days after the killings,
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but the smoking gun was DNA. When investigators collected trash
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from outside Coburger's family home in Pennsylvania, they found genetic
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material that matched the DNA from the knife sheath. It
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wasn't just a match, it was what forensics experts call
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a statistical match, meaning the odds of it being someone
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else were astronomically small. On December thirtieth, twenty twenty two,
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six weeks after the murders, FBI agents arrested Brian Koberger
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at his parents' home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, the criminology student
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who thought he could commit the perfect murder was taken
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into custody while the families he devastated were still planning funerals.
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When we come back after the break, we're taking you
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to Connecticut for the Preppy Party Murder trial, a case
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that shows how quickly teenage drama can turn deadly. Raoul
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Vaal is on trial for stabbing and killing seventeen year
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old lacrosse star James McGrath at a house party, and
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the testimony has been absolutely heartbreaking. This is Celebrity Trials,
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your daily source for the courtroom drama that shapes our culture.
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Don't go anywhere. Welcome back to Celebrity Trials. I'm Red
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Carter and we're heading to Connecticut now for a trial
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that's tearing apart two communities and showing how teenage violence
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can destroy lives in an instant. The case is Connecticut
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versus Raoul Valley, and it's everything you'd expect from what
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the media has dubbed the Preppy Party Murder. We've got
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private school rivalries, house parties, teenage bravado, and a seventeen
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year old lacrosse star who died for absolutely no reason.
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Raoul Valet was sixteen years old on the night of
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May fourteenth, twenty twenty two, when he and his friends
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drove to a house party in Shelton, Connecticut. By the
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end of the night, James McGrath, a seventeen year old
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Fairfield Prep student and beloved lacrosse player, would be dead
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and three other teenagers would be fighting for their lives.
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This case has everything that makes a trial absolutely riveting,
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teenage drama, school rivalries, social media evidence, and a defendant
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who took the stand to tell his side of the story.
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Here's what happened. According to prosecutors, Vale and his friends
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from Saint Joseph's High School got kicked out of their
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own party earlier that night. Instead of going home, they
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decided to drive to a second party about a mile away,
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where Shelton High School students were gathered. What started as
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teenage posturing, you know, the usual you don't belong here nonsense,
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quickly escalated into violence. Vale got into a fight, went
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back to the car, got a knife from his friend
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Jack Snyder, and then returned to stab four people, killing
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James McGrath. But Valet's version is completely different. He testified
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that he was terrified that the crowd surrounded their car,
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that people were kicking and rocking the vehicle while spraying
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him with WD forty. He said he was getting beaten
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by a mob and began swinging the knife to try
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to get people off him. I was just stabbing in
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every direct action, vale testified. He claimed he wasn't aiming
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for anyone specifically, He was just trying to survive. The
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prosecution isn't buying it. Senior Assistant States Attorney Mark Durso
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painted Valet as the aggressor who brought a knife to
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a fistfight. During cross examination, Drso asked Valet whether McGrath
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had a weapon, and Valet admitted he didn't see one,
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and it would be unfair for somebody who doesn't have
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a weapon to be stabbed by somebody who does, right,
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Derso asked, that's the prosecution's case. In a nutshell, This
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wasn't self defense, it was murder. The testimony has been
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absolutely heartbreaking. Taylor Capella, McGrath's close friend, broke down on
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the stand as she described watching her friend die. She
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testified that McGrath wasn't fighting anyone, He was just standing
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and observing. When Valet went right towards Jimmy and stabbed him,
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I witnessed the stabbing, describing the defendants raised arm motion
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and seeing blood cover Jimmy's white shorts. Capella testified. She
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said she now suffers from nightmares and anxiety and has
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needed therapy to cope with what she witnessed. Jack Snyder,
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the friend who allegedly gave Volley the knife, testified under
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an immunity agreement. He told the jury that after the stabbing,
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Vale got back in the car and said, I just
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stabbed somebody. Snyder's testimony brought Valey to tears in court.
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But here's what makes this case so complicated. Everybody agrees
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there was a fight. Everybody agrees the situation was chaotic.
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The question is whether Vale was defending himself or whether
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he escalated a fistfight into attempted murder. Vale's defense attorney
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is arguing that this was a scared sixteen year old
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who found himself in a terrifying situation and made a
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split second decision to protect himself. The prosecution is arguing
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that he brought a weapon to a situation that didn't
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require one and used it against unarmed teenagers. The jury
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began deliberating yesterday, and their trying to decide between murder
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and first degree manslaughter. It's the difference between Valet spending
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decades in prison or potentially getting out while he's still
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young enough to have a life. This case represents everything
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tragic about teenage violence. These are kids from good families,
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good schools, with bright futures ahead of them, and in
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one night, all of that was destroyed. James McGrath will
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never graduate, never play college lacrosse, never have the life
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he was supposed to have. Raoul Valley, regardless of the verdict,
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will be forever marked by what happened that night. That's
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Celebrity Trials for today, but we're just getting started. Tomorrow
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will conclude our Coburger series with the Confession, How a
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criminology student's perfect crime unraveled and why his guilty plea
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raises more questions than it answers. We'll also be following
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the Raoul Valet deliberations and bringing you any breaking news
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from the other trials we're covering. This is what Celebrity
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Trials is about now, not just the mega celebrity cases,
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but every trial that creates a cultural moment that makes
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us question our assumptions about justice, that shows us who
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we really are as a society, I'm read Carter. Sometimes
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the most important trials are the ones that start with
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ordinary people making extraordinary bad decisions. But once that gavel falls,
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they all become celebrities, some for fifteen minutes, some forever.
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See you tomorrow,