Diane Schuler 46:00

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To enjoy this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out on Patreon. Patreon.com slash Forensic Tales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. On the afternoon of July 26, 2009, Diane Shuler sped the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway and crashed into another car, killing eight people.

The toxicology report showed that she consumed a large amount of alcohol prior to the accident, but her family believes something else happened. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 241, the story of Diane Shuler and the Taconic State Parkway crash. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast with a forensic science twist. Each episode features real stories highlighting how forensic science was used, from fingerprinting to criminal profiling to DNA. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.

As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new compelling cases, conduct in-depth fact-based research, and produce and edit this weekly show. You can support my work in two simple ways. Become a valued patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales and leave a positive review. Now, let's get to this week's episode.

15 years ago, almost to the day, Daniel and Diane Shuler woke up around 6 to have coffee and clean out their boat and camper at Hunter Lake Campground in New York. They had spent the weekend camping with their two kids, Aaron and Brian, as well as their three nieces, Emma, Allison, and Kate. No one knew it yet, but their day was about to end in tragedy.

At around 1.30 p.m., the minivan that Diane was driving, carrying all five children, traveled 1.7 miles in the wrong direction on the parkway, colliding head-on with an SUV. The crash left eight people dead, Diane, her daughter, her three nieces, and the three people inside the SUV. What caused Diane to drive on the wrong way of the road with a car full of kids? Let's see if the forensic evidence can help us answer that.

On the last weekend of July 2009, Diane Shuler and her husband Daniel went on a camping trip. They took with them their daughter, 2-year-old Erin, their son, 5-year-old Brian, and three nieces, 8-year-old Emma, 7-year-old Allison, and 5-year-old Kate. Emma, Allison, and Kate were Diane's brother Warren's kids.

Warren Hance and his wife Jackie were supposed to go on this camping trip with them, but they ended up making other plans instead. But the girls had gone on this camping trip with their aunt and uncle the year before, and they all had a really great time. So there was no reason to worry about them going again this year. Now, originally, Diane had told Jackie that another adult that they all knew was going to go on the trip as well. But for some reason, those plans fell through.

and the only adults there that weekend were Diane and Daniel. Both families lived in West Babylon on Long Island in New York. Diane worked days as the director of billing and collections at Cablevision, and Daniel worked nights as a security officer for the Parks Department.

Their different schedules meant that they didn't really see that much of each other during the week, and Diane was usually the one who took care of the children, and pretty much anything else that needed to be done around the house. It was like she had two full-time jobs. Daniel's mom would even jokingly refer to Daniel as Diane's third child. That weekend, they camped at the Hunter Lake Campground in Parksville, New York, located in the Catskill Mountains.

The Schulers kept their camper there and went at least once every summer. Daniel went to the campground first so that he could set everything up. Then Diane and the children headed up to Hunter Lake in the Hanses' minivan that they let her borrow. She needed a car that could hold all of the kids, so Warren and Jackie let her borrow theirs.

By all accounts, the weekend went off without a hitch. They went boating, fishing, exploring, made s'mores, and just hung around the campfire. But all of that was about to change come Sunday morning. Sunday, July 26th, Daniel woke up early to start cleaning up the campsite so that they could all leave later that morning. About an hour later, he woke up Diane.

They both had coffee, ate breakfast, and then loaded up all the kids' stuff in the minivan. The plan was for Daniel to drive his own pickup truck home with the family dog and for Diane to use the Hanses' minivan to take all of the kids. So that's what they did. At 9.30, they were all packed up and ready to head home.

But what should have been a simple and straightforward two-and-a-half-hour drive home turned into a nearly four-hour mystery filled with strange phone calls and unexpected stops. As they left the campground, Daniel followed behind the minivan until they got to the parkway. And that's when he took off in his pickup truck because Diane was going to make a few stops with the kids before heading home. The first stop was to a McDonald's to get the kids some breakfast.

So at 9.56 a.m., they arrived at a McDonald's in Liberty, New York. From the security cameras, we know the kids ate breakfast and played a little bit inside the restaurant's play area. Diane ordered orange juice and an iced coffee. No food. A seemingly small detail that we're going to talk about in a few minutes. After breakfast, they made a second stop. At 10.46, Diane stopped at a Seneca gas station in Liberty.

Security cameras there showed her walk into the gas station and briefly talk to the store clerk before walking back out to the van. The video doesn't have any audio, so we only know what the store clerk said happened. But apparently, Diane asked him if they had a specific type of over-the-counter pain medication, like Advil or Tylenol. But the clerk said they didn't carry what she was looking for, so she left.

If you want to watch the video for yourself, you can. It's available online. So at 10.58, Diane pulled out of the gas station and headed south on Route 17, going toward Long Island. By this time, Daniel was already back at home and was asleep because he had to work that night. About 40 minutes later, at 11.37, came the first of many phone calls that day.

Eight-year-old Emma called her dad from Diane's cell phone and told him that they might be running a bit late. Warren asked to speak with Diane just to make sure, and Diane confirmed the same thing. They might be a little bit late because they were stuck in traffic. Now, Warren thought that Diane sounded completely normal, so there was no reason just yet to worry. So after speaking with her, he hung up and didn't think twice about it. But was Diane really completely normal at this point?

Just minutes after this phone call, dozens of witnesses saw the red minivan driving aggressively on Route 17 between 1130 and 12 noon. One witness said later on that they saw Diane pull over about 1145 and watched as she bent over the side of the road like she was throwing up. That same witness said that just a few minutes later, the minivan passed them on the highway and was swerving in and out of traffic.

Other witnesses said that they saw things like Diane aggressively honking her horn for no reason at all, or moving in and out of lanes going at a really high rate of speed, straddling two lanes at the same time, or flashing her headlights for no apparent reason to other drivers. All signs seemingly suggesting that Aunt Diane isn't quote completely normal.

At 12.08 p.m., Jackie called Diane to ask how many tickets that she would need for Emma's upcoming school show. In fact, Emma had play practice later that same day, which Diane was aware of. They only spoke for about two minutes, but like the earlier call with Warren, Jackie thought that Diane seemed fine. Between that phone call just before one o'clock, things are pretty quiet.

It wasn't until 1255 that a wrong number was dialed from Diane's cell phone. The call only lasted 17 seconds. Then three minutes later, Diane called Jackie again. But something about this particular phone call was different. Jackie thought that her sister-in-law sounded a little bit off. She didn't sound like the person that she had known for years.

They were on the phone with each other for about two and a half minutes before the call dropped, or Diane hung up on her. We're not 100% sure. Six minutes later, at 1.01 p.m., Warren walked into the house just as the call between Jackie and Diane ended. Jackie told him all about the strange call, so Warren decided to call his sister and speak with her directly just to make sure that everything was okay.

The two spoke for about eight minutes, and even though we don't know exactly what was said, it seems like this phone call was the one that really made Warren and Jackie worry about her and the kids. Warren said that he thought Diane seemed disoriented. At one point, she even called him by her husband's name, Daniel. During this same phone call, Diane pulled the car over and let her niece speak with him.

She sounded upset and told her dad that there was, quote, something wrong with Aunt Diane. She said her aunt couldn't see straight. Not only was that weird, but in the background, he could hear the rest of the kids crying. So that's when he decided that enough was enough. He asked Emma where they were so that he could come and get them. She said she thought she saw signs for Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown, but wasn't really sure.

Fearing that something was really, really wrong, Warren got back on the phone with Diane and said, hey, I need you to wait there. I'm going to come and get you guys. But she didn't wait. Instead, she hung up the phone and kept driving. At 1.10 p.m., four more wrong numbers were dialed back to back from Diane's cell phone. Then she got rid of it.

Sometime between 1.10 and 1.15, she pulled the minivan over, left her phone on the concrete guardrail just past the toll booths, and drove off. It wasn't found until after the crash. Warren called her phone pretty much at that same exact time, 1.15 p.m., but it went to voicemail. After that, he called more than a dozen times over the next 20 minutes, and all of them went straight to voicemail.

Now, the worst part of the story. Shortly after 1.30 p.m., Diane made a right-hand turn from Pleasantville Road onto the exit ramp for the Taconic State Parkway. She drove the wrong way south into northbound traffic at over 75 mph and continued doing so for 1.7 mph.

Along the way, dozens of drivers were forced to move out of her way or be hit head-on. Fortunately, most of these drivers were able to get out of her way, but one car wasn't so lucky. As Diane headed in the wrong direction, she crashed head-on into an SUV carrying three people.

81-year-old Michael Bastardi, his son, 49-year-old Guy Bastardi, and their friend, 74-year-old Daniel Longo. Then their SUV crashed into another car, a 2002 Chevrolet Tracker carrying two other people. The accident left eight people dead, Diane, her daughter, three nieces, and the three men inside the SUV.

The only ones to survive were Diane's son Brian and the two people inside the Chevy Tracker. Brian suffered a serious brain injury, and the two people inside the Chevy walked away with only minor injuries. The entire event took less than three minutes, but it quickly became one of the deadliest motor vehicle crashes the state of New York had ever seen.

In fact, a crash like this hadn't happened in the county since 20 people died in 1934. So what happened to Diane to cause her to drive on the wrong side of the road, leaving seven others dead? Was this some tragic accident and she somehow didn't see the wrong way signs? Or was this intentional? And if it was, why?

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And as they pulled Diane out of the minivan, they saw something that changed everything. A smashed bottle of absolute vodka. It was just sitting there on the floor on the side of the driver's side and apparently had come from Diane and Daniel's campground. They always kept a bottle of vodka there during the summer. So was Diane drunk at the time?

Well, a full toxicology run-up was done at Diane's autopsy. And here's what the medical examiner wrote inside of his report. He said that Diane's blood alcohol level was a whopping 0.19%, with another 6 grams of alcohol just sitting in her stomach yet to be absorbed.

On top of being drunk, she also had high levels of THC in her system, enough to suggest that she could have smoked marijuana as recently as 15 minutes before the crash. So this completely changed everything. Not only was everyone shocked by the tragedy of the crash itself, but now you've got allegations that the driver who caused it was both drunk and high, a mom driving her two kids and three nieces.

But here's the thing. Diane's family, mainly her husband Daniel, didn't think that she was drunk. Let's talk about it. We know the medical examiner's report said that her blood alcohol content was well above the legal driving limit for the state of New York.

In fact, some reports indicate that she could have had the equivalent of 10 drinks. And that's not even including the undigested alcohol in her stomach. Plus, you've got marijuana, which only enhances the effects of alcohol. So obviously the authorities said that, yes, she was drunk. But according to Diane's husband, Daniel, his wife wasn't a drinker.

In an August 8th press conference, Daniel and his attorney, Dominic Barbera, initially denied that Diane had taken any drugs or was drinking alcohol that weekend because they had all the kids with them. He said they kept the bottle of vodka at the campground over the summer, but they rarely drank from it.

Now, later on, Daniel seemed to change his story and said, yes, they did drink a little bit that weekend, but he said that she wasn't drunk that morning. He also said that she wasn't a big drinker in general. Maybe she had a glass of something every once in a while, but she wasn't any type of raging alcoholic. So this would have been completely out of character for her.

And all this was also backed up by most of Diane's other family members and friends. They pretty much all said the same thing, that they never really saw her drink much alcohol, and she only smoked marijuana on occasion to help her fall asleep. So again, the question is, was Diane drunk? Well, we know what the toxicology report says, she absolutely was. But what did the people who interacted with her that morning say?

According to almost everyone, Diane seemed completely fine. The Hunter Lake Campground co-owner, who was also friends with the Schulers, spoke with Diane right before she left and claimed that she seemed sober. The gas station clerk and the employees at the McDonald's said the same exact thing. "'I know for a fact she wasn't drunk when she came into the station,' the gas station employee said in a news report. "'She was fine, but she did ask for Tylenol.'"

The Shuler's private investigator also conducted extensive interviews with the McDonald's employees who served her that morning, and they all said the same thing. She seemed 100% sober and was able to have a completely normal conversation with them as she ordered the food. So there was no doubt that she left the campground that morning sober, at least according to her family. Now, before we go on, I want to talk about that stop at McDonald's for a second.

I mentioned a little bit earlier that Diane ordered food for the kids, but only ordered an iced coffee and an orange juice for herself. She didn't order any food. Well, those that allege that Diane was drinking that morning say that she purchased the OJ so that she could mix the vodka. She was basically making a ton of screwdrivers.

But none of the McDonald's employees said that they saw her pouring any type of alcohol into her drink. And no security cameras from inside the restaurant captured that either. So it's only been a theory. And if that's really what Diane did, then she must have mixed the drinks after she left the McDonald's. Which seems to make sense with what we know.

If Diane and the kids stopped at the McDonald's at 9.56 and stayed for about an hour, and the crash happened at 1.30, that means that she drank the equivalent of 10 drinks in about two and a half hours, maybe less. We know the gas station employee said that she didn't seem drunk, and they stopped there after the trip to McDonald's. We also know that the Hansons didn't think that Diane sounded drunk on the first few phone calls either.

So it makes sense that Diane probably started drinking between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. That also explains the undigested alcohol in her stomach. She probably drank all the way up to the time of the crash. Ten drinks within two hours is a lot of alcohol for her body to try and process in such a short amount of time. But again, Diane's family says alcohol wasn't what caused the crash.

So then what does her family say did? Well, they basically refused to believe that she would have ever done anything to jeopardize the kids. So they wanted to find any other reason that this could have happened. And this is what they came up with. It was some type of medical emergency. The first thing they said it could be was a stroke. And if she had a stroke, then maybe that caused her to think that the vodka was water.

It's called a transient ischemic attack, or TIA. And it happens when blood flow to the brain stops for a brief period of time. And if that happens, the person with TIA usually experiences mild stroke-like symptoms that can sometimes cause disorientation and blurred vision. The family really liked this theory because, to them, it checked off all the boxes.

One, Diane seemed really disoriented during the phone calls and could explain things like calling her brother by her husband's name. And two, the blurred vision. Well, we already know that Diane was swerving in and out of lanes on the highway. And her own niece, who died in the crash, said her aunt was complaining about not being able to see. So according to Diane's family, a stroke seems possible.

Another theory was diabetes. According to her family and attorney, Diane had been overweight for pretty much her entire adult life and suffered from some type of diabetes. Now, I say some type of diabetes because some sources say that she was only diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which is related to pregnancy and usually goes away on its own.

so we don't know whether she had a chronic type of diabetes or not. Some reports say that she did, and others say that it was only gestational. Either way, the family believed that having diabetes increased Diane's risk of having a stroke, and if that's the case, they wondered if she could have mistakenly thought the vodka was water.

Obviously, this was something that the victim's families rejected from the get-go. How could someone mistakenly believe that they were drinking water when they were almost downing an entire bottle of vodka? Well, again, Diane's family argued that a stroke either caused by her diabetes or TIA may have caused her to become really, really confused.

Next, they said that an infected tooth could also be to blame. So in the weeks and months leading up to the crash, Diane apparently had a really bad infected tooth. So her family wondered if that infection could have spread to her brain. The infection was apparently so bad that she needed a root canal, but she was too afraid to make the appointment at her dentist office.

So here's how that theory goes. She had an infected tooth that she never got fixed. The infection spread to her brain, causing symptoms like confusion and blurry vision. And on the day of the crash, she was in a lot of physical pain, which explains why she stopped at the gas station looking for the over-counter pain medication. So Diane's family wonders that if she started drinking the vodka simply for pain relief...

She didn't have any Tylenol or ibuprofen or anything like that, so she turned to the alcohol because she was in so much pain from the infected tooth. Maybe she didn't intend to drink so much, but she was in so much pain. But that's not all. Eventually, the family said that on top of the tooth, she also had a lump in one of her legs, which to them could have led to an embolism. At one point, they even thought that she could have had a heart attack.

It seems like they wanted to believe anything other than just being drunk could have caused her to do this. But that's not what the forensic evidence said. Every single one of those medical conditions was ruled out at the autopsy. According to the Westchester medical examiner who performed it, there was no evidence that she had suffered from either a stroke, aneurysm, or a heart attack. The only thing that stood out from the autopsy was the toxicology report.

They couldn't find any other medical explanation to explain why this happened. Yes, she did have a bad tooth. Yes, she may or may not have had diabetes. But the medical examiner didn't believe that any of that caused the crash or the alcohol in her system. When it comes to Diane's drinking habits, her family argued that if she was a heavy drinker, then there should have been some evidence of that in her autopsy.

They thought that simply the absence of major organ damage, typically seen in chronic alcoholics, basically proved that she wasn't much of a drinker. But that claim is up for debate. Some medical examiners say that the absence of organ damage doesn't necessarily rule out alcohol abuse. Others say that it does, so it's hard to say for sure.

The only thing we know from the autopsy is that Diane's organs didn't show much damage. So we can't really say how much she was drinking in the past. We only know how much she drank that morning. But Diane's husband and the family didn't stop there. They also questioned whether it was actually Diane's blood that was tested at the autopsy.

If, for some reason, the lab that tested her blood for alcohol and drugs had mistakenly tested the wrong sample, then maybe the results were inaccurate. And it wasn't actually Diane's blood that showed the insane amount of alcohol in THC. It was actually someone else's. To see if there had been a mistake, the family took DNA from Diane's toothbrush and had it compared against the blood tested during the autopsy.

While they waited to hear back, they also wanted to have Diane's body exhumed so that they could do things like perform an independent test on her hair and retest fluid samples, something that wasn't done during the original autopsy. Now, the reason why they wanted to test her hair was because that it might show Diane's drug history.

Analyzing someone's hair can sometimes tell us whether someone had used drugs in the weeks and months prior to their death. Again, something her family hoped would show that she wasn't this drunk or regular marijuana user.

Now, at first, the Westchester Medical Examiner's Office said that this wasn't a good idea. That's because fluid samples degrade over time, which can lead to lower levels of alcohol in THC readings. Although that might not be true. Some experts came forward at this time saying that the results should be similar regardless of how long someone has been dead.

As long as the fluid was properly stored, then there shouldn't be any problems with retesting it. This probably won't come as a surprise to anyone, but not everyone was too happy about all of this, especially the families of the three victims killed in the SUV.

They couldn't believe that Daniel or the Shuler family just wouldn't accept the autopsy findings or the belief that she was drunk. These people thought these claims simply prolonged the grieving process and only made them relive the crash every single time they saw Daniel get on TV, basically denying Diane's alcohol and drug use.

One of the victim's brothers issued a statement about this, saying, quote, I want Daniel Shuler to know that he keeps inflicting more pain on all concerned once again by going to the media to try and paint a picture of a perfect wife and a perfect mother, end quote. Another one of the victim's daughters said this, quote,

Every time he does it, he brings it back for us. I just wish that he would just admit that she was drunk. Maybe if he knows what happened that morning, if they argued or anything, that would be the truth. He wants the truth, so do we. End quote. I think that's really what this came down to. The victim's families wanted Diane's family to just accept that she was drunk and her family didn't want to.

They wanted Diane portrayed as this perfect wife and perfect mother who would have never done something like this. So everyone waited on pins and needles to see what the new testing would reveal. But here's the reality. The original lab didn't make a mistake. It was, in fact, Diane's blood they tested during the original autopsy.

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Visit BetterHelp.com slash tails to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash tails. So what does all the forensic evidence mean? Well, it means a few things in my opinion. Number one, no other medical reason caused the crash. She didn't have a stroke or a heart attack. There was no evidence that her infected tooth had anything to do with it either. Number two,

The only thing that medically stood out was the toxicology report. Number two, Diane was drunk at the time. There's no question about it. And number three, it was her blood. There's no question about that either. The lab didn't make a mistake. But not even that seemed to satisfy the family because after that, they started coming up with different reasons for why she could have drank that much.

Like, maybe she did it by accident. She thought it was water or something like that, like I talked about earlier. Another theory was maybe the infected tooth she had was really, really bothering her.

So again, she turned to the alcohol because the gas station didn't have the pain medication she wanted, so she basically self-medicated. Of course, that doesn't explain why she drank so much. You probably don't need the equivalent of 10 drinks to quote-unquote self-medicate, but for the Schulers, it at least offered a possible explanation for something that seemed so out of character for the Diane that they said they knew.

We'll probably never fully understand why this happened. We know what the forensic evidence suggests, but it doesn't help understand why. Was she on a suicide mission that morning? Maybe. We know she was pretty much the sole caregiver of her two young children, and she was also the financial breadwinner in the family. She made a lot more money than Daniel ever did.

So maybe the pressures of being both supermom and the breadwinner were too much for her. And she set out that morning on a suicide mission. But that doesn't answer the question, why the kids? If Diane set out to kill herself by driving the wrong way on a state highway, why kill so many other people, including her own child and three nieces? Why not pick a day that she's by herself?

So I don't know if suicide was the mission that day. Was this simply an accident and she didn't intend on drinking so much? The pain of that infected tooth was just too much to deal with? Or is there any other possible explanation? In the end, and despite Daniel's best efforts, the authorities ruled the crash a homicide. They believe the deaths were caused by negligent driving on Diane's behalf.

But since she also died in the accident, there's no way to press any criminal charges against her. Due to the crash and its publicity, the governor of New York, David Patterson, proposed the Child Passenger Protection Act, which would make it a felony to drive while intoxicated with a child under the age of 16 in the car. It was signed into state law on November 18, 2009.

Today, Daniel Shuler continues to refute claims that his wife is anything short of the perfect woman. He recalls her as a reliable, trustworthy, honest person and denies her victim's family's claims that she was a murderer.

Most of Diane's family and friends also don't believe that she would knowingly put any child into danger, and they were all still trying to prove that there's a medical reason for her actions that day, despite what the forensic evidence suggests. Warren and Jackie, Diane's brother and sister-in-law, started the Hans Family Foundation to honor the lives of Emma, Allison, and Kate.

The foundation offers self-esteem programs all over the world. And in 2012, Jackie and Warren welcomed a baby girl into their family, naming her Casey Rose, a combination of her sister's first initials. K is for Kate, A is for Allison, S is for sisters, E is for Emma, and Y is for you.

When Jackie was asked about how she now feels about her sister-in-law, she said this, quote,

How could this person I trusted completely have done something so unthinkable that I couldn't, and I still can't wrap my head around it? End quote. Over the years, the story has taken over television shows and the media. In September 2009, the Dr. Phil show covered the story, and the following month, so did Oprah.

The Law & Order episode, Doped, which first aired in November 2009, centers around a very similar fictional crash. It features a woman who speeds down the West Side Highway in the wrong direction before crashing and killing herself, her daughter, and two nieces. There's also an HBO documentary about the case called There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane, which is available for free on YouTube.

Now, I've watched this particular documentary and I've seen it, but I just want to say that this particular one is definitely filmed from the perspective of Diane's family. So if you want to watch this one, just know that. Even though no criminal charges can be filed, there have been several civil lawsuits filed over the years. The first involves the Bastardi family. They were the ones killed in the SUV.

They filed a lawsuit against Diane and her brother, Warren Hance, seeking unspecified damages for, quote, willful and reckless conduct. According to their attorneys, state law required them to also include Warren Hance in the lawsuit because he was the one that owned the minivan that Diane drove.

Then there was the lawsuit between Jackie, Hans, and Daniel. Of course, we already know that Jackie lost all three of her daughters in the crash. She sued Daniel, who's also her brother-in-law, and claimed that the girls, quote, suffered terror, fear of impeding death, extreme horror, fright, and mental anguish. But by July of 2014, all of these lawsuits were either settled or dropped.

What do you make of the forensic evidence? And what do you think happened that morning? To share your thoughts on this story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales. After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share my personal thoughts and opinions about the case. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode.

We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review or tell friends and family about us. You can also help support the show through Patreon. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please join me next week. We'll have a brand new case and a brand new story to talk about. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.

Thank you.

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to find out how you could become involved. For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.