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An unassuming man expects to see the plumber at his
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front door, but he's greeted by a killer.
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Shoots him like right there in the entrance to his house.
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A total of five shots were fired.
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It seems so random that it terrifies the city.
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Police link this murder to another years earlier. Is there
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a serial killer on the loose in the nation's capital.
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The entire Metro Washington area is in shock. Authorities have
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to find the killer before there's another knock on the door.
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Alexandria, Virginia, located on the western banks of the Potomac.
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Alexandria is only seven miles away from the seat of
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American power, Washington, DC.
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Alexandria has a colonial history from seventeen forty nine when
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it was created, and it was actually originally part of
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the District of Columbia.
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It's now part of the Metropolitan Washington Area, which includes Washington,
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d C, Arlington, Virginia, and parts of Maryland and West Virginia.
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It's the best educated and highest income metropolitan area in America.
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The crime rate in Alexandria is typically very low, so
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much so that the neighbors don't feel the need to
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lock their doors.
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And the neighborhood where Ron Kirby lives is no different.
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It's November eleventh, twenty thirteen, Veterans Day. Sixty nine year
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old Ron Kirby calls for a plumber to come and
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fix his kitchen sink.
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There was a leak underneath his sink that he tried
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to fix. He was unable to fix it, so he
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got a plumber to come to the house. He was
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kind of waiting for the plumber to arrive.
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Ron's supposed to go for lunch with his son. He
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can take care of this plumbing shop on the way
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and then they can spend some time together.
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Right around the time the plumber is supposed to arrive,
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between eleven thirty and nude, Ron answers the door.
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There's a knock at the door, and Ronald Kirby opens
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up the door and then there's this person standing with
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the gun shoots him right there in the entrance to
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his house. The murderer follows him into the house, fires
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more rounds into ron Kirby. After having been shot multiple times.
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Ron Kirby of course dies on the scene, and the
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murder or flees.
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Expecting to take his father out for lunch. Ron Kirby's son, Joe,
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arrives at home around twelve thirty. Joe calls police to
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the Kirby residents. When police arrived, they discovered Joe covered
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in blood and Ron dead on his living room floor.
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Ron has been shot three times, twice in the chest
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and once in the am, but.
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Two other shots were fired that missed him, so a
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total of five shots were fired.
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Police find two more bullet holes in the living room.
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One is in a piano, another on a radiator.
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At this point, police know the shooter has fired at
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least five shots. Who is Ron Kirby and who would
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want to kill him like this?
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While investigators conduct ballistics testing, they delve into the life
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of civil servant Ronald Kirby.
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Ron Kirby was a director of transportation Planning for the
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Council of Governments, a nonprofit organization.
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The Metro Washington Council of Governments represents two dozen local
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governments in the region, working in collaboration to improve the
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ever expanding Metropolitan Washington area with the population of over
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six million.
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He played a very key role in the planning for
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the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, which connects Maryland to d C.
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As part of the Belway that runs out around Washington,
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d C.
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It's a huge achievement, a major piece of infrastructure that
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connects all of the nation's capital, and Ron had a
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leadership role in getting it done.
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Born in Australia, Ron earns a PhD in applied mathematics
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in nineteen seventy from the University of Adelaide. He adopts
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two children with his first wife, Kirby, divorces in two
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thousand and one and remarries in twenty twelve, less than
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two years before he shot to death.
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Ron is considered to be a brilliant intellectual and at
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sixty nine, he has no intention of retiring. He sees
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himself as a community leader and he says, what am
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I going to do? Sit around and read books.
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Investigators looked to the ballistics evidence in the home for clues.
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Police note that there are no spent shellcasings at the scene.
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Immediately, when no cartridge cases are found in the scene,
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the thought is possibly a revolver was involved, as opposed
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to a semi automatic pistol or rifle.
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Police know that five shots in total were fired, three
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hit Ron and two missed.
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Three bullets were recovered at autopsy that I examined in
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the laboratory, and I found them to be plane lead
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holowpoint twenty two caliber bullets. And these are all consistent
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with a line of ammunition called subsonic, a slower velocity
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bullet designed to make less noise.
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Forensic experts make a startling connection, possibly linking the unusual
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type of bullet to another murder.
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The same type of ammunition was used in the Ronald
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Kirby homicide as was used in a Nancy Dunning ten
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years earlier.
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This was like a parlor game. Everybody had their own
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theory about what happened to Nancy Dunning, how this murder
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could have possibly happened.
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What are the odds you've got the subsonic unusual hollow
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point twenty two caliber long rage rifle ammo coming out
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of a Mini Revolver ten years earlier and only a
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mile apart.
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November eleventh, twenty thirteen, an affluent neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia,
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civil servant ron Kirby is murdered at his front door.
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A total of five shots are fired. Ballistics experts link
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the ammunition to a murder ten years earlier, and only
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one mile away. December fifth, two thousand and three, when
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Nancy doesn't show up for a lunch with husband Jim
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and son Chris, they go back home to check in.
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I think it was like eleven thirty that day. She
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was a no show, and she was very punctual. This
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is not someone that you would expect to be late,
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so they knew that immediately something was wrong.
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The front door is left open. What the husband and
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son discover inside is documented in a Chili nine one
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one call.
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My wife murdered.
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There through the foot door.
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Okay, can you tell us please fet your daughter through
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the walk? Okay?
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I believe they're all the way okay.
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And no one knew, you know, why anyone would want
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to killed Nancy Dunning. She didn't have any enemies really
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that anybody knew about. She was known as the Queen
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of del Ray. Delray is a very Bucolic neighborhood here
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in Alexandria, and she was an extremely prominent real estate
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agent and kind of transformed Delray into what it is now.
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Nancy Dunning had been shot three times. The bullets were
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unusual in that I had never seen them in the
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laboratory before in my entire career. They were plane lead
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hollow point bullets made by Remington, so a similar type
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ammunition that was used in the Ronald Kirby homicide and
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the Nancy Dunning homicide.
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And in terms of evidence, it's not like there were
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fingerprints or DNA or anything like that. The real chief
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bit of evidence was the ammunition, the rounds that were found.
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Ruth N. Lodado is a piano teacher in Alexandria whose
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home is less than a mile away from the location
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of the previous two shootings.
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Was it something personal about ruth Anne that made her
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the third target or was she just in the wrong
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house at the wrong time.
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Ruth N. Lodato is from a very prominent family here
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in Alexandria. Her father was a judge, her brother was
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a judge. The family is extremely well known. She had
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a music school. Many young kids were part of this
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music school, so she was well known. The family was
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well known.
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Her mother lives in a grannie suite at the back
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of the house and a home care worker, Janet spends
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her time there.
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Again, it was a very similar situation to the first
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two homicides, where apparently somebody knocked at the door and
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when she answered, she was immediately shot. There was a
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witness at ruth Aneladaa's shooting, a woman who was a
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home healthcare aid.
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The homecare worker hears ruth Ann's scream and comes face
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to face with the killer.
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Ruth Aneladato was shot three times and then two more
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shots were fired in the direction of the home healthcare worker.
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Janet is shot in the arm, but before the shooter
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can kill her, he runs out of bullets.
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What Janet does next is nothing short of heroic.
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Jenet gets both ruth Ann and her mother out of
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harm's way and has the neighbor called nine one one,
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despite being shot herself. Ruth Annledado is shot twice in
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the chest and once in the arm. She will succumb
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to her wounds, but not before talking to the police.
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Since witnesses have watched the killer leave the house, it
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rules all the possibility that he picked up the tiny
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spence shellcasings. Also, they saw a little muzzle in his sleeve.
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The police theory that the weapon is a mini revolver
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is locked in.
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Ruthan also tells the police she didn't recognize the shooter's face.
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It was a stranger who knocked on her door.
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Janet, the caregiver, survives the ordeal. Police now have an
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eyewitness who has seen the Alexandria assassin.
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The eyewitness here was able to work with the police
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artist to create what they call this composite image, like
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an artist rendering of what the guy would look like.
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Piercing eyes, long white beard, disheveled hair. This was used
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to create the artists rendering that went out to the
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public as.
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Police put together a composite sketch. They examined the bullets
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taken from ruth An Lidado's body.
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I had never seen it in another shooting case in
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my thirty four years with the lab ratory. The same
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type of ammunition was used with a similar general rifling characteristic.
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Five bullets are recovered at the scene of the third murder,
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the same type of twenty two caliber hollow point subsonic
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long rifle bullets.
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The same bullets at all three shootings, the same mo
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the same area in Alexandria.
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The artist's rendering of what this guy looked like, according
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to the eyewitness to the murder of ruth Anladado, goes
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out to the community. We published it in the newspaper.
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Is all over television, and so a lot of people say, yeah,
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I know that guy. So the police interviewed the guy
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at issue, and it turned out he was not the murderer.
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But the suspect points a finger at another man who
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fits their profile, a man named Charles Severance. Charles Severance
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is a local man who has run for mayor of
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Alexandria twice as an independent. Concerned that the killer may
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strike again, Alexandria's chief of police notifies the media that
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they believe the three murders to be linked.
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This is a gamble. Police know that this announcement is
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going to cause panic, as it confirms suspicions that many
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people have had in DC, like.
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This is a serial murderer on the loose. So yeah,
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there was an intense community reaction to this.
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By telling everyone about the unusual ammunition, they're hoping that
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someone will come forward with more information.
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The day after police announced there's a serial murderer at
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large in Alexandria, they receive a tip from an unlikely place,
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the Russian embassy. March twenty fourteen, the Greater Washington DC
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area is rocked when alex Lexandria police confirmed their fears
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three seemingly random murders are linked. The day after police
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appeal to the public for help locating a serial killer,
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Charles Severance rides his bike to the Russian embassy, claiming
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political persecution by the city of Alexandria. Severance seeks asylum
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from Russia by sneaking into the compound, but US Secret
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Service agents turn him away.
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They ask him questions and take his picture, but they
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don't have anything to charge him with, so they have
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to let him leave on his bike, but out of
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curiosity they follow him.
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The agent identifies Severance from his passport and remembers the
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composite image of the Alexandria assassin, along with the description
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of the suspicious vehicle caught fleeing from the scene of
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ruth Enldado's murder.
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If they have been able to search his vehicle here,
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who knows what they would have found.
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The Secret Service files report with Alexandria police and the
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focus of the investigation turns to Charles Severance.
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Charles Severance was a guy who's from northern Virginia. He
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went to George Mason University here in the region. He
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went to UVA University of Virginia down in Charlottesville, so
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kind of a local guy and very well educated. Worked
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as an engineer.
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Severance also designs his own anti establishment games. He runs
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a website called Mental Disorder where he tries to sell them.
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He had a short lived relationship with this woman and
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they had a child. There was a custody dispute over
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the child. The court came to the conclusion that the
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child needed to be separated and to essentially never see
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the father again.
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Finally, on March twelfth, twenty fourteen, Severance's debit card is
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used at a hotel in Wheeling, West Virginia. Police are
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sent surveillance footage of Severance checking into the hotel. He's
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just the same as he was at the Russian Embassy.
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Police bought his bike outside of a nearby library.
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Severans used the Internet to plan his escape from the area.
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He was about to disappear forever when police finally tracked
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him down.
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Severance's car, the same car that's caught on surveillance footage
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outside of ruth An Lidado's home, is found in a
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hotel parking lot. Police execute a search warrant, but what
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they do find comes as a shock.
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There's no gun here, No ammunition, but there is a
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gun cleaning kit and a bunch of latex gloves. There's
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a black jacket, and they would discover what has become
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known as Severance's manifesto of hate.
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Police find journals that Severance keeps which detail his rage
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at what he feels is an elite that has taken
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and his son from him. There are hundreds of pages
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detailing Severance's rage at the police, court system, city of Alexandria,
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and belief in violence.
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He recounted his innermost thoughts about the court system and
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his grudge against the court system, and how he blamed
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Alexandria's society for being separated from his child.
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Charles Severance was charged with first degree murder for Nancy
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Dunning's homicide and capital murder for Ronald Kirby and ruth Anlodado.
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Also a malicious wounding charge for the home healthcare worker
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that he wounded, as well as the use of a
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firearm in all four of those cases, and then two
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counts of possession by a convicted felon of a firearm.
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Ken prosecutors convince a jury that Charles Severance is the
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Alexandria assassin in two thousand and three, prominent real estate
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agent Nancy Dunning is shot at her front door. Ten
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years later and a mile away, Ron Kirby, a senior
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transportation planner, suffers the same fate. A third victim, beloved
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piano teacher Ruth Ann Lodado, is shot and killed at
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her front door in this same neighborhood as Kirby and Dunning.
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Three murders, all in broad daylight, all with the same
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subsonic halowpoint ammunition, with similar guns but not the same.
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Prosecutors charge local politician Charles Severance with the shootings.
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The defense goes for a scattershot approach to creating reasonable doubt.
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They point out the Severance doesn't look like the composite
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sketch when clearly he's trying to change his appearance. They
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also want to call his sanity into question, which may
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explain his outbursts in court.
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Prosecutors use Severance's own words from his notebooks to link
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him to the murder. Weapons used in the crimes.
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Please purchase three North American Arms, twenty two caliber Mini revolvers,
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and five hundred rounds of subsonic ammunition. The five rounds
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stainless deal with the wooden grip is small and easily concealed.
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Thou shalt kill in Vengeance's mind saith the Lord fallow
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point and below. The speed of sound is sweet music
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and very effective violent swins.
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The notebooks that show the internal workings of his mind
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actually were very important because they sort of showed you
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that this was someone not only in possession of this
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very specific kind of ammunition, but also someone who had
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the mental workings of a serial killer. All of the
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evidence against Charles Several was all circumstantial. They did not
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00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:04.759
have the murder weapon. We still don't know where the
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00:20:04.799 --> 00:20:08.400
murder weapon is even today. They did not have DNA evidence,
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they did not have fingerprint evidence. All the circumstantial evidence
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they had was the forensic evidence here that there's a
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very specific kind of ammunition that Charles Severance had actually
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written about in his notebooks, the twenty two long rifle
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Remington's subsonic. He had talked about how it made music
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to his ears.
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Janet, the homecare worker, takes the stand. She points to
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Charles Severance as the man she sees at the front
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door when ruth An Lidado is murdered. Charles Severance is
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found guilty on all ten counts. He has given three
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life sentences plus forty eight years and a four hundred
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thousand dollars fine.
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The thought of a stranger knocking on your door out
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of the blue and then shooting you terrorized this community
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for a long time.
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Sheriff Jim Dunning does not live long enough to see
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Severance get convicted in the murder of his wife.
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Jim Dunning, you know, there was this cloud of suspicion
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over him for years and years and years, and so
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after he was no longer the sheriff here in Alexandria,
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he actually had to move to South Carolina because of
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all the speculations swirling around him, and unfortunately he died
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with this cloud of suspicion over him as potentially being
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part of a murder that he had nothing to do with.
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In the end, it was a whole community working together,
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from ballistics experts to eyewitnesses and neighbors. They made it
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safe for Alexandria to answer their door again.
1
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An unassuming man expects to see the plumber at his
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front door, but he's greeted by a killer.
3
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Shoots him like right there in the entrance to his house.
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A total of five shots were fired.
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It seems so random that it terrifies the city.
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Police link this murder to another years earlier. Is there
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a serial killer on the loose in the nation's capital.
8
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The entire Metro Washington area is in shock. Authorities have
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to find the killer before there's another knock on the door.
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Alexandria, Virginia, located on the western banks of the Potomac.
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Alexandria is only seven miles away from the seat of
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American power, Washington, DC.
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Alexandria has a colonial history from seventeen forty nine when
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it was created, and it was actually originally part of
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the District of Columbia.
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It's now part of the Metropolitan Washington Area, which includes Washington,
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d C, Arlington, Virginia, and parts of Maryland and West Virginia.
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It's the best educated and highest income metropolitan area in America.
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The crime rate in Alexandria is typically very low, so
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much so that the neighbors don't feel the need to
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lock their doors.
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And the neighborhood where Ron Kirby lives is no different.
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It's November eleventh, twenty thirteen, Veterans Day. Sixty nine year
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old Ron Kirby calls for a plumber to come and
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fix his kitchen sink.
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There was a leak underneath his sink that he tried
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to fix. He was unable to fix it, so he
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got a plumber to come to the house. He was
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kind of waiting for the plumber to arrive.
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Ron's supposed to go for lunch with his son. He
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can take care of this plumbing shop on the way
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and then they can spend some time together.
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Right around the time the plumber is supposed to arrive,
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between eleven thirty and nude, Ron answers the door.
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There's a knock at the door, and Ronald Kirby opens
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up the door and then there's this person standing with
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the gun shoots him right there in the entrance to
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his house. The murderer follows him into the house, fires
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more rounds into ron Kirby. After having been shot multiple times.
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Ron Kirby of course dies on the scene, and the
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murder or flees.
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Expecting to take his father out for lunch. Ron Kirby's son, Joe,
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arrives at home around twelve thirty. Joe calls police to
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the Kirby residents. When police arrived, they discovered Joe covered
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in blood and Ron dead on his living room floor.
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Ron has been shot three times, twice in the chest
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and once in the am, but.
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Two other shots were fired that missed him, so a
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total of five shots were fired.
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Police find two more bullet holes in the living room.
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One is in a piano, another on a radiator.
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At this point, police know the shooter has fired at
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00:03:45.560 --> 00:03:49.159
least five shots. Who is Ron Kirby and who would
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want to kill him like this?
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While investigators conduct ballistics testing, they delve into the life
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of civil servant Ronald Kirby.
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Ron Kirby was a director of transportation Planning for the
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Council of Governments, a nonprofit organization.
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The Metro Washington Council of Governments represents two dozen local
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governments in the region, working in collaboration to improve the
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ever expanding Metropolitan Washington area with the population of over
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six million.
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He played a very key role in the planning for
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the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, which connects Maryland to d C.
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As part of the Belway that runs out around Washington,
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d C.
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It's a huge achievement, a major piece of infrastructure that
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connects all of the nation's capital, and Ron had a
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leadership role in getting it done.
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Born in Australia, Ron earns a PhD in applied mathematics
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in nineteen seventy from the University of Adelaide. He adopts
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two children with his first wife, Kirby, divorces in two
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thousand and one and remarries in twenty twelve, less than
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two years before he shot to death.
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Ron is considered to be a brilliant intellectual and at
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sixty nine, he has no intention of retiring. He sees
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himself as a community leader and he says, what am
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I going to do? Sit around and read books.
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Investigators looked to the ballistics evidence in the home for clues.
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Police note that there are no spent shellcasings at the scene.
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Immediately, when no cartridge cases are found in the scene,
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the thought is possibly a revolver was involved, as opposed
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to a semi automatic pistol or rifle.
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Police know that five shots in total were fired, three
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hit Ron and two missed.
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Three bullets were recovered at autopsy that I examined in
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the laboratory, and I found them to be plane lead
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holowpoint twenty two caliber bullets. And these are all consistent
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00:05:48.199 --> 00:05:53.360
with a line of ammunition called subsonic, a slower velocity
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00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:55.600
bullet designed to make less noise.
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Forensic experts make a startling connection, possibly linking the unusual
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type of bullet to another murder.
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The same type of ammunition was used in the Ronald
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Kirby homicide as was used in a Nancy Dunning ten
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years earlier.
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This was like a parlor game. Everybody had their own
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theory about what happened to Nancy Dunning, how this murder
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could have possibly happened.
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What are the odds you've got the subsonic unusual hollow
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point twenty two caliber long rage rifle ammo coming out
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of a Mini Revolver ten years earlier and only a
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mile apart.
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November eleventh, twenty thirteen, an affluent neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia,
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civil servant ron Kirby is murdered at his front door.
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A total of five shots are fired. Ballistics experts link
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the ammunition to a murder ten years earlier, and only
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one mile away. December fifth, two thousand and three, when
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Nancy doesn't show up for a lunch with husband Jim
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and son Chris, they go back home to check in.
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I think it was like eleven thirty that day. She
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was a no show, and she was very punctual. This
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is not someone that you would expect to be late,
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so they knew that immediately something was wrong.
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The front door is left open. What the husband and
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son discover inside is documented in a Chili nine one
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one call.
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My wife murdered.
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There through the foot door.
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Okay, can you tell us please fet your daughter through
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the walk? Okay?
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I believe they're all the way okay.
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And no one knew, you know, why anyone would want
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to killed Nancy Dunning. She didn't have any enemies really
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that anybody knew about. She was known as the Queen
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of del Ray. Delray is a very Bucolic neighborhood here
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in Alexandria, and she was an extremely prominent real estate
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agent and kind of transformed Delray into what it is now.
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Nancy Dunning had been shot three times. The bullets were
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unusual in that I had never seen them in the
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laboratory before in my entire career. They were plane lead
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hollow point bullets made by Remington, so a similar type
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ammunition that was used in the Ronald Kirby homicide and
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the Nancy Dunning homicide.
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And in terms of evidence, it's not like there were
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fingerprints or DNA or anything like that. The real chief
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bit of evidence was the ammunition, the rounds that were found.
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Ruth N. Lodado is a piano teacher in Alexandria whose
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home is less than a mile away from the location
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of the previous two shootings.
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Was it something personal about ruth Anne that made her
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the third target or was she just in the wrong
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house at the wrong time.
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Ruth N. Lodato is from a very prominent family here
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in Alexandria. Her father was a judge, her brother was
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a judge. The family is extremely well known. She had
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a music school. Many young kids were part of this
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music school, so she was well known. The family was
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well known.
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Her mother lives in a grannie suite at the back
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of the house and a home care worker, Janet spends
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her time there.
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Again, it was a very similar situation to the first
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two homicides, where apparently somebody knocked at the door and
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when she answered, she was immediately shot. There was a
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witness at ruth Aneladaa's shooting, a woman who was a
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home healthcare aid.
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The homecare worker hears ruth Ann's scream and comes face
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to face with the killer.
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Ruth Aneladato was shot three times and then two more
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shots were fired in the direction of the home healthcare worker.
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Janet is shot in the arm, but before the shooter
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can kill her, he runs out of bullets.
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What Janet does next is nothing short of heroic.
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Jenet gets both ruth Ann and her mother out of
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harm's way and has the neighbor called nine one one,
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despite being shot herself. Ruth Annledado is shot twice in
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the chest and once in the arm. She will succumb
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to her wounds, but not before talking to the police.
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Since witnesses have watched the killer leave the house, it
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rules all the possibility that he picked up the tiny
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spence shellcasings. Also, they saw a little muzzle in his sleeve.
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The police theory that the weapon is a mini revolver
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is locked in.
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Ruthan also tells the police she didn't recognize the shooter's face.
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It was a stranger who knocked on her door.
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Janet, the caregiver, survives the ordeal. Police now have an
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eyewitness who has seen the Alexandria assassin.
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The eyewitness here was able to work with the police
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artist to create what they call this composite image, like
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an artist rendering of what the guy would look like.
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Piercing eyes, long white beard, disheveled hair. This was used
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to create the artists rendering that went out to the
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public as.
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Police put together a composite sketch. They examined the bullets
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taken from ruth An Lidado's body.
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I had never seen it in another shooting case in
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my thirty four years with the lab ratory. The same
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type of ammunition was used with a similar general rifling characteristic.
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Five bullets are recovered at the scene of the third murder,
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the same type of twenty two caliber hollow point subsonic
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long rifle bullets.
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The same bullets at all three shootings, the same mo
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the same area in Alexandria.
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The artist's rendering of what this guy looked like, according
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to the eyewitness to the murder of ruth Anladado, goes
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out to the community. We published it in the newspaper.
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Is all over television, and so a lot of people say, yeah,
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I know that guy. So the police interviewed the guy
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at issue, and it turned out he was not the murderer.
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But the suspect points a finger at another man who
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fits their profile, a man named Charles Severance. Charles Severance
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is a local man who has run for mayor of
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Alexandria twice as an independent. Concerned that the killer may
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strike again, Alexandria's chief of police notifies the media that
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they believe the three murders to be linked.
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This is a gamble. Police know that this announcement is
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going to cause panic, as it confirms suspicions that many
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people have had in DC, like.
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This is a serial murderer on the loose. So yeah,
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there was an intense community reaction to this.
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By telling everyone about the unusual ammunition, they're hoping that
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someone will come forward with more information.
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The day after police announced there's a serial murderer at
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large in Alexandria, they receive a tip from an unlikely place,
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the Russian embassy. March twenty fourteen, the Greater Washington DC
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area is rocked when alex Lexandria police confirmed their fears
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three seemingly random murders are linked. The day after police
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appeal to the public for help locating a serial killer,
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Charles Severance rides his bike to the Russian embassy, claiming
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political persecution by the city of Alexandria. Severance seeks asylum
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from Russia by sneaking into the compound, but US Secret
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Service agents turn him away.
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They ask him questions and take his picture, but they
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don't have anything to charge him with, so they have
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to let him leave on his bike, but out of
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curiosity they follow him.
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The agent identifies Severance from his passport and remembers the
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composite image of the Alexandria assassin, along with the description
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of the suspicious vehicle caught fleeing from the scene of
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ruth Enldado's murder.
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If they have been able to search his vehicle here,
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who knows what they would have found.
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The Secret Service files report with Alexandria police and the
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focus of the investigation turns to Charles Severance.
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Charles Severance was a guy who's from northern Virginia. He
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went to George Mason University here in the region. He
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went to UVA University of Virginia down in Charlottesville, so
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kind of a local guy and very well educated. Worked
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as an engineer.
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Severance also designs his own anti establishment games. He runs
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a website called Mental Disorder where he tries to sell them.
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He had a short lived relationship with this woman and
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they had a child. There was a custody dispute over
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the child. The court came to the conclusion that the
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child needed to be separated and to essentially never see
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the father again.
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Finally, on March twelfth, twenty fourteen, Severance's debit card is
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used at a hotel in Wheeling, West Virginia. Police are
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sent surveillance footage of Severance checking into the hotel. He's
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just the same as he was at the Russian Embassy.
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Police bought his bike outside of a nearby library.
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Severans used the Internet to plan his escape from the area.
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He was about to disappear forever when police finally tracked
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him down.
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Severance's car, the same car that's caught on surveillance footage
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outside of ruth An Lidado's home, is found in a
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hotel parking lot. Police execute a search warrant, but what
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they do find comes as a shock.
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There's no gun here, No ammunition, but there is a
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gun cleaning kit and a bunch of latex gloves. There's
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a black jacket, and they would discover what has become
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known as Severance's manifesto of hate.
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Police find journals that Severance keeps which detail his rage
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at what he feels is an elite that has taken
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and his son from him. There are hundreds of pages
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detailing Severance's rage at the police, court system, city of Alexandria,
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and belief in violence.
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He recounted his innermost thoughts about the court system and
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his grudge against the court system, and how he blamed
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Alexandria's society for being separated from his child.
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Charles Severance was charged with first degree murder for Nancy
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Dunning's homicide and capital murder for Ronald Kirby and ruth Anlodado.
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Also a malicious wounding charge for the home healthcare worker
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that he wounded, as well as the use of a
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firearm in all four of those cases, and then two
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counts of possession by a convicted felon of a firearm.
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Ken prosecutors convince a jury that Charles Severance is the
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Alexandria assassin in two thousand and three, prominent real estate
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agent Nancy Dunning is shot at her front door. Ten
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years later and a mile away, Ron Kirby, a senior
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transportation planner, suffers the same fate. A third victim, beloved
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piano teacher Ruth Ann Lodado, is shot and killed at
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her front door in this same neighborhood as Kirby and Dunning.
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Three murders, all in broad daylight, all with the same
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subsonic halowpoint ammunition, with similar guns but not the same.
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Prosecutors charge local politician Charles Severance with the shootings.
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The defense goes for a scattershot approach to creating reasonable doubt.
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They point out the Severance doesn't look like the composite
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sketch when clearly he's trying to change his appearance. They
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also want to call his sanity into question, which may
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explain his outbursts in court.
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Prosecutors use Severance's own words from his notebooks to link
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him to the murder. Weapons used in the crimes.
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Please purchase three North American Arms, twenty two caliber Mini revolvers,
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and five hundred rounds of subsonic ammunition. The five rounds
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stainless deal with the wooden grip is small and easily concealed.
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Thou shalt kill in Vengeance's mind saith the Lord fallow
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point and below. The speed of sound is sweet music
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and very effective violent swins.
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The notebooks that show the internal workings of his mind
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actually were very important because they sort of showed you
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that this was someone not only in possession of this
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very specific kind of ammunition, but also someone who had
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the mental workings of a serial killer. All of the
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evidence against Charles Several was all circumstantial. They did not
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have the murder weapon. We still don't know where the
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murder weapon is even today. They did not have DNA evidence,
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they did not have fingerprint evidence. All the circumstantial evidence
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they had was the forensic evidence here that there's a
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very specific kind of ammunition that Charles Severance had actually
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written about in his notebooks, the twenty two long rifle
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Remington's subsonic. He had talked about how it made music
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to his ears.
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Janet, the homecare worker, takes the stand. She points to
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Charles Severance as the man she sees at the front
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door when ruth An Lidado is murdered. Charles Severance is
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found guilty on all ten counts. He has given three
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life sentences plus forty eight years and a four hundred
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thousand dollars fine.
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The thought of a stranger knocking on your door out
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of the blue and then shooting you terrorized this community
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for a long time.
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Sheriff Jim Dunning does not live long enough to see
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Severance get convicted in the murder of his wife.
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Jim Dunning, you know, there was this cloud of suspicion
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over him for years and years and years, and so
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after he was no longer the sheriff here in Alexandria,
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he actually had to move to South Carolina because of
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all the speculations swirling around him, and unfortunately he died
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with this cloud of suspicion over him as potentially being
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part of a murder that he had nothing to do with.
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In the end, it was a whole community working together,
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from ballistics experts to eyewitnesses and neighbors. They made it
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safe for Alexandria to answer their door again.
