WEBVTT
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When beloved family patriarch Gary Ferriss went missing, his family
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looked everywhere on their property until they came across something horrifying.
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It's a homicide.
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Absolutely.
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The blame game in this family went round and round.
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This is Blood is Thicker the Ferris Wheel.
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I would don't see how anyone can look at this
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story and think they were happy.
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Follow and listen to Blood Is Thicker The Ferris Wheel
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on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Welcome to Post mordem.
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I'm forty eight hours correspondent Natalie Morales filling in for
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Anne Marie Green, who is on the other side of
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the mic, to talk about her latest report on the
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murder of nineteen year old Shade Robinson.
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Thanks for joining me, Anne Marie.
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Thanks Natalie. I'm looking forward to talking about this now.
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This all started when the Milwaukee Fire Department responded to
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a vehicle that was set on fire in April of
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twenty twenty four. Turns out that car belonged to Shade,
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but nobody could get a hold of her. Well. That
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same day, a body part from an unidentified female washed
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up on a remote beach on the Wisconsin shoreline.
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Of Lake Michigan, Anne Emrie.
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Shade's friends also hadn't heard from her since she went
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on a date the night before, right.
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Yeah, And in fact, it was one of her co
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workers at Pizza Shuttle that really raised the alarm. She
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was considered that Shade hadn't showed up for work. She's
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such a good employee, she would never just not show up.
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She just couldn't let it go. And she was the
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one who contacted police.
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Well, good for her for following through with that.
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And you also talk about in this hour as we
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see how much security footage played a part in helping
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police put the pieces of this puzzle together.
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Absolutely.
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I mean, I think we all know that there's a
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lot of surveillance cameras around, the security cameras, ring cameras.
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We know that we're on camera a lot.
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But in this case, it wasn't just sort of the
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places that you would expect, like the lobby of her
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apartment building, but that remote area of the park, one
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of our park was just it was remarkable that they
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even had video from there, and Shaday in particular, left
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kind of digital breadcrumbs pretty much everywhere, and that is
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part of what led to police honing in on Maxwell Anderson.
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So quickly, their eyes in the sky everywhere as we
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can see. Throughout this hour, we're going to talk about
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it all. But first I want to remind our listeners
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and our viewers, if you haven't listened or watched this
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episode yet, please go ahead and do that right now.
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Go check it out and come on back and join
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our conversation.
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So Anne Marie. At first, while watching.
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The episode, I thought that this was going to be
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one of those dating app horror stories. Turns out, though,
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that shaw Day actually met Maxwell Anderson in person before their.
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Date, right, I mean, this is the old fashioned way, right.
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She was looking for yet another job. She already had
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two jobs and she was looking for a third one
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at the bar. She meets him there. He's working there,
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and so yeah, why not think it's okay to go
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out on a date. This is a young woman knows
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everything going for her. She's unbelievably driven, she wants to
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enter the Air Force, she's finishing up her education, she's
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going places, and this one person, you know, ruined everything.
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Such a tragic turn. She had everything and was seemed
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to be doing everything right.
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The first person we meet in this episode She's so fascinating,
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is the detective Joe Donner. And you know, I wasn't
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quite sure what to make of her fashion sense. I mean,
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she's incredible. She's like something out of another era almost,
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and that.
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Is deliberate, that is by design.
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She is just one of those people that's really into
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nineteen forties and nineteen fifties fashion and the aesthetic of
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the time. She actually owns a vintage clothing store and
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she does these like online social media sales where she
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you know, well she'll show like the latest hall that
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she's gotten, and people all over the world tune in
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to buy stuff from her. She does these I guess
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pin up contests. We're not talking burleque stuff, right, We're
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talking about people who dress like in the era. Her
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pinup name is Misdemeanor. How appropriate is that, Natalie? And
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so yeah, she's got this whole fascinating other side to her.
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But boy is she a damn good investigator.
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She sure is.
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And when she gets down to business, she really gets
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down to business. As we see now, it was Detective
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Donner who took you to that remote beach, showed you around.
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What was it like?
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The beach is an inch spot. It's quite desolate.
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Though there's a road leading down there, there's a big fence.
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You can't drive down there. You have to know the
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pathway to take to get down there. And certainly people
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come down there to walk their dogs or maybe just
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to get away, but you would have to really know
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that that spot is there to venture down there. I
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wouldn't go down there, and I wouldn't go down there alone.
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She also took you to the place where they have
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Shade's burned vehicle.
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Yeah, so seeing the car, I mean, it was almost
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a little emotional because it is absolutely charred. But even
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though Maximell Anderson tried to get rid of every stitch
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of evidence, he fails to get rid of some really
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crucial evidence.
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Three pieces of crucial evidence.
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Where the driver's seat is situated that doesn't change, so
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they know that, you know, Shade probably wasn't driving that car.
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But then her purse is found basically intact. I mean,
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it's singed, but it's found underneath the car seat and
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the closure she was wearing that night.
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Those are in the trunk of the car.
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And finding that car really helped to speed up this
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investigation as well.
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Yeah, that was what was so fascinating.
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I never thought about that clue of measuring the seat
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distance and that being a big clue into the height
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of the individual who last drove the car, which would
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turn out to be really important in helping solve this case.
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And I should say that the other officer, right, Donagan,
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who was the one who was called to do a
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check on her apartment, she was crucial. She said to
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us that that day she was getting ready for work
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and like the news was on the background and she
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kind of heard about a.
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Body part being found, you know, and then.
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She gets this call to go to the apartment, and
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like immediately she has this gut reaction.
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She went on a date. She's not here now, I heard.
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About this, this news report about a body part. And
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she was also really significant in speeding up the investigation
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because if it had not moved forward as quickly as
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it did, Donna really feels like there's a good possibility
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that a lot of that really crucial video would have
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been lost.
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Let's also talk though, about Shade's younger sister, Adriana. I
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mean her ability to offer up data on Shah Day
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via Life three sixty the app. I mean it proved
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to be invaluable, right.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Detective Donner calls Adriana the quiet backbone of a family,
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and I don't know how Adriana was able to keep
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a level head in the middle of all of this chaos.
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I've never ever ever met an adult, much less a
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teenager with the type of presence that this young girl has.
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I'm glad it came through in the hour. She's remarkable,
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and she was able to provide the information about the
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Life three sixty app. She could show them where Shade
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had gone. She could show them that she had been
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at Maxwell Anderson's house at around nine thirty. She could show,
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according to the Life's three sixty app, that at two
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point fifty three, the phone arrived at Warnemont Park. All
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of these things were crucial.
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That Life three sixty app.
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That was something The minute my kids got their driver's license,
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I put it on their phones because it goes beyond
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the find My feature. You can actually track if they're
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going and driving above the speed limit. It gives you
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an alert, So it's an incredible tool.
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Yeah, I had never heard of the app before. I
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have since put it on my phone because it really is.
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Remarkable.
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The amount of detail I mean it helped investigators literally
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kind of like walk the path that Shade did to
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figure this whole thing out.
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Well, this brings us to the man who was then
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charged with Shade Robinson's murder. Maxwell Anderson tell us about him.
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So this guy's, you know, can imagine an interesting character.
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He's thirty three years old. Shady was a teenager. She's nineteen.
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We spoke to his ex girlfriend, Chloe, and Chloe also
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was very young when they started.
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Dating, perhaps praying on their vulnerability.
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Exactly even before he met Shad a he had a
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criminal record operating a vehicle while intoxicated, disorderly conduct, and
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you saw on the Hour that he was arrested for
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battery against a bystander who tried to intervene he was
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apparently having an argument with one of his girlfriends, and
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he ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge for that.
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What was really fascinating and kind of alarming, in my opinion,
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was when detectives did search his apartment, they found he
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had a large collection of knives in his apartment, which
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I mean that really raised my eyebrow.
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Yeah, fifty one knives in the kitchen alone.
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I like to cook I have a lot of knives,
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but I certainly don't have a collection like that.
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No, I know, and you know, I'm pretty sure investigators
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were hopeful that amongst those knives they would find something
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that maybe you played a role in this case, and
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that simply wasn't the case. Chloe says that he sort
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of fancied himself a handyman, but he was always starting
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projects that he would never finish. But there were two
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projects she said that he did finish in the time
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that she knew him, and they were both secret compartments,
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and she sort of described how you would like touch
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something and then a compartment would pop out. We didn't
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know what he was hiding in those compartments. The other
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curious tidbit, investigators found tons of women's clothing in his house,
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random items, you know, shirts, pants, not necessarily like all
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intimate items. Chloe wonders if some of the clothes might
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be hers. They also found the idea.
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Of a woman. Did track the woman down.
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She's alive and well a couple of other interesting things
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about that house.
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The house is actually sort of split.
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He owns the house, but he lived on the second floor,
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and then there was a tenant on the first floor.
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Apparently the tenant complained a lot about the noise Anderson.
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Maxwell Anderson had dogs. He would complain about the dogs
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making too much noise upstairs. The tenant was home the
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night Shade went over there and never heard a thing.
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Did investigators have a theory as to how Shade Robinson
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could have been killed without making any sort of noise strangulation,
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Perhaps it's a silent death.
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Yeah, I was gonna say that could have been, you know, away,
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someone could have been killed without making a lot of
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noise and certainly without a lot of blood, which is
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also something else that.
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They didn't find.
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You know.
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He goes on the date with her April first. He's
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arrested by April fourth.
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On April twelfth, twenty twenty four, the Sheriff's office announced
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that the remains found on that remote beach were identified
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as belonging to Shade Robinson, and on that same day,
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Maxwell Anderson was formally charged with first degree intentional homicide,
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mutilation of a corpse, and arson. He would plead not
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guilty to all the charges. Now, one of the worries
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for Detective Joe Donner was that there wasn't any direct
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evidence linking Maxwell Anderson to the case. But it didn't
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seem Amrie that the jury really needed.
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That so much, Right, No, it was really the last
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piece of evidence that sealed his fate. We spoke to
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a number of jurors, but wonder Beca talked about seeing
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those photos that Maxwell Anderson had taken on his phone
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and then deleted. They are photos of shaw D. You
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can see his hand on her, He's touching, you know,
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intimate areas of her body, and that basically did it
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for these jurors. I want to read a little bit
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of what Becca had to say about this. She said,
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I mean I personally felt like I had lived the
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last few hours of Shade's life with her, and to
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see her end up like that was disgusting, humiliating, just horrible.
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Yeah, and to think that to not know if she
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was dead or alive when those photos were taken, they
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seemed staged, almost like a trophy. But then he deletes them.
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I mean that tells you a lot if you're a juror.
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Right, it was perhaps the most powerful piece of evidence
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that the jurors saw.
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Right that, along with you know, we did see the
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footage of the man on the beach with the backpack.
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Yeah.
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Also, then you saw the surveillance footage of the man
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leaving the burnt car, and then you see clearly Maxwell
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Anderson's face when he hops onto a city bus. I mean,
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thank goodness, that security footage was very crisp and clear.
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You could clearly see his face.
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Oh. Absolutely well, and then it turns out the defense
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didn't call any witnesses, so the jury didn't take very
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long to deliberate. Anderson was found guilty of intentional homicide,
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mutilation of a corpse, and arson, although he continues to
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maintain his innocence. At his sentencing, Shade's mother, father, and sister,
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they weren't having any of that.
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No, they were very outspoken. Shadi's mother is, you know, really,
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she's been dealing with.
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A lot of stuff.
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Even before the disappearance and the murder of her daughter,
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She's been dealing with sort of health stuff, and so
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it really took a lot out of her, and she
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has kept the fight going. But it wasn't just the
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family members that spoke. Maxwell Anderson's father also spoke. He
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was crying, he said, Shadi's family, he thought about the
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every single day. He said that he loved his son,
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and that he hoped for a path for his son
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that would allow his son to become a positive influence
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in some way.
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There was also members of.
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The community that sent in letters because, like the whole
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city was moved by this murder.
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And there was.
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One particular letter from an anonymous person that even the
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jurors said had a significant impact on them. And I
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just I'm going to read some portions of this because
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I think it really captures the way the entire city
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of Milwaukee felt about Shaday.
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Saudai.
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Robinson was not a torso, she was not evidence. She
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was a full, living, radiant human being. She had dreams, plans,
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and a future she was building with pride. She had
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people who loved her and that still love her more
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than words can hold. And she had a right to live,
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to breathe, to laugh, to grow old. That right was stolen,
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and it can tinues. But here's what you couldn't take.
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You could not mutilate her soul. You could not silence
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the scream of justice. You could not prevent an entire
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community from rising up in Shade's name.
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So beautiful and so moving. I love that the judge
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read that letter.
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It's not surprising because I really felt like she became
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the daughter of the entire city. People either saw something
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in her that they felt was also in them, or
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in you know, a young woman that they know, whether
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it's a daughter or a friend, and they really rallied
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around this family, which I thought was significant, Natalie, because
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the reality of it is is that there often are
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times when young black women are victims of crime and
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they don't get the same level of attention, right, And
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I just want to read a statistic out. This is
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Columbia University study. In Wisconsin, black women are twenty times
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more likely to be murdered than white women. It's the
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worst statistic in the country. The other thing is that
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Milwaukee is home to Jeffrey Dahmer, and when you think
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of Dahmer's crimes, there's a sickening feeling that comes with it.
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And this reminded Milwaukee of that sickening feeling. And just
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as a kind of a side note, when we traveled
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there to do some of our interviews, we stayed.
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In this really nice old hotel.
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It was built sort of in the I think it's
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in like nineteen twenty ninety thirties, but I kind of
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like cracked a little joke with the guy at the
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front desk and asked him if there were any ghosts.
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And then I struck up a conversation with someone in
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the elevator and I mentioned that I was inquiring about ghosts,
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and he said, well, you know, you know what happened
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on the fifth floor. And it turns out the hotel
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we stayed in was a hotel that Jeffrey Dahmer killed.
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One of his victims in. But I tell you I
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slept with the lights on.
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I would have too.
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Yeah, Oh my gosh, I'm surprised you slept at all.
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Yeah, I know.
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Back to shah Day, as we know her remains, they
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were spread all over the county. We learned from some
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friends that they even found a blanket that had belonged
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to Shahday as well as they found what they believed
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was a human bone in an area that investigators had
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already searched. You talked to Shade's sister Adriana as well
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about the ongoing search for shad Day's remains.
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I wanted to play a little piece of that.
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Does it bother you that you know parts of your
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sister are still missing?
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Yeah?
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It definitely does. I have this necklace and another one
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which is a star that I wear every day that
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has some of her ashes in it. So it's like
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a part of her is with me, but knowing that
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a part of her isn't with anyone that is floating
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around somewhere decomposed. It's like she hasn't been allowed to
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to stop fighting, like her battle's not over, like she's
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never gonna be able to rest in some.
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Sense heartbreaking late, you know, as we saw in the sentencing,
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Shade's mother asked Maxwell Anderson to confess where her daughter's
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crown was, and we're talking about her head. Of course,
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he though maintained his innocence, but we do hope that
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Shade's family will get an answer someday, and I know
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that that search is ongoing.
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Yeah, this is the kind of continued heartbreak for everyone
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who cares about Shade, that all.
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Of her has not been found.
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Before we go, though, let's end on something that is
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so hopeful and positive and uplifting, I think, and that
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is that Shade's legacy is her younger sister, Adriana. Adriana,
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as we mentioned, such a bright light in this world. Well,
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she accepted Chade's graduation diploma for her associate's degree.
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But she also has some big news, right.
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Yeah, So Adriana is in the top five percent of
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high school kids in Wisconsin. She's been accepted to Harvard.
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She has a ninety nine percent scholarship. She doesn't know
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what she's going to do, where she's going to go.
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But when I say I've never met anyone like this,
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I wish her all the luck in the world.
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She I don't think she needs it.
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I expect great things from Adriana and I cannot wait
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to watch her continue to strive and rise and accomplish
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and be all the things that we all know she
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can be, but also that her sister knew she could be.
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Well, that is a hopeful way to end this. And
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thank you.
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Thank you again for your incredible reporting and Marie on
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this one.
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Appreciate it all.
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Is great talking to you, Natalie, And.
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If you liked this episode, please rate a review on
385
00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:14.400
Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.
386
00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:18.960
When beloved family patriarch Gary Ferriss went missing, his family
387
00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:23.759
looked everywhere on their property until they came across something horrifying.
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00:21:23.799 --> 00:21:26.960
It's a homicide. Absolutely, the blame game in This family
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went round and round. This is Blood Is Thicker the
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00:21:31.160 --> 00:21:31.960
Ferris Wheel.
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I would don't see how anyone can look at this
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00:21:34.359 --> 00:21:36.000
story and think they were happy.
393
00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:39.039
Follow and listen to Blood Is Thicker the Ferris Wheel
394
00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:41.799
on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your
395
00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:42.480
podcasts
1
00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:04.559
When beloved family patriarch Gary Ferriss went missing, his family
2
00:00:04.599 --> 00:00:09.359
looked everywhere on their property until they came across something horrifying.
3
00:00:09.359 --> 00:00:10.320
It's a homicide.
4
00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:10.919
Absolutely.
5
00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:14.320
The blame game in this family went round and round.
6
00:00:14.679 --> 00:00:17.559
This is Blood is Thicker the Ferris Wheel.
7
00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:19.879
I would don't see how anyone can look at this
8
00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:21.600
story and think they were happy.
9
00:00:21.760 --> 00:00:24.640
Follow and listen to Blood Is Thicker The Ferris Wheel
10
00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:37.840
on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
11
00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:41.679
Welcome to Post mordem.
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I'm forty eight hours correspondent Natalie Morales filling in for
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Anne Marie Green, who is on the other side of
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the mic, to talk about her latest report on the
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murder of nineteen year old Shade Robinson.
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Thanks for joining me, Anne Marie.
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Thanks Natalie. I'm looking forward to talking about this now.
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This all started when the Milwaukee Fire Department responded to
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a vehicle that was set on fire in April of
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twenty twenty four. Turns out that car belonged to Shade,
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but nobody could get a hold of her. Well. That
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same day, a body part from an unidentified female washed
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up on a remote beach on the Wisconsin shoreline.
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Of Lake Michigan, Anne Emrie.
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Shade's friends also hadn't heard from her since she went
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on a date the night before, right.
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Yeah, And in fact, it was one of her co
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workers at Pizza Shuttle that really raised the alarm. She
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was considered that Shade hadn't showed up for work. She's
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such a good employee, she would never just not show up.
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She just couldn't let it go. And she was the
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one who contacted police.
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Well, good for her for following through with that.
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And you also talk about in this hour as we
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see how much security footage played a part in helping
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police put the pieces of this puzzle together.
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Absolutely.
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I mean, I think we all know that there's a
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lot of surveillance cameras around, the security cameras, ring cameras.
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We know that we're on camera a lot.
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But in this case, it wasn't just sort of the
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places that you would expect, like the lobby of her
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apartment building, but that remote area of the park, one
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of our park was just it was remarkable that they
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even had video from there, and Shaday in particular, left
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kind of digital breadcrumbs pretty much everywhere, and that is
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part of what led to police honing in on Maxwell Anderson.
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So quickly, their eyes in the sky everywhere as we
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can see. Throughout this hour, we're going to talk about
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it all. But first I want to remind our listeners
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and our viewers, if you haven't listened or watched this
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episode yet, please go ahead and do that right now.
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Go check it out and come on back and join
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our conversation.
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So Anne Marie. At first, while watching.
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The episode, I thought that this was going to be
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one of those dating app horror stories. Turns out, though,
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that shaw Day actually met Maxwell Anderson in person before their.
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Date, right, I mean, this is the old fashioned way, right.
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She was looking for yet another job. She already had
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two jobs and she was looking for a third one
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at the bar. She meets him there. He's working there,
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and so yeah, why not think it's okay to go
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out on a date. This is a young woman knows
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everything going for her. She's unbelievably driven, she wants to
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enter the Air Force, she's finishing up her education, she's
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going places, and this one person, you know, ruined everything.
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Such a tragic turn. She had everything and was seemed
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to be doing everything right.
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The first person we meet in this episode She's so fascinating,
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is the detective Joe Donner. And you know, I wasn't
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quite sure what to make of her fashion sense. I mean,
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she's incredible. She's like something out of another era almost,
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and that.
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Is deliberate, that is by design.
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She is just one of those people that's really into
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nineteen forties and nineteen fifties fashion and the aesthetic of
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the time. She actually owns a vintage clothing store and
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she does these like online social media sales where she
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you know, well she'll show like the latest hall that
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she's gotten, and people all over the world tune in
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to buy stuff from her. She does these I guess
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pin up contests. We're not talking burleque stuff, right, We're
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talking about people who dress like in the era. Her
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pinup name is Misdemeanor. How appropriate is that, Natalie? And
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so yeah, she's got this whole fascinating other side to her.
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But boy is she a damn good investigator.
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She sure is.
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And when she gets down to business, she really gets
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down to business. As we see now, it was Detective
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Donner who took you to that remote beach, showed you around.
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What was it like?
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The beach is an inch spot. It's quite desolate.
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Though there's a road leading down there, there's a big fence.
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You can't drive down there. You have to know the
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pathway to take to get down there. And certainly people
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come down there to walk their dogs or maybe just
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to get away, but you would have to really know
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that that spot is there to venture down there. I
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wouldn't go down there, and I wouldn't go down there alone.
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She also took you to the place where they have
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Shade's burned vehicle.
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Yeah, so seeing the car, I mean, it was almost
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a little emotional because it is absolutely charred. But even
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though Maximell Anderson tried to get rid of every stitch
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of evidence, he fails to get rid of some really
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crucial evidence.
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Three pieces of crucial evidence.
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Where the driver's seat is situated that doesn't change, so
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they know that, you know, Shade probably wasn't driving that car.
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But then her purse is found basically intact. I mean,
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it's singed, but it's found underneath the car seat and
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the closure she was wearing that night.
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Those are in the trunk of the car.
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And finding that car really helped to speed up this
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investigation as well.
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Yeah, that was what was so fascinating.
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I never thought about that clue of measuring the seat
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distance and that being a big clue into the height
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of the individual who last drove the car, which would
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turn out to be really important in helping solve this case.
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And I should say that the other officer, right, Donagan,
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who was the one who was called to do a
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check on her apartment, she was crucial. She said to
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us that that day she was getting ready for work
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and like the news was on the background and she
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kind of heard about a.
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Body part being found, you know, and then.
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She gets this call to go to the apartment, and
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like immediately she has this gut reaction.
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She went on a date. She's not here now, I heard.
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About this, this news report about a body part. And
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she was also really significant in speeding up the investigation
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because if it had not moved forward as quickly as
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it did, Donna really feels like there's a good possibility
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that a lot of that really crucial video would have
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been lost.
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Let's also talk though, about Shade's younger sister, Adriana. I
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mean her ability to offer up data on Shah Day
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via Life three sixty the app. I mean it proved
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to be invaluable, right.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Detective Donner calls Adriana the quiet backbone of a family,
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and I don't know how Adriana was able to keep
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a level head in the middle of all of this chaos.
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I've never ever ever met an adult, much less a
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teenager with the type of presence that this young girl has.
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I'm glad it came through in the hour. She's remarkable,
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and she was able to provide the information about the
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Life three sixty app. She could show them where Shade
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had gone. She could show them that she had been
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at Maxwell Anderson's house at around nine thirty. She could show,
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according to the Life's three sixty app, that at two
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point fifty three, the phone arrived at Warnemont Park. All
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of these things were crucial.
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That Life three sixty app.
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That was something The minute my kids got their driver's license,
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I put it on their phones because it goes beyond
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the find My feature. You can actually track if they're
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going and driving above the speed limit. It gives you
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an alert, So it's an incredible tool.
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Yeah, I had never heard of the app before. I
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have since put it on my phone because it really is.
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Remarkable.
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The amount of detail I mean it helped investigators literally
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kind of like walk the path that Shade did to
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figure this whole thing out.
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Well, this brings us to the man who was then
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charged with Shade Robinson's murder. Maxwell Anderson tell us about him.
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So this guy's, you know, can imagine an interesting character.
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He's thirty three years old. Shady was a teenager. She's nineteen.
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We spoke to his ex girlfriend, Chloe, and Chloe also
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was very young when they started.
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Dating, perhaps praying on their vulnerability.
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Exactly even before he met Shad a he had a
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criminal record operating a vehicle while intoxicated, disorderly conduct, and
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you saw on the Hour that he was arrested for
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battery against a bystander who tried to intervene he was
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apparently having an argument with one of his girlfriends, and
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he ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge for that.
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What was really fascinating and kind of alarming, in my opinion,
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was when detectives did search his apartment, they found he
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had a large collection of knives in his apartment, which
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I mean that really raised my eyebrow.
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Yeah, fifty one knives in the kitchen alone.
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I like to cook I have a lot of knives,
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but I certainly don't have a collection like that.
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No, I know, and you know, I'm pretty sure investigators
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were hopeful that amongst those knives they would find something
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that maybe you played a role in this case, and
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that simply wasn't the case. Chloe says that he sort
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of fancied himself a handyman, but he was always starting
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projects that he would never finish. But there were two
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projects she said that he did finish in the time
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that she knew him, and they were both secret compartments,
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and she sort of described how you would like touch
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something and then a compartment would pop out. We didn't
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know what he was hiding in those compartments. The other
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curious tidbit, investigators found tons of women's clothing in his house,
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random items, you know, shirts, pants, not necessarily like all
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intimate items. Chloe wonders if some of the clothes might
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be hers. They also found the idea.
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Of a woman. Did track the woman down.
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She's alive and well a couple of other interesting things
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about that house.
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The house is actually sort of split.
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He owns the house, but he lived on the second floor,
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and then there was a tenant on the first floor.
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Apparently the tenant complained a lot about the noise Anderson.
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Maxwell Anderson had dogs. He would complain about the dogs
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making too much noise upstairs. The tenant was home the
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night Shade went over there and never heard a thing.
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Did investigators have a theory as to how Shade Robinson
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could have been killed without making any sort of noise strangulation,
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Perhaps it's a silent death.
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Yeah, I was gonna say that could have been, you know, away,
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someone could have been killed without making a lot of
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noise and certainly without a lot of blood, which is
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also something else that.
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They didn't find.
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You know.
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He goes on the date with her April first. He's
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arrested by April fourth.
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On April twelfth, twenty twenty four, the Sheriff's office announced
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that the remains found on that remote beach were identified
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as belonging to Shade Robinson, and on that same day,
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Maxwell Anderson was formally charged with first degree intentional homicide,
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mutilation of a corpse, and arson. He would plead not
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guilty to all the charges. Now, one of the worries
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for Detective Joe Donner was that there wasn't any direct
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evidence linking Maxwell Anderson to the case. But it didn't
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seem Amrie that the jury really needed.
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That so much, Right, No, it was really the last
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piece of evidence that sealed his fate. We spoke to
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a number of jurors, but wonder Beca talked about seeing
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those photos that Maxwell Anderson had taken on his phone
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and then deleted. They are photos of shaw D. You
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can see his hand on her, He's touching, you know,
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intimate areas of her body, and that basically did it
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for these jurors. I want to read a little bit
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of what Becca had to say about this. She said,
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I mean I personally felt like I had lived the
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last few hours of Shade's life with her, and to
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see her end up like that was disgusting, humiliating, just horrible.
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Yeah, and to think that to not know if she
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was dead or alive when those photos were taken, they
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seemed staged, almost like a trophy. But then he deletes them.
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I mean that tells you a lot if you're a juror.
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Right, it was perhaps the most powerful piece of evidence
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that the jurors saw.
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Right that, along with you know, we did see the
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footage of the man on the beach with the backpack.
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Yeah.
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Also, then you saw the surveillance footage of the man
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leaving the burnt car, and then you see clearly Maxwell
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Anderson's face when he hops onto a city bus. I mean,
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thank goodness, that security footage was very crisp and clear.
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You could clearly see his face.
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Oh. Absolutely well, and then it turns out the defense
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didn't call any witnesses, so the jury didn't take very
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long to deliberate. Anderson was found guilty of intentional homicide,
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mutilation of a corpse, and arson, although he continues to
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maintain his innocence. At his sentencing, Shade's mother, father, and sister,
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they weren't having any of that.
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No, they were very outspoken. Shadi's mother is, you know, really,
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she's been dealing with.
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A lot of stuff.
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Even before the disappearance and the murder of her daughter,
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She's been dealing with sort of health stuff, and so
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it really took a lot out of her, and she
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has kept the fight going. But it wasn't just the
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family members that spoke. Maxwell Anderson's father also spoke. He
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was crying, he said, Shadi's family, he thought about the
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every single day. He said that he loved his son,
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and that he hoped for a path for his son
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that would allow his son to become a positive influence
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in some way.
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There was also members of.
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The community that sent in letters because, like the whole
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city was moved by this murder.
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And there was.
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One particular letter from an anonymous person that even the
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jurors said had a significant impact on them. And I
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just I'm going to read some portions of this because
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I think it really captures the way the entire city
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of Milwaukee felt about Shaday.
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Saudai.
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Robinson was not a torso, she was not evidence. She
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was a full, living, radiant human being. She had dreams, plans,
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and a future she was building with pride. She had
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people who loved her and that still love her more
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than words can hold. And she had a right to live,
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to breathe, to laugh, to grow old. That right was stolen,
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and it can tinues. But here's what you couldn't take.
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You could not mutilate her soul. You could not silence
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the scream of justice. You could not prevent an entire
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community from rising up in Shade's name.
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So beautiful and so moving. I love that the judge
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read that letter.
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It's not surprising because I really felt like she became
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the daughter of the entire city. People either saw something
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in her that they felt was also in them, or
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in you know, a young woman that they know, whether
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it's a daughter or a friend, and they really rallied
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around this family, which I thought was significant, Natalie, because
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the reality of it is is that there often are
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times when young black women are victims of crime and
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they don't get the same level of attention, right, And
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I just want to read a statistic out. This is
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Columbia University study. In Wisconsin, black women are twenty times
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more likely to be murdered than white women. It's the
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worst statistic in the country. The other thing is that
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Milwaukee is home to Jeffrey Dahmer, and when you think
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of Dahmer's crimes, there's a sickening feeling that comes with it.
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And this reminded Milwaukee of that sickening feeling. And just
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as a kind of a side note, when we traveled
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there to do some of our interviews, we stayed.
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In this really nice old hotel.
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It was built sort of in the I think it's
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in like nineteen twenty ninety thirties, but I kind of
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like cracked a little joke with the guy at the
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front desk and asked him if there were any ghosts.
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And then I struck up a conversation with someone in
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the elevator and I mentioned that I was inquiring about ghosts,
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and he said, well, you know, you know what happened
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on the fifth floor. And it turns out the hotel
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we stayed in was a hotel that Jeffrey Dahmer killed.
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One of his victims in. But I tell you I
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slept with the lights on.
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I would have too.
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Yeah, Oh my gosh, I'm surprised you slept at all.
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Yeah, I know.
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Back to shah Day, as we know her remains, they
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were spread all over the county. We learned from some
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friends that they even found a blanket that had belonged
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to Shahday as well as they found what they believed
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was a human bone in an area that investigators had
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already searched. You talked to Shade's sister Adriana as well
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about the ongoing search for shad Day's remains.
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I wanted to play a little piece of that.
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Does it bother you that you know parts of your
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sister are still missing?
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Yeah?
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It definitely does. I have this necklace and another one
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which is a star that I wear every day that
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has some of her ashes in it. So it's like
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a part of her is with me, but knowing that
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a part of her isn't with anyone that is floating
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around somewhere decomposed. It's like she hasn't been allowed to
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to stop fighting, like her battle's not over, like she's
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never gonna be able to rest in some.
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Sense heartbreaking late, you know, as we saw in the sentencing,
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Shade's mother asked Maxwell Anderson to confess where her daughter's
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crown was, and we're talking about her head. Of course,
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he though maintained his innocence, but we do hope that
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Shade's family will get an answer someday, and I know
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that that search is ongoing.
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Yeah, this is the kind of continued heartbreak for everyone
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who cares about Shade, that all.
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Of her has not been found.
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Before we go, though, let's end on something that is
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so hopeful and positive and uplifting, I think, and that
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is that Shade's legacy is her younger sister, Adriana. Adriana,
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as we mentioned, such a bright light in this world. Well,
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she accepted Chade's graduation diploma for her associate's degree.
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But she also has some big news, right.
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Yeah, So Adriana is in the top five percent of
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high school kids in Wisconsin. She's been accepted to Harvard.
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She has a ninety nine percent scholarship. She doesn't know
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what she's going to do, where she's going to go.
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But when I say I've never met anyone like this,
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I wish her all the luck in the world.
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She I don't think she needs it.
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I expect great things from Adriana and I cannot wait
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to watch her continue to strive and rise and accomplish
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and be all the things that we all know she
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can be, but also that her sister knew she could be.
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Well, that is a hopeful way to end this. And
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thank you.
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Thank you again for your incredible reporting and Marie on
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this one.
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Appreciate it all.
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Is great talking to you, Natalie, And.
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If you liked this episode, please rate a review on
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00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:14.400
Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.
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00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:18.960
When beloved family patriarch Gary Ferriss went missing, his family
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00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:23.759
looked everywhere on their property until they came across something horrifying.
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00:21:23.799 --> 00:21:26.960
It's a homicide. Absolutely, the blame game in This family
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00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:31.039
went round and round. This is Blood Is Thicker the
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00:21:31.160 --> 00:21:31.960
Ferris Wheel.
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I would don't see how anyone can look at this
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00:21:34.359 --> 00:21:36.000
story and think they were happy.
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00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:39.039
Follow and listen to Blood Is Thicker the Ferris Wheel
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00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:41.799
on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your
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00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:42.480
podcasts
