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And I said, I'm beginning to think I don't know
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if Bethany was real. Was she real or is she
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somebody I was making up? Right? So I called the
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Obin County Hospital where Bethany was born in New City,
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and I was talking to the woman and it was like,
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I need to know if my daughter is real. Can
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you send me a copy of the versonarticulately? I need
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to see her footprints. And I remember how to mail
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to my job, and I opened them when they came
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in and I was just like, I called Laurie and
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I was like, oh my god, this is proof Bethany
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is real. She is real, she was here.
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This is missing in Hushtown Season two, Bethany Markowski, Welcome
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back Bethany's Brigade to Chapter three. Bethany Missing, not lost.
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Throughout this episode, we're going to share stories, interviews, and
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memories about Bethany from those who knew her and loved
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her best, her sisters, cousins, ants, and of course, her mom,
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Johnny Carter. Bethany may be missing for twenty five years now,
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but her legacy, her love, and her purpose has never
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been lost. Together with her family, we hope to bring
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you along the journey to all that is Bethany through
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the eyes of all who vowed to find her, and
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the impact her disappearance has made on them all. Bethany's
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loved ones had just eleven short years with her, and
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the trauma they've endured the last twenty five years has
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greatly impacted their memories. But through it all, they refuse
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to stop telling the world about the girl that Bethany
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was to them.
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Sometimes you can't turn you can't turn the feelings off
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or even down. They're just there and they're going to
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come out, no matter how hard you fight back the
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tears or the anger or whatever emotion that you're feeling
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at that time. And it's so you just don't know
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what emotion you're going to get when you start talking
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come a aut it either. I mean there's days I
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look at Bethanye's picture and she's smiling, and I'll look
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at her and I'll smile right back at her, and
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those days I'll look at it, the same picture and
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it rips my heart out and I just can't really
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look at it.
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I'm your host, Jules. Hey, guys, let's go.
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M we start about when she was born. Actually, can
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you go back to like pregnancy.
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Yeah, yes, I do. I remember finding out. I cried
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so yeah, it was. It was a scary time. I
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didn't really want to be pregnant, not by Larry, but
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I was and happy about it.
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According to the National Domestic Abuse Hotland website the hotlane
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dot org, quote, abusive relationships are extremely complex situations and
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it takes a lot of courage to leave. Abuse is
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about power and control. When a survivor leaves their abusive relationship,
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they threaten the power and control their partner has established
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over the survivor's agency. This often causes the partner to
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retaliate in harmful ways. As a result, leaving is often
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the most dangerous period of time for survivors of abuse
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end quote. Unfortunately, many victims of domestic abuse are blamed, Well,
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why didn't you leave? Why would you stay? How could
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you allow your daughter in that environment? Johnny, She's a
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victim too, and she was doing the best she could.
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She was in a constant state of fear of retaliation.
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To put it bluntly, she was afraid that leaving Larry
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with Bethany would cause Bethany to be harmed, or she'd
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never get to see Bethany again. And if Johnny and
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Bethany were separated, how could she protect Bethany. She could
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take it, she would take it, and if she did,
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then maybe he wouldn't turn on Bethany. She was never
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going to leave her daughter. When Bethany was born February first,
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nineteen ninety, Johnny instantly fell in love her dark hair
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and blue green eyes that sparkled. She was loved deeply
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by her siblings. Bethany is the youngest of five. She
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has two siblings from Larry's former marriage to a woman
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named Sheila, Jenny and Daniel, and two on Johnny's side,
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Emily and Kyle.
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Bethany was born February first, nineteen ninety. Beautiful baby girl
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and silly, funny, sweet kid. I remember when she was little.
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She always she would bring me a ponytail holder and
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wan her hair put on top of her head and
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called her a water spountain. She had this. You could
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tell her to make a ugly face, and there's pictures
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of it. She would make an ugly face. Just very sweet, silly, funny,
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loved everybody, loved everybody. We had some neighbors that was
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an elderly couple, so Bethany would get off the school
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bus when she got older and stop at their house
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and check on and make sure that they were okay.
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The other voices you may hear throughout Johnny's interviews are
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her sister aunt Laurie, her sister Tommy, and their best
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friend Diane. We all sat together one evening and they
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took turns telling about Bethany. Sometimes they finish each other's sentences,
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sometimes they correct each other, and sometimes they all talk
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at once. Their sisterly bond is beautiful, and their nurturing
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hearts are contagious. They banter back and forth. We pause
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every now and then because one of them has made
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a joke that's hard to recover from. Johnny recalls fondly
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how Bethany as a toddler was always into some thing
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and up to something. That Bethany was very, very very busy.
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Here's sister Jenny.
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She was everything to me.
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We used to have lived beside the church in Sadonia,
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and we used to get a sheet, and I used
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to make us some mayonnaise and cracker sandwiches and cootlaid
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or water, and we'd go down to the church parking
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lot and sit under the tree and have picnics together. Me,
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me and my brother used to tie up to the
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chair and just you know, we used to do what
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siblings do. We were eight years apart, so I watched
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her a lot. She was just She hung out with
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me and my friends a lot. She was just everything
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to me.
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How would you describe her her personality to everyone who's
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never met Bethany if you had to, kind of just
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paint a big picture of Okay, Bethany's coming, get ready,
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this is what she's like.
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She was shot at first, talkative. We both have that problem, goofy,
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and we both bit our nails. We both bit our
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nails down to nothing.
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She was just fun to be around.
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She had her whole life ahead.
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Ever, I don't know she was so young.
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She was just so young.
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So many times in these interviews about Bethany, her loved
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one will finish talking, but they're not done speaking. You
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can almost feel their memories in the yeir hanging there,
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playing like a projector screen in front of us. The
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quiet isn't still, it's moving pictures filled with a recipe
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of nostalgia and grief. Here's Emily, Bethany's older sister, Johnny's daughter.
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She was so sweet, so funny, and she had like
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these little beanie moon eyes when she smiled, and she
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would laugh, and I remember her little Kokahontas room and
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she would sing and just the sweetest. She has been
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the most part happy considering like what kind of life
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she must have lived. You know, I was only there
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for a short period of time, you know, every other week,
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and so I'm sure things were a lot different whenever
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all of the other kids were out of the house.
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And it was just them beth Any's siblings on her
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mom's I didn't live with Johnny full time. Emily remembers
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when Larry and Johnny were together and all the children
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would be at the house for weekend visits.
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So when my mom and dad separated, all lived with
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my mom for a little bit of kindergarten, and then
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I ended up moving and with my dad. So I
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only
went to my mom and their house every other
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weekend for the most part. There were other time frames
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where it would be a large larger gap between me going.
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I will say that their house was a lot different
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from what I was used to at my dad's house.
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I just had my own room, a TV, a phone,
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and I just kind of do whatever I wanted to do.
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But at their house, we had to get up at
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like the crack of dawn, all like five of us
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kids had to be outside all day long and then
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come in like at the end of the day. It
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was really weird, like you can only come in to
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eat or go to the bathroom. Really strange, but that
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was what it was like. I just spent every other weekend.
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There, Bethany's sister on Larry's side. Again, Jenny recalls the
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heat and being forced to stay outside.
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He used to make us sit outside in the summer
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if he's so hot outside, and we'd be laying on
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the porch like dogs, and you know, at night time.
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I remember when they lived in Woodland Mills, he would
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put it back then it was just the air conditioning unit,
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not like a central heat in air, and it was
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in the living room, and he would we would sleep
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in the bedroom, beth and he was still in diapers,
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and me and my brother and her would sleep on
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the bedroom floor when I was there on the weekend,
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and he put towels underneath the doors to keep the
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air in the living room where him and Johnny slept.
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I remember we had a box fan and the window
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would be up and it would be so hot. We
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just take off our clothes and be just like in
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a T shirt and panties or underwear or whatever in
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that room, and it would be so hot. Bens Andy
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would just be in a diaper and we'd just be
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laying there. I'd be laying there at night, just like
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rocking her butt like this, like patting her butt, rocking
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her with her in her bottle. And I'm sure Larry
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would make Johnny stay in the living room and we
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would sneak out of the bedroom and like just try
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to not to fall asleep in the hallway so he'd
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wake up in the morning and zeus. So we'd try
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to like sneak out the door into the hall and
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get some air and then not fall asleep there to
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be back in the bedroom.
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Here's EMILYE.
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Do you mind going into why you were living with
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your dad primarily because I know a lot of people
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listening will obviously think that's not the norm to live
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primarily with your father. Are you open to going into that?
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Sure? I mean I wanted to and they let me. Apparently.
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Never it was time to go to court for custody,
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I don't think my mom was allowed to show up,
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so my dad got custody.
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This is correct per Johnny's recollection. Here's Johnny.
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When I left and moved to Union City, Tennessee, and
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I had an apartment and I was getting a divorce
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from my husband, I had custody of both of the kids,
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or you know, he got every weekend or every the weekend,
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I can't remember. And then when Larry and I got together,
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Max's husband got tired of picking the kids up and
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me having a black eye, or the kids saying, you know,
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we had to go outside and we could hear mama screaming,
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and so he took me to court for full custody
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of the kids, thank god. And so the court date
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came and I wasn't allowed to get out of bed
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that day. It really wouldn't have mattered if I'd have
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been able to get out of bed. I didn't have
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a car, I didn't have a way to go there.
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Larry had already sold my car. I was totally one
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hundred per dependent on him. But again, it was the
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best thing for my kids. Did it devastate me? Absolutely?
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I wanted my kids. I love my kids, and we
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didn't have a relationship for years. You know, Emily was twelve.
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She called to talk
to me one day, and you know,
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Larry answered the phone, and he was telling her, you know,
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she don't need you, She's got Bethany and all this stuff.
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And Emily said, kiss my ass. And I was not
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allowed to see my kids for the next five years
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until he decided it was okay for Bethany to call
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and talk to Emily.
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Here's Emily's right collection.
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I was in sixth grade, going into seventh grade, and
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I wanted to try it for cheerleading, and my mom
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and Larry were supposed to have health insurance on me.
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So I called and Larry answered the phone. And I
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don't know if you just maybe they just didn't have
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health insurance on me or something. I have no idea,
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but I guess he got pissed and he said to me,
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you don't need your mom because you have your stepmom.
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I'm not going to say her name, but he said,
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because you have your stepmom, which I'd never ever said before.
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And he said so, and your mom doesn't need you
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because she has Bethany. Period. I did not talk to
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or see any of them until several months before Bethany
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came up missing. She called me on my parents' landline
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and was just like, hey, this is Bethany, So we're
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like okay, and she came and spent the weekend at
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my dad and step mom's house a few weeks later,
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I guess it was. And then we just went and
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did like I don't know, shopping and stuff like that,
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and then they came and picked her up and that
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was the last time I.
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Ever saw Johnny remembers that last visit Emily had with
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Bethany as well.
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Emily called me I lost costin to my kids and
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which was the best thing in the world that could
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have happened to them. And Larry would say, do you
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want to do you want to call your kids? And
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if I said yeah, then he would be like, why
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do you want to call them? They hate you, they
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don't have nothing to
do with you. And if I
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said no, then what kind of parent are? You don't
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even want to talk to your kids. So there was
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no right answer at all, and he would do the
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same thing, you know, to Bethany, do you want to
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call your sister? And Emily and she would just look
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over me. But one day, out of the blue, He
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looked at Bethany and said, you want to call Emily,
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and Bethany, you looked at me, and she just kind
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of sugar her head. Yeah, he said, we'll call her.
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He called her and talked. Bethany called Emily and talked
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to her, and then I talked to her.
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And.
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Emily asked Bethany could she come and spend the weekend
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and Larry said yes, and she went and spent the
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weekend with Emily and her dad.
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Soon after that visit, Emily's little sister, Bethany would never
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be seen again. Johnny carries a lot of guilt about
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this time in Emily's life.
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She didn't understand she was just a kid, you know,
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she was twelve years old, or she was younger than that,
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and she didn't have a mom. For the first date,
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she had her dad, which she did an amazing job.
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And that's the guilt that I have to live with.
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You know, both Bethany's life and Bethany's disappearance, I simultaneously
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shaped everyone's life who loves her.
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I mean mistakes every single day, every day, and I'll
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own up to him. I will say on record, I
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lost my freaking mind. I was thirty eight years old,
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and I started drinking and I became pretty much an alcoholic.
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And I went to after Bethany had been missing for
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like ten years and I had done warm myself and
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my family out, I finally went and talk to a psychiatrists.
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And you know, one of the first things he told me,
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you know, we needed you need sleep. Yeah, I said,
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you know, the only time I sleep is when I'm drunk,
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and I passed out. And he said, well, that's that's
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not sleep, that's not sleep. And you know, he put
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me on Ambien and Xenex and adderall and all kinds
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of medication. And I took that stuff for like two
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or three months, and I just couldn't do it anymore.
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It noned me too much. I couldn't it sounds weird.
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I couldn't feel the pain, and I needed the pain.
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Johnny would spend the next ten years volunteering for the
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National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, helping other families
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of missing children. She poured herself into advocacy and activism.
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She knew how isolating it felt to be in their shoes,
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and she knew she could help them through her grief
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and her pain and everything she had learned by taking
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it one day out of time.
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So I started volunteering for the National Serphramasius for Children
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with a group called Team Hope. And I did that
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for I think about ten years, and it, Oh, it
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probably sounds crazy. It made me feel like I was
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doing something I wasn't looking for my daughter. I mean
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I still wasn't. And I took breaks. I did. I
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took I had to mentally and physically take breaks. But
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I was trying to help other parents because I didn't
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have I had my family, and I didn't have anybody
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really that had ever been through it. And once I did,
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once I talked to somebody that had a missing child,
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then I wasn't ashamed to speak the truth. I wasn't
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ashamed to tell them all of my crazy thoughts. That
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you're kind of embarrassed to your family. You don't want
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to feel like they're worried for you or anything like that.
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And I feel like if I know I did help
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one person because she became a Team Hope volunteer and
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she got her son back, that it made me made
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me feel good, made me feel like I did something
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good out of all this bad that happened to Bethany.
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I feel like it gave me a purpose.
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Yeah, when you're searching for answers at this stage, we
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00:18:49.920
searching for Bethany or are we searching for answers about
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what happened for Bethany? Is there a difference and what.
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Direction you've been going and now depends on the day.
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If Bethany was here with her family today, what would
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she be like? Would she have competed in sports like
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she wanted to do. Would she have been involved with
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animals horses specifically? Would she live near Johnny in Middle
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Tennessee or in East Tennessee near her sister Jenny and
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brothers Daniel and Kyle. Or would she have traveled the
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world and been a free spirit exploring the wonders of
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what this beautiful world would have had to offer her.
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Trauma rewires brains. It can be cruel and erase memories,
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making them foggy or replay the worst ones. Bethany was
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with their family for just eleven years, but she's been
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missing for twenty five years. But Bethany was never lost,
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she was never forgotten, she was never dismissed, but she
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is missing. Each day her family misses her so much
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so that what they do day in and day out
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is shaped by the absence of Bethany. You'll continue to
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hear stories about Bethany throughout the season, and you'll come
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to know her throughout her actions, reactions, words, hopes, and dreams.
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Bethany loved her family, and it's the same family that
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will never never allow Bethany's memory to become lost. No
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matter how exhausted, defeated, worn out, or hopeless they may
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feel at times, their love for Bethany carries them on
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their mission to find Bethany. Leanne Murkowski next time on
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Missing in Hushtown.
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As it got closer to her going back that week prior,
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she seemed one. I don't think she felt good. She
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seemed like she had a little bit of fear. I
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think she was coming down with something. But too she
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was going around to everybody in the house, you know,
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even the kids, and saying, you know what if Daddy
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didn't bring me back. So I felt like she knew
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something was going on, that he had done threatened her
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or done something because she didn't want to go and Johnny's,
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you know, the night before, she's trying to help her
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pack her bag, and she was like, well, do you
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want to take this? And she was like even that
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typical kid thing. No, I don't want that. I don't
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like that. I don't like so she and she's like,
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you have to pack. She said why she didn't want
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to go, and she's like, she said, you have to go.
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She said, if you.
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Don't go, I'm breaking the law, you know, and they'll
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they'll then they'll take you from me, and then I
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won't you know, then I want to you know. She
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was like, well, what if he doesn't bring me back?
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She said, he has to. He has to bring you back.
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He doesn't bring you back, we'll come and get you
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and he'll never see you again. And that was and
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she said she regrets that so much that she made her.
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Go missing in Hushtown. Season two is executive produced in
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partnership by Fireeyes Media LLC's Jules Thorpe and Johen Rivera,
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as well as mom Cast Productions Rachel Holloway and Heather Northcraft.
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The script is written by Jules Thorpe and edited by
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Heather Northcraft. Project lead is Rachel Holloway and master editing
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and audio production is done by John Rivera. Jules Thorpe
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is your host. Fireeyes media mom
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Haspard raising voices while raising kids.