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Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell
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stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are
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so shocking that many are left wondering how is this
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even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections,
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and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator,
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dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so
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evil many feel they are unspeakable.
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Warning.
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Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended,
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then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey y'all,
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it's kJ You're back for another episode of Unspeakable. How
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is your Thanksgiving? I hope it was wonderful. Mine was
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fan frea fantastic. I had a great time. I got
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so many lovely messages from people just wishing me, you know,
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a happy holiday, and so I hope I was able
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to answer every single one of you because I was
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just so tickled.
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It means so much.
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And my family and I even went down to Grand
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Isle after we ate our Thanksgiving grub and we went
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crabbing and all that to put some pictures on Patreon
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if you want to check that out. But just a
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good time, and then I've been working my butt off
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on this episode that I'm about to start right now,
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because this is one that is all up in the
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news again. And so I said, hey, I got to
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give the people what they want, and so I pushed
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aside another episode I was going to do so I
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could nail this one for you. So get ready, because
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Susan Smith is a name that was in every single
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household in the early nineties, specifically nineteen ninety four.
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You couldn't get away from her. It was everywhere.
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So let's back up if you don't know all the
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details of this case, and let's just start with when
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Susan was born. Okay, So she was born in September
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of nineteen seventy one, and she's from the South South Carolina,
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born as the youngest of three children to her parents,
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Linda and Harry Vaughan.
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Now.
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Her dad worked in a textile mill and her mom,
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I believe was a homemaker. I wasn't one hundred percent
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sure on that one, and didn't find a bunch of
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like real definitive stuff on there. And from the start,
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it was pretty obvious that this was just not a
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happy marriage. They were it was not going well. Literally
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from from the I do. It was kind of like
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the should I, you know, should I have done this?
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But Susan was super close with her dad and she
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was really young, only about six years old, when she
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was hit with the fact, look, we're divorcing and we're
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not going to be together anymore. And this brought, you know,
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about a major change in her life. But nothing would
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hurt as much as when her dad, just a few
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months later decided to commit suicide.
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This was huge to her.
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This was a big blow to her life, and he
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shot himself in the chest and Susan and wasn't really
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involved in any discussion or any understanding of the situation.
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And I got the feeling that her family just kind
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of thought, Oh, she's a kid, so we don't have
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to really explain much to her, And that seemed to
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have a profound effect on her that it wasn't She
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didn't get to work through those feelings with her family.
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She was just basically told, Hey, my parents are divorcing,
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and then shortly thereafter, your dad's dead.
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Sorry. So after his suicide, she was left with.
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What seems to be a lack of a coping mechanism,
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and no one really helped her to cope with the situation,
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and so Susan really seemed to maladapt to the thought
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of death in general. It seemed like she almost became
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obsessed with suicide to some extent, and so much so
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that she would even try it herself on multiple occasions,
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unsuccessfully obviously, but the first time would have been when
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she was thirteen, when she oded on aspirin. So as
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if she wasn't struggling enough, Depression was an ever present
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theme in her life, and the more stress that was added,
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it seemed, the more depressed that she would get. And
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then to add to that stress and that maladaptive response
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to her parents or her father's suicide was that her
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mother seemed to rather quickly move on and get remarried
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to another man. So her mother named Beverly Rossel I
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believe is how you would pronounce that. In nineteen seventy nine,
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and from the get go, Susan did not have a
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good relationship with her stepfather, which made complete sense when
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you fast forward it a few years when it was
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realized that he was actually molesting her. So this was
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about when she was fifteen. So when we say they
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didn't have a good relationship, they had a relationship. It
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just wasn't one that necessarily she wanted to be in
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with him. Now, this wasn't just a claim either, and
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I want to be very clear about that. Court records,
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like the actual court records, state that her stepdad admitted
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to kissing her and fondling her breasts. So this was
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a legitimate situation that was going on. This was not
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like a cry for help or a false accusation because
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she didn't like her stepdad.
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It was legitimate.
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But incredibly, her mother did not press charges. And that
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seems to be something no matter what happens when I'm
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looking at cases, a lot of local cases and on
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all over, is that women who almost like depend on
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these men in these relationships don't press charges. And I
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just cannot get behind that. I just don't understand it.
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But she did separate from him, I'll give her that,
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but she did never actually press charges. Now why it
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went to court, I'm not really diving into here, but
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I know that she didn't seem to like be like
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gung ho about pressing charges against him. Three years later,
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at the age of eighteen, Susan attempted suicide again. Now
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this time it wasn't just you know aspirin. This time
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she took a combination of aspirin and annison, and so
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these drugs and this combo, this was a much stronger
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attempt than her younger age attempt. And this ended her
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in the hospital at Spartanburg Regional Hospital for an entire week.
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So if you're down for a week, you had some
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problems to be staying in the hospital. So she clearly
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had poor coping skills combined with this severe emotional instability,
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and this feature in her life didn't change much as
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she grew into her adulthood. So about a year after
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Susan's second failed suicide attempt, she was working at a
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wind Dixie.
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Now she had worked there for a couple of years.
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I think it was like two years she had already
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worked there when she met twenty year old David Smith.
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And David knew who Susan was when he first started
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working there, and he honestly thought she was pretty. He
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thought that she was interesting and she was pretty, and
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he was also shocked that he found that she was
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messing around with this guy that was working at the
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wind Dixie and his words were or that he thought
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he was dorky. He thought that he was like below
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her league and why are you messed around with this
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dorky dude.
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And matter of.
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Fact, David himself, even though he admits that he was
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attracted to Susan, he was actually engaged to someone else,
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but that attraction to Susan was just super strong, and
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so if being honest, okay, and I want to tell
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you every bit of my research. Susan, according to David,
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was often referred to as basically a slut at her
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job by everyone, and that really upset David because he
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thought she was nice and he thought that she was
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a good person and felt like people were just kind
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of being mean to her. Well, eventually their relationship turned
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into more and they began messing around together themselves. So
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in all honesty, you know, David would say that he
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was just trying to have fun with Susan. They both
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really enjoyed their sex life, and he was enjoying it
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so much so he even broke off his engagement wow
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with a gentleman there. But he broke off his engagement
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met with the other woman, and he and Susan continued
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their rendezvous even after the breakup of his engagement, and
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so they casually dated only briefly. Okay, so they were
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having sex, but it wasn't like this devoted relationship necessarily.
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He thought it was very casual. Susan seemed to be
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pretty casual with people, and so that would spawn the
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rest of this story because she would accidentally become pregnant.
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It was not a planned pregnancy, and so obviously this
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was not an ideal situation. But the two of them
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decided they wanted to make an honest go of this,
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and so they really worked on this relationship. She was
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only two months pregnant though. When I say really worked,
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you know, for a couple of weeks, but they she
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was two months pregnant whenever they made the leap, and
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they got married in March of nineteen ninety one. Initially,
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the two of them would move into David's great grandmother's
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house and live there. David's own parents were struggling with
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the recent loss of an other son.
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Who had just died of Crohn's disease, which was.
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Just another stresser on David's life as well, and his
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father was so overwhelmed by the loss of his brother
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that even David's father attempted suicide. Susan seemed to understand
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this struggle, and the two of them, David and Susan
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really leaned on each other really hard emotionally in the early,
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you know, just very early parts of their marriage. And
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you know, relationships are hard, especially when you're young. And
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they're just twenty years old and they're getting married due
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to pregnancy, not because they wanted to necessarily, and it
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just didn't seem like they were starting on the best
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foot forward, but it was what it.
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Was, and they were going to do what they they could.
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So Michael Daniel was born first, and then two years
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later they had another baby, Alexander Tyler would be born
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into the world.
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And I have got to.
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Tell you you've probably seen of these kids by now,
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but such precious little fellas the epitome of a precious
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baby boy times two absolutely beautiful babies. Michael had this
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little bowl cut, his little dark brown hair, he had
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big brown eyes, and he was just three years old.
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Whenever this case takes place, happy, happy little boy. He
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was in love with his little brother or his Broda
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b r u dduh, his broda as he would refer
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to him, and that was his baby brother, Alex.
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He adored him.
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Alex looks just like his older brother Michael, except his
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hair was much lighter. But they really do look like
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a little copy and paste of each other, just at
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different ages. Alex is only fourteen months old, so his
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hair was still short, like that little baby cut. But
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he's got those big brown eyes that were a standard
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in both of the boys, and their parents were lucky
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because both of their kids were These kids would draw attention.
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They're so cute, okay, and you know, I'm gonna put
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pictures on patreons. He can go look at them. But
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the family settled into South Carolina life. But the marriage,
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as I've already mentioned, was not built on a solid foundation,
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and this would just be very obvious very shortly into
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their marriage, kind of mimicking her parents' marriage. Money problems
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were there from the start, with Susan asking her mother
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for money, which when David would find out, he really
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resented the fact that she would do that because he
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wanted to be the household leader and this is my household.
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Why are you asking your mom for money? Well, the
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answer was because Susan really liked material things and she
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liked shopping, while David was more in tune with providing
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the necessities for the family.
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The relationship was a rocky one at best.
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With Susan and David playing games on each other and
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kind of stepping out on one another cheating back and
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forth throughout the marriage. So this would lead to frequent
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separations and then making up, and then getting back together
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and then breaking up. So they even separated when she
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was pregnant with Alex, but they reunited for the sake
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of the baby, and Susan's mother at that time loaned
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them enough money to put a down payment on a
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home of their own so they wouldn't still be living
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in the grandmother's house. So they all hoped that together
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all of this would help the situation and they could
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you know, live their life on their own and be
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the actual quote unquote adults in their lives instead of
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leaning on everybody else. But this was really short lived.
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So just three weeks after Alex was born, David ended
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up moving out of the house and they separated for
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what seemed like would be for good. So, I mean,
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this was just a shit show from the start. Well,
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during that separation, Susan wanted to work somewhere different than
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her estranged husband because they both worked together at the
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wynd Dixie, And so she went and took a job