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00:00it has now been 27 days nearly four weeks since anyone has seen this woman right here
00:11this is susan malden everybody loves susan she lived by herself she was a widow
00:16there was no sign of forced entry she opened the door to someone she knew and was expecting
00:23checking hospitals talked to more friends we expanded our search around the neighborhood
00:28when we opened the storage unit we had the dog go in they're certified to detect human remains
00:32cadaver dog hit on the storage ship oh my god why would a cadaver dog hit i felt absolutely um
00:42betrayed she asked him what he wanted for dinner uh and he hung the phone up and she never heard
00:48from him again it's a huge facility huge uh hills uh trash then on that ninth day someone starts
00:56yelling you guys get up here we found something well i knew immediately it was susan i had no doubt in
01:02mind ladies and gentlemen there's only one person who's guilty in this case i'm guilty
01:07it looks like any neighborhood in america
01:20extremely peaceful very quiet this is not the neighborhood that you would expect any crime
01:30and this was the home of one of the area's beloved residents 65 year old susan balden
01:36everybody loves susan she lived by herself she was a widow she was originally from the uk
01:42when she came over here with her husband my name's howard fryer i was a detective um the lead
01:50detective at the time this investigation was going on it was a missing person when it was first
01:55reported by her friend i knew sue probably about 10 years we have a big english group here in town
02:05and i met her in the english group it was a kind of club founded after world war ii for british women
02:14who moved to the u.s after marrying american servicemen we like to eat and talk and you know
02:22catch up on what's going on over in england and all the latest gossip
02:32one of my other english friends she called and she says they don't know where sue is she had missed
02:38lunch with her friends and they asked police to go to her home to conduct a welfare check her car was
02:44still in the garage my first indication maybe said she had maybe gone on a trip somewhere didn't need
02:49her car so she got to the airport when authorities ran susan's passport number through tsa there was no
02:55record of her flying anywhere we're kind of a close-knit group you know if we were going to england
03:02everybody would have known check-in hospitals talked to more friends we expanded our search
03:08around the neighborhood within days police then pulled the surveillance video from school buses that
03:14traveled on susan street and they could see a white pickup truck backed right up to the garage of susan
03:20balden's home belonging to a local contractor named cory binderam she had originally hired mr binderam to
03:28remodel her bathroom it was about twelve thousand dollars he came in and demoed the
03:33whole bathroom removed everything out of there and then essentially never did any additional work
03:38after that all that was left was the toilet bare walls no sheetrock no flooring it was no sinks
03:46and so it was just vacant like that for a year she was so upset because she could not have
03:52anybody in because she didn't have a bathroom for them to use so on october 23rd in the morning she
03:59gave him the ultimatum that he needed to bring her back her money that day or she was going to hire
04:04an attorney and then she went missing on october 24th
04:11officers went to binderam's nearby home because he seemed to have been the last person to see susan
04:16i mean i would answer your questions yeah i mean i know what this is about what's it about it's about
04:23binderam confirmed that he had been at her house that morning and that he refunded her the money
04:28she paid for the job she was frustrated that i couldn't come along right now and she was ready
04:34and and so it just got to the point where it was just better for both of us if i just refunded her the
04:38money i went about my way she could find my house you know and that that was the conversation he provided a
04:44carbon copy of the check to patrol deputies and it was a check for a little over 1200
04:52yeah yeah it's only 1200 yeah and that's what i gave her back her friends knew the amount that was
04:59actually missing and it was over twelve thousand dollars and they had told police that so what was
05:05her state of mind when you left her she's trying to give me a inside to her but you're obviously the
05:10last one at home oh i am yeah as far as you know at this point nobody else that nobody else that said
05:15they called so you know what that's why i'm going to make sure we check all the boxes
05:22all right buddy i mean she she's a very lovely lady i mean you know when he came inside i was anxious to know
05:29uh what what was going on uh my name is cassidy i am formerly cassidy benderam ex-wife of cory benderam
05:38i knew that miss malden had been missing and he could not stop saying how nice she was and that she
05:45was missing and that he hoped that they would find her then a search of susan's home turned up new clues
05:52they got the crime scene technicians involved we began seeing blood spots on the lampshade there were
05:58some blood spots on the floor looked like her laptop was missing we found a file cabinet with
06:06bedroom remodeling had a red folder in it that was missing all the contents of the folders there was
06:11no sign of forced entry so it would lend to the belief that she opened the door to someone she knew
06:18and was expecting someone who was supposed to be giving her money back to her that morning
06:24so now detectives pulled neighborhood rigging camera surveillance video
06:28and got a warrant to track benderam's movement on his phone's gps feature for that crucial morning
06:36according to his original timeline he met with susan that morning gave her a check and then left and
06:41that was it he had left out a very uh significant detail after leaving susan's home that morning he left
06:48and went to the rosemary hill landfill he was there for several minutes he left that completely out
06:54that he went to rosemary hill landfill after her the gps information showed that benderam then stopped
07:00at a storage unit he leased we have him on video entering uh into a storage unit but there was no
07:07actual video like of what he was put into the unit so they got a warrant to search the storage unit too
07:15and bring in cadaver dogs they're certified to detect uh human remains and decomposition and the
07:22dog alerted on benderam's storage unit especially on the tool bags and bins that bendram said he had
07:29picked up at susan's house we were definitely thinking that foul play was involved in this particular
07:34scenario what i'd like to do is let you know that basically you're on a long pier right now and you're
07:43coming to a short end so i'd like to talk to you about that before we get to the end of the pier
07:48if you'd like to do that uh i haven't done anything at all i'm not saying you did but well you're saying
07:53chicken boxes but i don't necessarily believe that i think you're i think you guys have pegged me and
07:59think you've got tunnel vision i don't have anything to hide at the time i felt that the police had
08:05singled him out because he had had a past record from when he was 16 years old benderam was tried as an
08:11adult and convicted of aggravated battery in a shooting involving three people it made sense to
08:17me that you would look at somebody who had a prior felony and that you would look at them closely
08:25i never considered him to be somebody who could hurt a woman you know you lied to me right when we
08:34talked on two things about what you said all you owed her was 1294.54 you owed her 12 000 right why
08:44would you lie about that because 1200 is a big difference in 12 000. pardon me that's my wife
08:51hey they're still here cassie yeah they are looking at me like i'm the reason why uh sue is missing i felt
09:01like they were early in the investigation and that um these were misunderstandings that were going to
09:08fix themselves in time this isn't fair i didn't do what you think i did and this is absolutely not fair
09:16so can you tell me what happened to her i don't know i don't have any clue we shook hands i left that's
09:22it that's the last i know i don't have an explanation i don't have anything i had nothing to do i know
09:28you don't know where she is now but you know what happened to her no i don't no i don't i shook her
09:35hand on the front porch and that was that he was reassuring saying that he hopes that she's found she
09:43was a lovely lady and um of course you know nothing that the police told me was true so cassidy bendram
09:52had no problem going down to police headquarters where she would soon learn there was a lot about
09:57her husband she did not know it began to come into focus more that unfortunately we thought miss
10:11malden had met a tragic end and the focus in the search for susan malden was now on the rosemary
10:19hill trash site where corey bendram had gone shortly after leaving susan's home there's three bins out
10:25there that aren't really monitored and you can dump something in pretty easy we're talking about corey
10:31bendram right and you know him because you worked with him right well i met him through another friend
10:36but yeah it was very good detectives brought in bendram's co-worker lee stansbury to see if she
10:42had noticed anything unusual about him so we went to dump and we were unloading stuff and i was just
10:48joking this was before any of this what they said oh it'd be a perfect place to dump the body and he goes
10:54yeah it's a perfect place to dump the body and then we kind of joked and laughed you know it wasn't serious
11:00but detectives were taking it very seriously especially after locating surveillance video
11:07of bendram at a home depot seen buying heavy duty contractor bags and 50 pound bags of concrete hours
11:16before he went to the dump where he knew his truck would be weighed so he added the concrete to the truck
11:22to throw off the weight scale he knew if he just went and just dumped her without anything else
11:27that it would narrow down to it just being about the weight of a human body that morning when he
11:31went to the home depot he knew then what his plan was as they pieced it together bidram had started
11:38the day at home depot then went to susan's home then to the rosemary hill transfer station finally to
11:45the storage facility
11:49but detectives soon learned that in the days since susan had disappeared
11:53the trash dumped at the rosemary hill transportation had already been trucked out
11:58to a larger landfill operation across the state line in georgia we knew the statistics and the chances
12:05of finding a body in a landfill there had not to my knowledge been a successful landfill search at that
12:11point where the trash had actually been processed into the landfill but even without a body the case was
12:18still being handled by detective fryer as a homicide and corey benderam was his prime suspect he's
12:25absolutely suspect number one in our mind he was definitely at this point the guy
12:33since his early run-ins with the law at his teens benderam had seemed to be a model citizen the devoted
12:40father of two daughters he was working hard to rehabilitate himself he recognized that he had made
12:49some mistakes corey loved me very much and he doted on me and we were very happy he was actually a
12:55fantastic dad very very active um loved his girls corey benderam for all intent purposes he was uh living
13:05the american dream however uh when you started scratching the surface and seeing that he was
13:10struggling financially and that he wasn't able to even really pay uh the debts that he owed uh he
13:17he was draining a lot of money detectives learned from benderam's co-worker lee stansbury
13:22that he was heavily using cocaine and pills which he was keeping secret from his wife they're going
13:29through a lot of marital problems right now so he doesn't want her knowing he needs to blow again
13:32because she would leave him so he's doing pills and yeah yeah he'll do the blow during a day and
13:37then takes the pills at night to go to sleep so i kind of thought that's what was making him crazy
13:42two weeks into the investigation corey benderam's wife cassidy voluntarily came to the sheriff's office
13:49confident her husband had done nothing wrong i mean as you already know we're investigating
13:55sue susan uh maudlin who's missing i heard him talk about her before
14:00some stories that she's told him about england and yeah so as of today she's still not you know
14:08turned up anywhere so she was cooperative with us we explained to her the majority not everything but
14:13the majority of of the picture we had been able to paint the reason we served the search warrant on
14:18the storage shed is because cadaver dog hit on the storage shed oh my god i watch a lot of true crime
14:27i always have and i knew what that meant well why would a cadaver dog i don't know i don't know
14:40but i think that your husband does know more about her disappearance than what he's telling us
14:47she was coming to the realization that he may have been involved in this so the day he said he
14:52went to sue's house did he tell you why he went there yeah he had to give her a check for how much
14:59um he told me the check was for 800 dollars here's what i can tell you what we've discovered in the
15:05investigation is that i guess she contracted him to do a bathroom okay and that was uh eight months ago
15:12so eight months ago that course bathroom gets demolished agreed upon price was 19 000
15:18um she paid him twelve thousand dollars and thanked the other seven until the job was done
15:26have you noticed like his community gave him twelve thousand dollars twelve thousand
15:35we know that to be a fact and i said absolutely not we have not had an influx of twelve thousand dollars
15:42in our in our household money so that was a shock to me as well twelve thousand dollars in a short
15:48amount of time i've never even seen twelve thousand dollars so according to her closest friends the ones
15:55that actually called us is um she was threatening him with filing a fraudulent complaint with the
16:05sheriff's office that he was defrauding her because she'd paid out all this money and she'd gotten no work
16:10and so he was supposed to come on thursday to give her this money back so that she wouldn't contact
16:17anybody and again is that backing somebody in a corner i don't know what they told me was essentially
16:25that he was taking money for jobs not completing them that he was blowing through money on drugs and i
16:34understand from what i've heard in talking to people he may have a drug problem i don't know cory hasn't
16:40touched anything in god 10 years longer than that
16:49okay maybe not maybe not he's doing drugs recently like that's what we're hearing lately we don't have
16:57proof of proof of that i felt absolutely um betrayed about um 10 years ago he developed a drug problem
17:09and i gave him an ultimatum saying that he had to go into rehab um or he was gonna lose his family i
17:16never had any idea that drugs were a part of his life again um until i started talking with the police
17:24what kind of drugs cocaine cocaine cocaine and uh pain pills
17:32so i don't know if that's where maybe the money could have went
17:41it's it's and i realize this is your husband but it's important we know everything
17:46because this woman is missing i've got to find this woman i know
17:49a few nights later binderham failed to come home he simply called his wife one day and she asked
17:57him what he wanted for dinner uh and he hung the phone up and she never heard from him again
18:08clay county sheriff's office detectives have identified a person of interest in the investigation
18:13into a fleming island woman's disappearance detective howard fryer decided to go public
18:18about cory binderham once he learned binderham had fled the area and there's definitely mysterious
18:24circumstances associated with it and his whereabouts running on at this time anyone with information
18:28which may lead to the whereabouts of susan malden and cory binderham are urged to contact detective
18:33fryer with the clay county sheriff's office homicide unit his wife cassidy at first didn't believe it
18:39until police told her the details of what he had done all on the night before his daughter's birthday
18:45party and so he stole money from the gentleman that he was working with and i believe he forged a check
18:54for five thousand dollars and fled
19:00and that for me was the real turning point to align the fact that he would have fled and done this
19:08to his family on his daughter's birthday especially when they have a relationship where they're so
19:13close but i then realized that there's a lot that i don't understand the u.s marshals were brought in
19:22to help with a nationwide search for binderham through tracking devices with the u.s marshals they were able
19:28to determine that he had gone as far as colorado he just simply took off driving across the country he knew
19:35he was a suspect and i think he felt like the police were closing in and getting closer to making the
19:41arrest he actually contacted me for the first time on thanksgiving all he would tell me was that he
19:48wasn't in the state and that he missed us and he didn't know how long that he was going to be gone
19:56but that i needed to trust him and not listen to what the police were saying cassidy told detectives
20:02every time he called i decided the marriage was over when he left you want to be able to trust your
20:09spouse um and certainly the implication that he had been using drugs would have ended our marriage anyway
20:17but um when he fled and left me and the children to deal with the fallout of the release of of him
20:27being a person of interest that was it breaking news tonight a person of interest in the disappearance
20:36of a fleming island woman is now in custody after two weeks on the run binderham turned himself in to
20:42face the forged check charges i believe that because her body had still not been located during
20:48that time frame he was gone and there was no arrest warrant out for his arrest for the murder of susan
20:54malden i personally believe he felt comfortable coming home at that point maybe he thought he had
20:59gotten away with it so the search for susan malden's body at the georgia landfill took on added urgency
21:07it's a huge facility and basically they compact it down and create uh huge uh hills of trash waste
21:18which just so happens by the grace of god or um luck whatever it was uh when she was dumped it was the
21:25last bit of trash that was going to be dumped in that specific area in folks in georgia the area was
21:32cordoned off and detectives went to the fbi for help huge ordeal
21:37a huge ordeal i mean you're you're talking they have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars
21:42in equipment and man manpower the search began in early january was freezing cold uh in folks in
21:49georgia it was like 30 degrees the trash the landfill none of it bothered me my sole focus was finding
21:56susan but after more than a week as agents and detectives focused on the one cordoned off area
22:03no susan it was at least 30 feet high and we had to start at the top then on that ninth day it was
22:12around 3 30 uh someone starts yelling you guys get up here we found something and we all just ran up
22:20there in tears because there she was there was her skull well i knew immediately it was susan i had no
22:28doubt in my mind and they were able to positively identified as susan malden we found her body uh in
22:34the same contractor bags style contractor bags she had purchased this morning we are confirming that the
22:39remains of 65 year old clay county resident susan malden were recovered from the chester island
22:45landfill in folkston georgia ultimately through an autopsy they were able to determine that her hyoid bones
22:54had been crushed uh consistent with strangulation right here at the the neck it's very routine that
23:00in strangulation cases those bones are fractured hold the seat in that great chair for me
23:07you need water anybody uh water okay been around how you doing i'm all right
23:14i might ask you to stay in but i'm sure it's not like pleasure
23:17i wanted to come in touch base with you told you i'd give you an update when we got one sure
23:24um so we got one and uh cut right to the chase and we talked about before you indicated that i had
23:34tunnel vision i didn't have tunnel vision i know what you did we located susan we're bringing our home
23:41and you're going to be charged with murder and tempered evidence to begin with okay
23:49i know that's a lot to hit you at one second but obviously you've known this whole time you've just
23:54kind of been waiting on it i'm sure not at all no i did reach out to cassidy give her heads up
24:02because i know obviously your daughters you know i don't want them to get bombarded with stuff that
24:07they don't need to okay i did that for cassidy not for you sure all right
24:16and you you i'm sure you're familiar with this process how it goes from here
24:20yeah i'm gonna tell you i'm not gonna say anything
24:23you get upset again no no hey hey we won we got our body you're being charged i'm not upset
24:28you know it's very unfortunate that i didn't have anything to do with it so what we can prove
24:37otherwise but the evidence against bendram was almost all circumstantial the prosecutors knew this
24:44was no slam dunk case jurors they want a smoking gun they want they want to see the crime uh they
24:52they want to see it on video and and in this case we obviously couldn't do that for them
25:06you're charged with uh what counted murder and tampering with evidence as soon as he was arrested
25:11corey bendram's wife cassidy had begged him not to fight the murder charges in court you need to plead
25:18you need to work with the state look i didn't want my girls to see him the way he was going to be
25:26portrayed and correctly so by the state he did make an offer he initially offered 25 years and then he
25:32offered 30. ultimately that was rejected i didn't think it was enough for miss malden instead the
25:38prosecution went scorched earth seeking the death penalty we filed our notice and tried this case as a
25:45capitol case and felt that because of the aggravation in the case death was the appropriate sanction while
25:53i was interested in him serving time and finding justice for miss malden it was not in my best
26:00interest or my children's best interest to have him on death row even though um i have to tell you
26:07i could have thrown the switch i was pretty angry
26:10the death penalty trial of a contractor accused of killing a fleming island woman got underway today
26:18it took five years for bendram's case to come to trial he had changed a lot i guess he had gained
26:25weight and he didn't look the same person at all i definitely felt like that i needed to be there
26:33because i needed to represent sue because she didn't have anybody else to represent her
26:39uh it's this parent to the state and make your jury prosecutor ashley terry took the jury through
26:45the timeline of susan malden's twelve thousand dollar remodeling job gone very bad she gave cory
26:52a bedroom the ultimate my money back or there will be possible and then he went to her house and he held her and then he tossed her out like the garbage she thought that she was
27:06at the end of everything those actions by this defendant will be clear to you and the other thing that will be clear is that he is guilty as charged
27:27and the defense had one key fact that became the centerpiece of their case the dna found under susan
27:49malden's two fingernails when they compared it cory bendram was excluded meaning that there is no way
27:55possible that the male dna on that nail was from cory bendram they have never identified whose dna that
28:02is we've always believed that that was the dna of whoever strangled susan malden dna was not only that
28:10that's not fair enough and we at the end of this case we have to determine murder or not guilty for all accounts
28:22because there is reasonable doubt in this case case
28:31right thank you
28:34would you please take your name for the jury cassidy lee
28:37i do that's my ex-husband now after the defendant eventually turned himself in and was arrested for
28:48this case did you finally get a divorce yes it was difficult testifying i hadn't seen him in years
28:57or had any type of communication with him he didn't make eye contact with me i didn't think that he would
29:03he would be afraid cassidy described to the jury her ultimatum after she first learned he was using
29:09drugs years earlier that was a mandate that i gave him was that um if we wanted to try and stay together
29:19and at that point it was a try um if we were going to try and work on our relationship that he had to go
29:25to rehab and inpatient rehab was he also aware that if you ever found out about drug abuse again that
29:32you would be yes and it's hard sometimes as a wife you don't want to emasculate your husband by
29:40constantly being over him all the time but i did i relaxed were you aware that miss malden was upset
29:46with him and was demanding her money back no were you aware that miss malden told him that if he didn't
29:52give the money back that she was going to the police of an attorney no had you been made aware
29:58that um the defendant had taken a 12 000 job and couldn't reimburse it and the small one was going
30:05to the police would that have been an issue for you yes you think that would have possibly led to you
30:11leaving the hall or him leaving yes would that have meant he would have lost everything yes no further
30:19i think that he simply lost control and um when he realized that she was going to let me know um and
30:31let others in the community know that he had essentially stolen money from her i think he probably
30:37felt he had no other choice and of course he did bendram had refused to talk with detectives the
30:44prosecutors learned he did talk with one of his fellow jail inmates and now that inmate tom smith
30:51would be a key witness for the prosecution
31:00what does a killer look like he was a completely normal middle-aged guy with a family and a business
31:08they didn't quote unquote look like what you would imagine um a murderer would look like
31:15but his former jail mate painted a much different picture of corey bendram would you introduce yourself
31:21to our jury please sir um thomas smith you convicted felon yes sir tell us tell the jury first how you met
31:29that um i was housed with him in uh d1 in a cell block we always have to be particularly
31:39cautious when incarcerated inmates bring evidence to the state but in this case this inmate when asked
31:48why he had come forward actually said it was because he had a a mother that was around susan malden's age
31:56and bendram bragging about it was chilling to even him what word came out of his mouth said what
32:05he did um just said he shut it up what was great about the informant was the fact that he tells us
32:14in corey's own words what happened that morning did he tell you whether he went over there thinking
32:21clearly or was he under the influence of any kind of substance if so what i assumed the way he was
32:27talking he was you know under the influence of what um crack or uh coke or something like that all right
32:38was there any violence tell us what he did or what he told you yeah said that things started
32:44she started getting loud and he was trying to shut her up so he hit her or something and then he
32:50started screaming and choked her out or something now what if anything did he tell you about hearing
32:56anything hurt on her broken bones anything like that what did he tell you about
33:03said he felt like something snapped did he say whether he heard something snap when he hit her
33:10or when he had his hands around when he had his hands around now sir tell us uh after uh he talked
33:18about what he did to her what did he do with her in particular after this operation recall
33:23he said he wrapped her up in something and took her to the dumpster or something like that
33:29i i assumed he had a dumpster out in the front yard or something that's
33:34way we've already done it so you keep saying you assume yeah there was a dumpster in the front yard
33:38i'm just gonna ask you real clearly you're not doing fine i just want to ask me directly as i can
33:42what did he tell you with the words out of his mouth about what he did he says though he was
33:48he just wanted to tell him said he wrapped her up and took her to the dump to dumpster whatever
33:55sir were you surprised by what he was telling you very now mr uh smith will ask you a couple
34:03questions have i myself miss hazel miss terry any member of the state attorney's office promised you
34:10anything at all about your case in exchange for what you're doing here today sir
34:15your start i'm positive nothing further i think i mean i thought it was trash to be honest uh it
34:22it lacked any detail of anything all right cross you're hoping that testifying for the state
34:30will help you out in your other two felony cases aren't you no i'm not oh you're not no i'm not
34:37they can say whatever they want on the witness stand but i'm telling you the only reason anyone ever
34:43comes forward is because they want to benefit did you actually tell the detectives that you said
34:49that you're over up in an old carpet i believe so and he said they put away the job is that why
34:58that's what i understood all right thank you uh mr smith you can step down susan malton's body was in
35:06fact found wrapped in black contractor bags not an old carpet there was no rug missing okay from the
35:13house that is simply a fact that that is false the jury should have disregarded everything he said
35:20and the defense also scored points with expert testimony about the dna found under susan's fingernails
35:26corey binderem was excluded as a contributor to the mixed dna profile obtained from this item
35:32all right mr binderem uh the court has now received all the evidence in this case certainly from the
35:41state do you understand that it's the state's burden to prove the charges against you beyond a reasonable
35:46doubt yes have you made a decision of whether you would testify or not i have we were prepared for
35:53him to testify he's been kind of arrogant throughout this whole thing maybe he will and what is that decision
36:02now we've been following this case since the beginnings they say binderem was the last
36:10person to see her yeah these documents are pretty detailed the extensive media coverage of the trial
36:16made life difficult for corey binderem's wife and daughters they struggled during the trial i asked
36:22them not to watch it and they didn't watch it they were experiencing bullying and um you know it was a
36:29difficult time they didn't want to think that their father could be capable of something like this
36:37now the question was whether binderem would take the stand and give his version of what happened
36:43so i did believe that he may try to get on the stand so that the jury could see who he was
36:50what is that decision
36:51there's a price that i have to pay anytime i put a client on the stand and that is we were up against
37:02three very talented prosecutors with decades of experience they get to go after him
37:07now please pay attention to the lawyers as they give their closings hazel for the state
37:19ladies and gentlemen straining susan mullivan is premeditated work 40 minutes is plenty of time to knock
37:27an elderly one to the ground strangle her which takes a matter of minutes put her in a bag and put her in the
37:35the treatment of the law i believed our evidence was compelling the timeline was tight and that we
37:41had proven what we needed to beyond a reasonable doubt there's a saying to the living we all respect
37:50and to the dead we owe the truth
37:54not things that we do today will ever bring susan all of them back but it will forever define what
38:00what happened on october 24th of 2019. in europe ladies and gentlemen there's only one person who's
38:08guilty in this space and it's cory benderam in the state of the accident and he finds him guilty as
38:14possible thank you so much for your time mr karate you're closing sir thank you your honor
38:19who's the court counsel yes sir very good morning good morning
38:39i thought the defense did a very good job of challenging the evidence and they challenged
38:44that the dna was not mr benderam's and that you know the real killer's dna was what was on the fingernail
38:50that nail had the flesh the skin of whoever killed susan walton
39:01the nail and both nails had no dna from cory benderam
39:08the jury was back after four hours four hours were long but they're always long it feels like an
39:37eternity
39:45i haven't done anything at all we shook hands i left that's it you know you lied to me right
39:49this is unfair i didn't do what you think i did
39:58there's always a sense of relief when you know that the jury got it right
40:07i stand before you asking for justice for susan mullin complete justice we are asking you to
40:15recommend to the score on revert form that this have been inhibited thank you so much for your time
40:24mr hernandez you're closing sir
40:26we had a lot of good deeds that cory benderam had done for others during his life we knew that his two
40:40daughters were going to be providing a statement asking the jury to spare his life the daughter's
40:47statement was read by a victim advocate lee wilson dad tried his best to lead by example and steer us
40:54towards success and happiness which is one reason this tragic crime has been so hard for us to
41:00understand we cannot imagine that hurting anyone he has never been violent he has been a protective
41:07and loving father to us throughout our lives the only time he showed emotion through the entire trial
41:13was when the letter from his daughters was read and he cried we love our father very much and ask you
41:20to show mercy when considering his sentence if there is a chance for us to be together again one day
41:27free from all this completely free please do everything in your power to ensure we are able to do so
41:34we love our dad always sincerely bailey and megan bendram i think that uh the letter in conjunction
41:42with the pictures of them and obviously cory's active involvement in their lives i think that was
41:49important under florida law eight of the 12 jurors had to vote for the death penalty they were out for
41:55a very long time deliberating that verdict ladies and gentlemen i understand the jury has reached its verdict
42:02and so we know that they were thinking hard about what to do
42:07the jury are the defendant 40 lewis benderman should be sentenced as follows
42:14life in prison without the possibility of parole five death seven
42:23so it was uh seven to five and seven for death five for life and therefore by florida law
42:31corey benaram was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole there was
42:35definitely a sense of relief from him when the life recommendation was read don't know that he cried
42:42again but you could definitely see that he was relieved i was really grateful that they didn't
42:47recommend death and that the judge honored that recommendation but he definitely needs to be in prison
42:52for the rest of his life what he did to her was just horrendous and i don't understand how any human
42:58being could do that to another human being but over money over twelve thousand dollars twelve thousand
43:03dollars changed everyone's life in this
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