- 2 days ago
When 60-year-old Ilene Gowan vanishes, her family fears the worst. Weeks later, her body turns up under a frozen bridge. As detectives trace her last steps, they uncover surveillance footage, financial clues — and a killer hiding in plain sight.
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LearningTranscript
00:00We're off the exit of Class A, Iowa,
00:28over by a public shooting area.
00:30What's going on?
00:32There is a dead body on the side of the road.
00:34Okay.
00:35Are you guys right where it's at now?
00:37Oh, yeah.
00:38Do you think it's male or female?
00:39It's female for sure.
00:40Did you check to make sure she wasn't breathing?
00:43No, half of her face is eaten off by, like, animals.
00:46Okay.
00:46How far off the roadway is she?
00:48Two feet.
00:49Okay, we're going to get him out that way.
00:50Thank you so much, okay?
00:52No problem.
00:53Bye.
00:58On February 26, 2023, I received a call of a possible deceased individual.
01:14In that particular moment in time, you don't essentially know what you're walking into,
01:18but you know it's bad.
01:20So I immediately called for backup, and I activated my body cam.
01:28Whichever unit gets here first, you're probably going to want to block off, maybe just a little
01:36bit south of the bridge here.
01:38I'm pretty much just north of the overpass here on .
01:42Anytime that someone believes they discover a body, you automatically have red flags going.
01:49I got an investigations guy coming.
01:52He might need to talk to you guys real quick, and then you should be good to go.
01:55And then you can see him.
01:56Yeah.
02:01Deputy Hills arrived on scene shortly after I request the backup.
02:07So I was tasked with speaking with the actual 911 caller.
02:11It was important to talk to those two, because they had found the body.
02:15Well, I separated the two.
02:17You want to get people separated, because speaking to them individually gets their direct story
02:23with no interruptions and you could tell rather quickly whether or not it jives first person that
02:28i talked to was the older gentleman and he had told me his name was thomas so i'm investigator
02:35hills i'm an investigator with the sheriff's office okay i'm just going to talk about today
02:39it sounds like you may have been the one that had discovered it what was your perspective in
02:43everything we took the eggs and as we were speeding by it caught my eye the shape of a human body
02:58my job is to get the answers and find the truth of what really happened and if people are being
03:05deceptive my peripheral last thing i noticed was looked like a human hand so i told him you better
03:17turn around check it out look like the real thing to me after speaking with thomas i needed to speak
03:23with the younger witness antonio to get his account of their finding and what led to their discovery
03:30that day he was the actual 911 caller i first asked antonio what led them to that point in the
03:37day and their discovery so you guys were on your way here what happened um what time was that
03:43approximately i don't know how long i've been sitting here did you guys call 9-1-1 right away so according
03:51to my call screen looks like about 2 18. all right while speaking with antonio things start going through
04:00my head who is this dead person how long have they been out here do these two have anything to do
04:07with the this person's ending in this ditch did you call anybody else before that or did you just call
04:159-1-2 did you call or did your i called okay yeah so um about that time you guys were coming out here
04:23which way were you coming this way yeah it's north so you guys were coming this way going towards the
04:33range yeah it's just the range yeah based on the information that i had in talking to those two
04:39i didn't believe they had anything to do with this body after speaking with antonio i turned my attention
04:47towards the body there had been a recent snowstorm so obviously the snow sitting on top of her would
04:55help maybe find a date as to when she would have been left there another big thing that i noticed that
05:06she was missing a shoe you think to yourself you try to to not jump to conclusions on things at this
05:12point every detail matters she didn't have any form of identification or any personal belongings other
05:17than the clothing that she was wearing the more i looked at it the more it seemed that the scene
05:22wasn't telling the whole story got like a ligature mark on her neck from the look of it if you look at
05:30her neck there's that big purple yeah so as i approached her i noted that she had a dark purple almost
05:38black ligature mark mid throat about the thyroid area we knew we had a murder on her hands and the
05:44mystery was just beginning and i know that whoever did this already had a head start and we were going
05:49to have to play catch up so after observing her i returned to my patrol vehicle and i started to
05:57document what she was wearing and relay that information back to investigations guys there's a
06:02missing person recently had a council bluffs we might want to lock that whole area down
06:07yeah i'm aware of it i'm trying to figure out if it's gonna be it or not
06:14all right man
06:18yo she wearing a tannish green shirt yep she got a green shirt on with a tan coat
06:26based on clothing description it was ultimately discovered she was in fact a missing person who
06:32was identified as eileen gallon who had been reported missing approximately two weeks prior by her
06:36daughter i remember feeling of empathy towards eileen she's a human being it wasn't something that just
06:43happened we were looking at a murder scene she hadn't just vanished
06:47my relationship with my mom was i was her baby and her favorite so i was spoiled she was just my best
07:04friend we were very close her personality is big she is outgoing she loves to live life
07:13she'll walk up to a random stranger and just start having a conversation her laugh was very contagious
07:19my mother was hard working tough very caring would take care of anybody would do anything for anybody
07:28and she was definitely there for us kids she had a tough life we had a tough life growing up she had
07:39two jobs sometimes three jobs just to make it
07:43i got a call from our detective and he asked if there was a time that he could meet up with me
07:51to for me to answer some questions i invited him over to my house and we sat down at the table
08:00when he told me that it was her i just lost it i couldn't talk no more and any hope that we had that
08:08it wasn't heard was gone worst news i've ever received my sister had called and said that we
08:16needed to go to my aunts that the detectives were going to be calling sometime that day
08:24and so she picked me up took me to my aunts we were all just sitting there and they said that they
08:32confirmed that it was our mother and everybody just started screaming and crying and i about had a
08:41panic attack i didn't know what how did it breathe it just everything stopped
08:51do you have any cad coming out doty and hadley are both coming out yeah sweet it might be his call and
08:57stuff on the hill so once we were indeed aware that this was in fact a homicide multiple personnel
09:04from multiple agencies started to show up to assist we begin to cordon off the area with police tape
09:12we were unable to locate anything of real evidentiary value no footprints no personal items no murder
09:20weapon anything of that nature it's extremely frustrating hey buddy what's up man
09:27where we're going right over here on the left kind of right past that concrete block there
09:32when i arrived on scene i met with deputy norman what's the story on this uh
09:43uh not yet well let's see what we got here first he led me to eileen gowan's body after seeing how
09:48little evidence was there it really was a mystery to us of what happened was she killed somewhere else
09:53and dumped here or did the killer killer clean up and take everything with them whoever did this
09:58left behind very little answers and a whole lot of questions with no clear suspect in mind and almost
10:04no physical evidence we had to go back to the beginning back at the station investigators immediately
10:10began to pull eileen's file and view her missing persons report that had been filed by eileen's daughter
10:16nicole approximately two weeks prior she told us eileen was employed at sugar's lounge which is a small bar
10:24in council bluffs how about uh other employees at sugar's is there were she tight with any of them or was
10:35that more of a bigger back and forth kind of thing yeah they're all bitches okay none of them would have
10:43ever dropped anything to lend her a hand once we had found out that she was frequently involved in some
10:52conflict with co-workers that was indeed relevant to the investigation so now we weren't just looking
10:58at eileen's disappearance we were looking at problematic relationships she might have had with
11:03individuals that were in her life what motives those people might have had and now we're facing the
11:10growing mystery of what had in fact happened to eileen
11:22when we first found eileen's body we had basically nothing to go on she didn't have her phone on her
11:27didn't have her purse no evidence on the scene no tracks in the snow so we were starting from scratch
11:34all we knew she was reported missing a couple weeks earlier by her daughter eileen's daughter gave us
11:41a name of eileen's on and off again boyfriend and his name was ivan sam brammer and he goes by sam
11:52your mom and sam have known each other and been basically on and off again for about a year year and
11:59a half yeah what was their relationship like over there not unhealthy one when my mom went missing
12:09we went searching for her we had a lot of family come from out of state but sam didn't help he didn't
12:15offer to help the information that we received from nicole was that when alcohol was introduced into
12:21the mix it became a very unhealthy relationship
12:24i talked to my mom a lot about all the red flags that i've seen in the relationship and how toxic
12:33it was when i say she loves hard she gave it all she could until there was nothing left
12:42we found out that sam and eileen knew how to push each other's buttons so
12:47if they were upset or mad about something that was going on then it would get very volatile it was
12:55loud and violent but no physical contact that anybody was aware of he didn't like her drinking
13:05he thought he could change her from slope get her to stop drinking i told him that
13:11he can't because she won't change for a kid she's not going to change for a man
13:17and he seemed that to think that he could change her so we
13:23i'm trying with her but there was things on his part and her part that were not healthy
13:30they both had jealousy issues jealousy does a lot of odd things to people and then when you introduce
13:36alcohol it exacerbates the the issues he has a very short temper
13:47very short temper and littlest things will set him off and it's just it's like ridiculous
13:57when they are good they were good when it was not it was
14:02i was constantly in the middle of it because she's my mom and that's his my boyfriend's dad
14:11at the time that my mom went missing i was dating justin which is sam's son we met through sam and my
14:19mom i would lean on him for support and he would lean on me for support when my mom when sam fought
14:27when you say in the middle of it does that mean it became physical or was it just verbal or what
14:36do you mean no verbal but she would call me and talk to me about it now we have the name of person
14:42who's close to her so we needed to talk to sam find out whatever happened to eileen
14:48and we need to know a little bit more about eileen before we talked to sam
14:52what she was doing where she was we knew that she was at work at sugars so we reached out to
14:58her boss and went to sugars we interviewed several individuals her co-workers mentioned eileen was a
15:06hard worker sam worked there as well sam was a dishwasher she didn't fight with other people
15:12inside the restaurant there may have been some misunderstandings or disagreements with some
15:17co-workers but that's normal you're going to have that you can't get along with everybody
15:22a security footage was pulled because we needed to retrace eileen's last known steps so that meant
15:29everything from when she left the diner that's when it got a little interesting the clothing that
15:36eileen was wearing in the surveillance video matched the clothing that the female was wearing on the side
15:42of the road and she had her purse in her hand in the surveillance video but it was not at the crime scene
15:48she got in the passenger seat of a blue ford pickup you see her in the truck whoever was driving that
15:54ford truck was probably the last person that saw eileen alive we have a lot more questions than answers
16:00at this point in time and it looks like something much bigger
16:03we really needed to interview sam brammer so we turned our attention directly to him
16:15what we did first was run a criminal history and in the research of sam we were able to determine that
16:22that blue ford that we saw in the surveillance video did belong to him
16:26knowing that they have a volatile relationship in the history of their relationship that raises a red
16:35flag we needed to talk to sam we eventually did locate him and brought him in for questioning
16:41we just asked him what happened that morning that he was seen with eileen
16:45he dropped her off at a friend's house
17:10his name was mike and he lived north of council bluffs sam was very credible he did not show any
17:16signs of deception whatsoever during our interview so if sam wasn't the last person to see eileen
17:23alive maybe mike was the last person to have seen her alive so we turned our attention to mike
17:30checking mike's history there is no criminal record he has no criminal history but we brought him in
17:36for questioning and that's when the mystery deepened all right sergeant roberts detective ron granigan
17:45interviewing mike in reference to eileen gallin they just kind of tell us how you guys know each other
17:54how she ended up out there your place that kind of thing and what kind of moves from there mike was very
17:59cooperative he told us how he knew eileen she was a wavers and triggers and i knew her from in there
18:05and i talked to her before and stuff like that and then she told me that she got kicked out and she
18:14needed a place to stay i said well you can stay in my place for a couple days she had told him sam
18:21kicked her out of the house after they had that argument and mike said well you can come sleep on my
18:26couch you know come stay with me and then i think it was friday she called me and she said i won't be
18:36coming back she says we're getting back together her boyfriend and all i know is his first name sam
18:43i've never had any contact with her after that so now we have the story from mike we have the latest
18:50story from sam grammar both are completely different only one of them can be true so now we have to run
18:59down all these facts and verify what we're being told so did sam drop her off at mite's house like he
19:08says or did she never make it up to my house like mike says so these are questions that have to be
19:15answered and we need to find out who's lying there wasn't any evidence to say mike was involved with
19:24what happened to eileen so our focus shifted sam informed us that he had dropped eileen off of mike's
19:30and after that he went to a gas station and so we went to that gas station to get the footage to
19:35confirm sam's story when we reviewed the video they saw that sam pulled up to a gas pump pumped gas and
19:43eileen could not be seen in the vehicle from the footage sam claimed after the gas station he went
19:49straight home and we didn't have anything to confirm or conflict with his story things are getting
19:57murky now we have no witnesses we only have sam and mike and whether they're telling us the truth
20:05telling us the lies what we do know absolutely is that she was fine that morning
20:14she and sam left sugars and we haven't seen her since
20:21so we were able to confirm part of sam's story eileen did get into his truck that morning and he did take
20:29her out of sugar's parking lot that much was true and then during the investigation 911 received a call
20:39from emily sam's granddaughter and she reports that she was concerned for the safety of her grandpa
20:46she said that sam had been drinking heavily and had been making some comments that led her to believe
20:53that he was going to take his own life officers eventually located sam outside of kicker's bar here
21:02in council bluffs sam was very intoxicated we were called to check your work could just again i haven't
21:09padded you down so i just don't want you to reach for in your pockets for weapons or anything but
21:13we were called to check your welfare okay i think you talked to your granddaughter earlier
21:17and she was concerned about you some of the statements that you made to her i'm here for you
21:23man tell me what's going on what well why are you why are you feeling the way you're feeling my girlfriend
21:31it was like a week ago me and her broke up she moved in with a guy
21:37and apparently he supposedly he raped her what's his name uh the only thing i know he goes by mike
21:43and i think sam mentions that mike had raped eileen to make this allegation against mike that's a very
21:52serious allegation if by some chance this this was true that would completely change the the trajectory
22:00of the investigation
22:01we still have to check that allegation that mike had raped eileen this is new information we still
22:16have to prove that it either is this did happen or that it's not credible where's that at where'd they
22:23move in together uh it's out by uh down by uh sugars like two miles from sugars he was obviously having
22:37some issues he was saying some things that made other people believe that he was going to take his life
22:43that is enough for a police officer to take custody of him and conduct an emergency committal
22:49it's always easier when a person commits themselves checks themselves into the hospital and that is what
22:58ultimately sam decided to do do you care which hospital we go to jenny jenny okay sorry i didn't get
23:08so now we need to talk to mike again we brought him in a second time for an interview hey how you
23:13go all right he was cooperative i confronted him about this allegation when she did live there with
23:21you for two or three days what kind of relationship did you have with her nothing i never even ate with
23:28i never had anything to eat with her i might have beer and no sexual relationship whatsoever and she was
23:35in one room and i was in the other okay and none whatsoever i asked him during our interview did you
23:43force her to have an intimate relationship he denied it can you tell me is that any of that accurate any
23:50of those statements i would not do that we've interviewed mike he pointed towards sam and said that
23:58we should be looking at sam we didn't know if mike was being truthful and trying to get the spotlight off
24:04of him or if he was telling us the truth about his uh concerns with sam we asked him what was going
24:10on that morning that eileen went missing what he did with eileen that morning and where he last saw
24:24we reached out to his employer we not only spoke with his employer but we also spoke with co-workers
24:31everything he told us checked out co-workers verified everything that we had a question on his timeline
24:38checked out perfectly this allegation by sam brammer i completely discounted it and mike he was an open
24:45book for us so with no physical evidence tying sam brammer or mike to what happened to eileen the mystery
24:54only gets deeper we have some more work to do my mom was a fighter and she fought her whole life basically
25:08she fought breast cancer and won plated all her radiation and the cancer was gone she raised four
25:18kids on her own that was hard but she fought and she did it she gave it all she could me and my mom
25:29liked to cook so she would cook a couple three times a week you know and we'd be in the kitchen drinking
25:36beer cooking playing country music my mother was the person i would just give you a shirt off her back
25:45the people that sit on the side of the road she'd give them a dollar
25:50i mean she just had the big heart nobody deserves to be murdered for one but she was awesome
25:58so now we're stuck we don't have any new leads but we kept getting pulled back to sam we're watching
26:11for when he is released from the hospital so when that day comes we're advised by the hospital he's
26:18checked out he's home sam calls wants to come in so let's get back to the day you picked her up
26:26sure pulled right up front and she came out okay she came out that's when she wanted to stop at her
26:31mom's house what she said what she said she had to do inside the apartments there what why did she
26:36want to go to her mom's house that day she just said she wanted to talk to her mom that's what she
26:39told me okay yeah okay okay did she come out with anything did she have anything you had a purse
26:46and she had a black uh safe with her she had the same she had a safe with her during sam's interview he
26:52added that they made another stop that they'd went to eileen's mom's house and she had picked up the
26:57safe that had 1200 in it and she was there for a handful of minutes while picking that up all right
27:03so did she just hold the safe she said hold on to it what what she do with it no she got into the
27:09passenger side she set the safe on the thing and she put her purse beside her and okay so over the
27:17course of the interviews he adds more and more details they've got the safe it has all of eileen's
27:23savings which i did yeah no you did yeah it's right there yeah um basically you told me that you went
27:29straight to uh mike's house the the house remember that woman i told you she got a car then that's when
27:37we just discussed yeah me yeah i i asked you i said what did you talk about on your way to mike's house
27:44and you said about the apartment just like you said yeah yeah yeah my assumption was she went
27:49straight there dropped her off and then two or three miles you talked about um what was going on
27:59okay honest people sometimes forget things and they'll tell you but that's not how it worked with
28:06sam brammer he knew that he was coming in to talk to us additionally because we found
28:14information that just didn't add up so now he's throwing in these extra things to make his story
28:20more and more credible is this a ruse is this just another lie that he's telling us
28:28is this just another story to misdirect the investigation
28:32sam plays off that information that he took eileen to her mother's apartment as just being the
28:50forgetful old man uh he's oh i i just forgot about that and when you confront him with something new he
28:58changes the story morphs the story just a little bit so at this point i don't take anything at face
29:04value he's given us so many different lies so many different stories one of the big pieces in modern day
29:11cases is digital evidence whether it's cell phones surveillance footage gps locations video footage
29:19captures a moment in time and is good evidence because it is a unique perspective
29:25of sam gave us that information that he took eileen to her mother's apartment to get that safe
29:33and that's easily verifiable from the surveillance footage once we watched that footage we could see
29:39that it fit in perfectly with the timeline with what sam was telling us up to that point
29:47watching that video we're able to see eileen enter the apartment building she walks directly to the
29:57elevators goes up to the second floor comes off the elevators walks directly to her mother's
30:04apartment there's no hesitation she's inside her mom's apartment for just a matter of seconds really just
30:11comes out with the safe walks directly back to the elevators goes down to the first floor of the
30:18lobby and walks out of the building the video confirms that at this point in time eileen is completely
30:28comfortable she's not under any type of duress at this point everything that sam is telling us during the
30:36second interview now is kind of making sense and maybe sam didn't do anything to her maybe sam did
30:46exactly what he's saying he took eileen to her mother's apartment then he dropped her off at mike's
30:53house the only thing that we're trying to do is really determine exactly what happened next
30:59that's where the story starts to unravel that's where things started to go off the rails even though
31:05sam claimed he dropped eileen off at mike's house we did not find any evidence that he had done that
31:11so okay where did they go where did she actually get out of the truck next we canvass the entire area
31:18next to eileen's mother's apartment and mike's residence then we downloaded city traffic cameras the
31:25reason we downloaded these videos was simply to track a timeline we can see what direction he's driving
31:34at what time and if we can see inside the vehicle earlier in the day at one particular angle at one
31:41particular camera you can see perfectly right through the windshield and see what's going on
31:46in that truck we can see sam driving and it looks like that tan coat eileen was wearing this up around her
31:53head and she's in an awkward position that body is kind of sideways arm is awkward that position doesn't
32:01move as we're collecting the intersection cameras we have this dead space with no traffic cameras
32:09so i sent two detectives to canvas that area to find any kind of video to determine where sam's vehicle went
32:23there's a burger king restaurant sam actually turns into this fast food restaurant
32:28and there's a camera that looks right through the drive-through window and as sam pulls up you can
32:35see eileen in that passenger seat and the entire time you don't see her move you see her in that same
32:40position leaning against the passenger side window i don't know if she was dead at that point in time but
32:46i do know that she was unmoving she was not conscious but it just blew my mind it was
32:53it i couldn't believe that someone would drive through a drive-through and order food or drink
33:01with the possible dead body next to him the evidence was starting to build towards sam being
33:08involved in what happened to eileen and not mike we had a very good idea that he was responsible for
33:14whatever happened to eileen but a gut feeling doesn't convict someone of any crime we have to have
33:23evidence during an investigation of a suspect that we are going to look at all aspects of a person's life
33:32and part of a person's life is their financial
33:36we need to know what he's doing financially is he is he depositing money is he taking money out
33:45is he getting ready to take off when we finally received the records from sam's bank and as i'm
33:54scrolling through and looking through all the the records of sam's bank account i see a deposit a
34:03handwritten deposit slip that says 1200 and immediately i stopped and i looked at the date
34:14and the date was february 15th two days after eileen went missing
34:21we were able to get that security footage of when sam made that deposit when i watched that footage
34:27i was i was just amazed because this is very important i can see the exterior of the building
34:36sam pull into the lot and get out of his 1999 blue ford pickup truck and he walks into the bank he walks
34:43up to the teller and he pulls out a stack of cash and she counts it out it's 1200 this two days after
34:54eileen went missing carrying a safe that held 1200 cash this isn't your typical
35:02murder investigation you didn't have a gun or a knife on the scene that you could link to the suspect
35:07you had a lot of circumstantial evidence it was obvious that sam had been lying about his whereabouts
35:12that day all arrows pointed sam
35:22we're compiling a lot against sam brammer right now and when you put all that together it's it's a
35:28pretty significant case so we finally took the next step we had enough probable cause to arrest him but
35:37as we enter that residence we don't know what sam's mental state is right at that point in time we
35:42don't know if he's armed we don't know if there's any weapons inside the residence so at this point
35:48we know who sam is what he's done not how he did it but we know that he's responsible for this
35:58i know he's depositing eileen's money this is the beginning of the end for sam step out here
36:05show us your hand no no hey hey hey hey okay come here you got a warrant for your rest
36:13i'll let you smoke that if you just let me put it out again i'll explain it here in a minute all right
36:20okay nothing that no drugs needles or anything like that the weapons or anything no
36:33okay when somebody is continually lying to you and continually to make up stories and you know that
36:40they were involved in something as heinous as a murder it really shows how cold-hearted they are
36:45that there is no remorse in their heart the autopsy took a very long time to come back but we had
36:54asphyxiation by homicide that was the information we needed to have to go forward with a homicide charge
37:05on the morning of february 13th 2023 when eileen got into the truck with sam brammer i think that
37:13it was just that volatile relationship that's all it was sheer jealousy and anger and something snapped
37:25and that is when he assaulted her and he
37:32twisted her coat causing that mark on her neck on this side actually caused that mark on her neck
37:39and twisted that so tightly that she asphyxiated and she died he caused her death he murdered her
37:53then her body is thrown out like trash
37:56in the end we absolutely had proof positive that mike had nothing to do with this he was just a nice
38:08guy trying to help out an acquaintance in january of 2024 sam brammer was sentenced for the murder of
38:16eileen gowan he received 65 years for that he received 10 years for the abuse of a corpse an
38:23additional five years for stealing the money out of eileen's safe
38:28a guilty verdict is always great it couldn't bring eileen back but at least we knew that sam
38:34couldn't do this to anybody else i think the thing that stands out with sam's behavior with this is
38:40just leaving eileen discarded on the road like that he knew eileen's daughter he knew eileen's family
38:47he knew the amount of pain and hurt this was going to cause these people but he still did it anyway
38:56when a body is thrown out like trash
39:03amongst trash and just left
39:06you try to separate yourself from it but those memories and the things that you see they never
39:20leave you they just stick with you this was completely senseless and this poor woman lost her life
39:31her family lost their mother their grandmother their daughter
39:40i still struggle i'm mentally i'm on a lot of meds i've been through a year and a half of uh counseling
39:51my anxiety is so high my depression is it's getting under control it's getting better
39:58uh every time we think of mom i just try to think of something positive and
40:05i have a voicemail that she left me on one of my old phones and so i play that every now and then and
40:12but it just makes me cry you know i i don't like to listen to it but i want to listen to it
40:19i want to hear her voice and that's the only way that i can
40:29i'm so sorry that i couldn't
40:34do nothing to help her that day
40:38i wish i would have known that she was in trouble
40:40but she's the best mom
40:51the hardest part of it is my mom shouldn't have died the way she did she shouldn't have been beaten
41:00she shouldn't have been left in the ditch by herself
41:11that's the hardest part for me is
41:14i feel like if it was a natural way of dying it would be easier for me to understand and deal with
41:21but for her life to be taken it's the hardest part
41:38you
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