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00:00:11it's hard to talk about that day because when i look back i just think about the tragedy
00:00:229-1-1 address of your emergency uh yeah we have a missing person
00:00:27the woman who owns the property where the wedding guests are staying is nowhere to be found i had
00:00:33her neighbor go over there to check on her she said the door's wide open the tv's blaring
00:00:40and you better come over here it is haunting and chilling in a way that i'll never forget
00:00:49did you see anything else strange when you went in the hall yes there seems to be blood all over
00:00:54her pillow there's 20 plus guests staying in the big house and there's a wedding party
00:01:00the house turned into a crime scene it's taped off the police are there there's helicopters
00:01:07there's dogs all of my friends don't know how they're getting back to that house
00:01:15these are all potential suspects in the case i mean this is like an agatha christie novel
00:01:20like a classic whodunit i knew that something really bad had happened and
00:01:31it wasn't going to be good
00:01:48the draw for paso robles is of course the scenery the layout of the land
00:01:55the real name of paso robles is called el paso de robles which is the pass of the oaks
00:02:02oak trees horses cattle and then there's the vineyards
00:02:11the paso robles area it is very much the hot spot of wineries in the county
00:02:23just it's it's honestly like a fairy tale place to go
00:02:35i was born and raised in california i have close family and friends who lived and grew up not far
00:02:41from here i've always loved this area paso robles nestled halfway between san francisco and los angeles
00:02:48a getaway town scenic and quiet but down el faro road in the middle of all this beauty something ugly
00:02:57took place right here at this secluded vacation home
00:03:04the owner of this ranch style property was 62 year old nancy woodrum she lived alone after her husband
00:03:10passed away a few years before and she was really a fixture in the paso robles community and ran a
00:03:16popular
00:03:16salon downtown we are at nancy's salon this is the strand this is where i come every three weeks to
00:03:25have her do her magic
00:03:28nancy clicked with everybody she just had that amazing gift of just
00:03:34openness kindness just generous
00:03:39and she passed on her amazing gift to her daughter amanda who now is my stylist
00:03:47do you have a a favorite photograph uh this one my mom and i what makes this photograph so special
00:03:56we had a special bond i was her first born and it just really shows that relationship that we had
00:04:02sums it all up how would you describe your mom what was she like she liked to have fun she
00:04:10liked to do
00:04:10things she was active we were always doing stuff going here going there with the horses the animals
00:04:26she loved riding it was calming to her and she loved being out in nature with the horses
00:04:34you and your mother you share this talent for hairdressing passion for horseback riding but also a
00:04:42belief in a particular faith well she raised me as one of jehovah's witnesses and um she had very
00:04:50strong morals and raised me to be a good person
00:04:56nancy was always a devout jehovah's witness
00:05:02we believe that the earth will be made new again we believe that god
00:05:07created it for a purpose and he's going to make a beautiful paradise again
00:05:12amanda's parents robert and nancy purchased the property on el faro road in 2006.
00:05:18it was a fixer-upper and they were going to have this project and make it their home
00:05:23but eventually they decided to turn this property into a vacation rental
00:05:28home my dad was a contractor and they made it beautiful they remodeled it and worked really hard
00:05:36on it so you come in you'd see this two-story victorian home wrap around porches and this willow
00:05:42tree that you parked under what did nancy name the property uh it was called paradise ranch because
00:05:49she had the hope of being in paradise the hope that the bible gives us
00:05:56on friday may 4th this big group of wedding guests check into paradise ranch for a weekend
00:06:02wedding at a local winery the bride who found the place online is staying there with her bridesmaids
00:06:08and some close friends she asked us not to show her face or reveal her name we wanted to do
00:06:15a vineyard
00:06:16wedding in paso robles it was a special place to us paradise ranch seemed perfect when we saw the
00:06:24pictures the main house was very large and welcoming and just charming and then the guest house was where i
00:06:35was staying and that was also just very quaint and cute nancy came by the guest house and introduced
00:06:45herself she was very warm and welcoming and gave me a hug and she was so kind and
00:06:54she mentioned that she was staying close by on the property
00:07:01and then on saturday may 5th you received a phone call that concerned you what did you learn on that
00:07:09call my mom had not shown up for a bible study and that was very unusual i had her neighbor
00:07:16go over
00:07:17there to check on her she said the door's wide open the tv's blaring and you better come over here
00:07:28what did you see when you first approached your mother's apartment everything was there as she
00:07:36left it but she wasn't there there was a stain on the carpet
00:07:42her sheets and her bedding were missing i looked closer at the walls and when i saw what looked to
00:07:51be
00:07:52splatter on the walls that's when i grabbed the phone and called 9-1-1 9-1-1 address of
00:07:59your emergency
00:08:00uh yeah we have a missing person uh my mother-in-law has not been heard of or seen today
00:08:08did you see anything else strange when you went in the house yes what there seems to be blood all
00:08:13over
00:08:13her pillow okay there's 20 plus guests staying in the big house and there's a wedding party and
00:08:20there's a wedding party that was there this weekend yes i was so excited getting ready for my wedding day
00:08:28and a couple family members came by and i just remember have you seen my mom have you seen our
00:08:37mom
00:08:38and something about blood and i freaked out
00:08:45i just asked if they had seen my mom today and no one had seen her and what's your state
00:08:51of mind at
00:08:51this point panicky shaky and frantic
00:08:56amanda is frantically looking for her mother the cops are on the property looking for clues but at
00:09:03the same time that this is going on down the road an eagle-eyed officer makes a discovery that could
00:09:09break the case open what was extremely suspicious in my mind just really quadrupled
00:09:40my name is clinton cole i'm a reserve detective with the san luis obispo county sheriff's office
00:09:50i live in a house with my girlfriend and three dogs and two birds
00:09:58hi little bird
00:10:01i usually get up pretty early i have coffee i get the dogs outside my feet home and then just
00:10:08kind of
00:10:10just relax
00:10:12in 2018 i was a senior deputy with the sheriff's office that saturday it was may so it was pretty
00:10:21nice day when i received a phone call from my sergeant at the time asking if i was available for
00:10:28a
00:10:29suspicious missing persons case
00:10:35i got in my truck and was told that i needed to start heading to el faro road
00:10:42so that's what i did is i started towards that location
00:10:51what did you first see as you pulled up to the property i saw this very large white house
00:10:58i met with the first responding deputy and the on-call detective sergeant senior deputy degnan came over
00:11:08he said this is very suspicious something's very wrong here i could sense by his demeanor his voice that
00:11:17this was not good
00:11:20you're making your way around the property and then finally you approach nancy's cottage right here
00:11:26what's the first thing you see i see this door is open as it is now
00:11:33no signs of a forced entry
00:11:40so this is inside nancy's cottage here what were the first red flags that you saw as you walked in
00:11:47well when i first walked in right here below me was two large blood spots
00:11:55blood stains right here right here on the floor
00:12:00and then over here there was a bench and on that bench was nancy's purse car keys her cell phone
00:12:09her ipad
00:12:14her two vehicles were parked out there there was a pillow sitting here a beige pillow that had blood
00:12:21on it and there was blood spatter on that cabinet as well as on nancy's headboard and against the back
00:12:31wall
00:12:33what are all these signals telling you about what happened in this cottage i felt immediately that
00:12:40she was taken against her will you thought this was a crime scene absolutely right away
00:12:48while investigators are on the property looking for any clues they can find down the road that evening
00:12:56a huge discovery is made that changes the entire case's direction we received a phone call from an
00:13:06officer with the california highway patrol who had located some bedding and clothing about six or seven
00:13:15miles from nancy's house on la ponza road
00:13:21so this area here is where items were located by the california highway patrol those items consisted of
00:13:31bedding a pillow
00:13:36a dress a woman's dress a pair of shorts and a shirt we obviously wanted to find out if they
00:13:46were related
00:13:51all of the evidence is brought back and secured in the crime lab annex
00:13:59when i opened everything up we looked at all of the evidence more thoroughly what struck me with this
00:14:08bedding was that there were stains that appeared to be blood stains the gingham type print was consistent
00:14:18with the remaining bedding that was at el faro these items were located on la ponza along with the bedding
00:14:27and this was two of the clothing items my thought was that nancy was wrapped in part of the bedding
00:14:37and transported whether it be that she was deceased or whether it be that she was severely injured
00:14:45we showed these items to her daughter who confirmed in fact these items did come from nancy's bedroom
00:14:57did you recognize them immediately
00:15:02yep it was her stuff i think that's when i knew that something really bad had happened and
00:15:14it wasn't going to be good
00:15:19that's when i knew in my heart we need to find her and we need to do it now
00:15:25it's saturday evening and police are trying desperately to figure out who would want to hurt nancy
00:15:30woodrum well suddenly their potential suspect list gets really long because returning to the property
00:15:38from the wedding are all those guests staying at the ranch there were approximately 20 or more guests
00:15:49staying in this large white house and the smaller house these are all potential suspects in the case
00:15:55yes it's very overwhelming we have a missing person on this property and potentially 20 to 24 people that
00:16:04could be suspects but have to be interviewed now you have a suspect pool of 20 plus people that
00:16:13you've got to ask yourself is this a thing where someone came into town for a wedding and became
00:16:18involved in the crime i really feel like you can help us because i feel like you have may have
00:16:24seen
00:16:34something
00:16:35so you're searching all around the property essentially every square inch and then something
00:16:46catches your attention in the driveway about right here i had noticed what appeared to be two fresh tire
00:16:53tracks that had pulled in and were in here and is where we're standing right below us here i noticed
00:17:01what appeared to be scuffle marks as if there was a fight between two people with the with their feet
00:17:08the scene spoke very loudly to me that nancy was assaulted inside of her bedroom and then taken somewhere
00:17:17against her will
00:17:25i saw a pillow on the bed to be honest i wasn't as focused on that as much as i
00:17:33was kind of the rest of
00:17:35the room janine did an excellent job of getting up on top of a ladder to look down and that's
00:17:43when she was
00:17:44able to see what looked like a handprint from up above when i looked directly down i really thought
00:17:50the pattern of it stood out as being a partial handprint the one side that had a lot of blood
00:17:58most likely was against a person that was bleeding and the other side that had just the handprint
00:18:06was that this could very well be the weapon that was used to suffocate or smother so investigators
00:18:14swabbed this pillow right in the middle of the bloodstain of the bloody hand for dna and sent it off
00:18:21to a lab
00:18:25i was at the property when people started coming back from the wedding so yes we have just this huge
00:18:34list of potential suspects persons of interest whatever you want to call them that had ready access to nancy
00:18:45so paradise ranch is so remote that there just wouldn't be anybody else around to have access to nancy
00:18:52to harm her so it's logical that you would look right at the wedding party for potential suspects to
00:18:58see if maybe anybody have something to do with this you need to talk to every single one of them
00:19:05absolutely well we had a search want for the entire property as the wedding guests start coming
00:19:11and they're being told you're not allowed in here some of them had children you know my diapers
00:19:16my food my baby's food the scene became a little chaotic is it even possible for us to be able
00:19:23to come
00:19:23back later and go to sleep there what i'm gonna do right now is go find out what the answers
00:19:28to those
00:19:29questions are for you what was the bride's reaction when you told her what was going on here she was
00:19:37very
00:19:37emotional she was upset i was in complete shock and horrified and could not believe that this was
00:19:48happening to nancy who i had just met and she was so kind and lovely it's extremely frustrating to us
00:19:58that you can see how close this house is to nancy's residence so you would think someone would hear a
00:20:05car
00:20:05drive up a scream or something but no witnesses of over 24 people heard a thing anything unusual happen
00:20:16that you guys noticed in any way with anybody no not anything out of the ordinary so the bride
00:20:25is just sleeping on the other side of the wall from nancy's apartment as hard as it is to believe
00:20:30nancy's door is here it was open and right next door only one wall separating the two was where the
00:20:40bride was sleeping and she said she did not hear anything i you know went into the guest house and
00:20:48then my girlfriends and i were doing like face masks and stuff um and then we went to bed at
00:20:54about like 11 15
00:20:56um did my usual thing where i pop in my earplugs and um go to bed
00:21:07keep in mind that police believe that nancy actually went missing the evening before
00:21:15and then they learned that that wedding party that had been staying on the property
00:21:19they were at the rehearsal dinner until late that night
00:21:28we went straight to the rehearsal dinner because i had cass winery okay and got back from that
00:21:38around 10 30. i would say at like midnight we all went to bed so there was one wedding guest
00:21:46that
00:21:46uh we couldn't 100 account for him being at the rehearsal dinner i wasn't in the wedding or
00:21:55anything so i pretty much just hung out in the house so you were here the whole time yeah okay
00:22:00he wasn't clear whether he was here possibly alone with uh nancy woodrum or did he in fact go
00:22:11to the event at the wedding and so that raised some concerns and so we had to take extra time
00:22:19and speak to him again uh the next day we're just trying to figure out what happened and you know
00:22:26i would love to be helpful but i don't i don't have anything else like i this is just kind
00:22:32of
00:22:33this is onerous at this point all of a sudden this guy now is like
00:22:41not wanting to cooperate you know usually people who aren't involved bend over backwards for you
00:22:48i really need your help um i don't want to impact your day i don't want to impact your work
00:22:53we can do
00:22:54it after work um i prefer not to i feel like you have may have seen something and i haven't
00:23:05and so that immediately uh was a red flag for us and it was still confusing we needed to clear
00:23:16it up as
00:23:16as soon as possible now detectives decide they're gonna go for round three with this particular guest
00:23:26and this time they go right to his home and they intend to come back with two things
00:23:31and explanation and some dna we knew we had to get this interview done with or without his permission
00:23:42or at least try to and did not let him know we were coming and we went to the front
00:23:48door and knocked on
00:23:49the door well how are you do you want to come in absolutely
00:24:25there was one wedding guest whose whereabouts the night nancy woodrum disappeared were questionable
00:24:34so we went to his residence in northern california to try and confirm his whereabouts that night
00:24:49hey i just got your call awesome hey just wanted to uh just ask you a few more questions if
00:24:54you
00:24:54don't mind sure you want to come in absolutely yeah i'm dave good to meet you i'm clint nice to
00:25:00meet
00:25:00you have a seat absolutely he was no longer resistive he was very cooperative actually appeared to feel
00:25:11bad for the way he had talked on the phone we just had a couple more uh questions to clarify
00:25:18and then
00:25:18just um a picture so did you go to the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner or did you stay no
00:25:25i went
00:25:25to both or sorry i went to the rehearsal dinner not the rehearsal i think there were a few pictures
00:25:30on my wife's phone that you can see of me like at the rehearsal dinner i can show you pictures
00:25:34from
00:25:34the property like his wife remembered to show us photos at the rehearsal dinner on friday
00:25:45so the confusion that he stayed back was immediately erased it was very frustrating time for us all right
00:25:54thank you sir thank you the wedding guest who wasn't legally obligated to participate in the investigation
00:26:00also agreed to submit a dna sample while all of this is happening police are ramping up their efforts
00:26:07now to find nancy this shocking disappearance makes huge news in the paso robles community deputies are
00:26:14expanding their search asking nearby residents for security footage 62 year old nancy woodrum has been
00:26:20missing since friday afternoon we're leveraging all of our resources to to do the best we can to figure out
00:26:27where nancy may have gone and what took place this search is playing out all through these foothills and
00:26:34along the riverbed there's a riverbed right behind nancy's property line we had search and rescue
00:26:40search all of this area out towards the riverbed the exterior parts of nancy's property
00:26:52we also utilize helicopter to come in and search at a high level for signs bodies anything like that
00:27:02we had a very good group of friends that were very close to us and they would go out
00:27:10and go search go down la ponza go down 58 we'd look through everything the culverts everything and what
00:27:18was going through my mind is nancy's a tough girl and i know that she's a fighter and i'm like
00:27:27she's alive we
00:27:28will find her and she's gonna be okay during the investigation we developed another lead
00:27:37so not only were the wedding guests on the property but we learned that there was
00:27:45a fairly large number of other people that had access to nancy woodrum's property
00:27:53uh at the time she went missing
00:28:01nancy had decided to sell paradise ranch it was too much work for her she was having work done on
00:28:06her
00:28:06house to assist with the sale of the home why did nancy decide to sell paradise ranch because she
00:28:13wanted to preach full-time she really wanted to teach people about the bible and share her hope with other
00:28:21people
00:28:25there were contractors painters plumbers all doing repair work to finalize the sale of nancy's residence
00:28:34you needed to talk to all of them absolutely every single person that was on this property within the
00:28:39last couple weeks had to be located and interviewed
00:28:47one of the pieces of evidence left behind was nancy's ipad case and all around it were pamphlets and
00:28:53notes and numbers and there was one of a painter and the name was carlo fuentes and a phone number
00:29:02and so we decided that we should call carlo fuentes since he was on scene and see if he saw
00:29:11anything that
00:29:13hadn't been reported yet hi i'm calling because we're investigating the disappearance of nancy woodrum
00:29:20do you remember when you were there on that thursday um do you remember if nancy nancy was there
00:29:29yes she was dead he was very cooperative very friendly with detective cole did you see nancy like
00:29:35having an argument or disagreement with anybody you know what to be honest i didn't notice anything
00:29:41like that and i remember she told me oh you are a hard worker and uh and then she gave
00:29:48me a tamale
00:29:50and amanda mentioned the name of sean bloom who's a general contractor who had worked on the house
00:29:55and she reported that nancy and mr bloom had had some dispute over work that had been performed
00:30:01and it had become uh quite heated and quite contentious how would you characterize the relationship
00:30:07between your mother and sean bloom sean was very frustrated he eventually got fired he did not get
00:30:12payment until escrow closed for the work that he had done up to that point like he wanted his money
00:30:18sean bloom uh was definitely a person of interest in one of the first couple of people that we called
00:30:26in to be interviewed once we were done with the wedding party actually i don't like working with nancy
00:30:32it's been very difficult we had issues where nancy was not happy with our work fired me off the job
00:30:38okay um when was the last time you talked to nancy i was doing a really better text to have
00:30:46it here
00:30:48all the text messages between him and nancy made no denials about his dislike of nancy
00:30:56and what was the nature of this text um let's see here so i said if i don't get payment
00:31:03quickly i'm
00:31:04beginning with lawsuits against you and everybody involved we're asking everyone we talked to do
00:31:09you mind providing what we call a buckle swab and see if there's any dna that might be associated
00:31:17i i hear what you're saying um i'm gonna say let me talk to my attorney so we were like
00:31:22all right well
00:31:23he won't give his dna without talking to his attorney one he's just being cautious or two he's concerned so
00:31:31which is
00:31:45nancy grew up in san fernando valley at 18 years old she already obtained her cosmetology license
00:31:53and wanted to do more fashionable hairstyles and so she commuted to woodland hills
00:31:59where she worked in a exclusive salon neil diamond's wife came in she did kenny rogers she always liked
00:32:09to let everybody know that by 21 she owned her own home and had a corvette
00:32:12and then she met her husband robert who was your quintessential southern california surfer
00:32:29she moved up here in 1991 and it was the three of us kids my parents and we moved from
00:32:37woodland hills to the central coast area
00:32:39i understand that there were a number of tragedies um that struck the family
00:32:48um so in between me and my brother chad uh there was another baby christopher
00:32:55my brother michael and um he was 10 days old when he died he was born with a blockage in
00:33:01his intestines
00:33:01and then your your sister she passed away shortly before her 18th birthday
00:33:09nancy's daughter amy passed away from cystic fibrosis amy was a great person and um
00:33:18it really broke my parents heart yeah it was sad and i understand then um you lost your father
00:33:29suddenly yeah unexpectedly yeah what happened to him he had a heart attack
00:33:36and collapsed as he was getting into my car
00:33:39it was hard it was very traumatic how did nancy cope with all of these tragedies she had really
00:33:47strong faith in god and a good hope that she was going to see her loved ones again
00:33:52and that really got her through after suffering through all these tragedies now nancy herself
00:33:59has vanished into thin air and her loved ones are hoping against hope that somehow she'll turn up
00:34:05alive and well family's obviously anxious the investigators are anxious they're trying to
00:34:11figure out what happened the community's interested is this going to happen to somebody else we know
00:34:19that a timeline is essential to a detective and about a week into their investigation they make a
00:34:25critical discovery that's going to tell them exactly the time that nancy went missing at midnight 17
00:34:34there was a 911 call that showed up on the bill for zero seconds meaning it didn't go through
00:34:41it gets shut off somehow like in a split second like very quickly what that did was provide
00:34:47what appeared to be a pretty good uh time and date stamp on when um you know something bad may
00:34:54have
00:34:54happened nancy approximately 12 days within the investigation we got a big lead the lab informed us
00:35:07that they had developed unknown male dna on the pillow that we submitted from nancy's bed they submitted to the
00:35:18state database codis but no matches were found which meant that the person whose dna this was had no record
00:35:28to our surprise several days later sean bloom contacted us and submitted his dna voluntarily
00:35:38which cleared him as a suspect the dna results also cleared that wedding guest who police initially found
00:35:47suspicious but as they started digging deeper into the case they found something surprising that has
00:35:53investigators wondering whether this was a highly personal crime with a possible suspect much closer to
00:35:59home in terms of looking at all potential suspects or persons of interest there was information that
00:36:07was provided that she potentially had conflict with her son i'm going to be honest with you i haven't
00:36:13talked to my mother face to face i think my brother had a lot of anger growing up he did
00:36:22not want to be part of
00:36:23the religion that we were in which was his decision and um but he he was angry about it and
00:36:31she tends to
00:36:32correct our teachings you know about god and we can do different things and that's when i kind of just
00:36:38squash the relationship how bitter or challenging did the relationship
00:36:43become between chad and your mother nancy at the point of her disappearance it was not good they
00:36:49hadn't spoken in quite a while and my mom was not allowed to see his kids but nancy and chad
00:36:57were
00:36:57texting each other the night right before she disappeared yeah she was reaching out to my brother
00:37:04trying to just get on common ground maybe with him that way
00:37:10he was the last text to her that she had in her phone he said he doesn't trust cops and
00:37:18that he's not coming to the station we were welcome to come to his house and interview him
00:37:24so we did and he refused to give his dna and he was adamant about it can i mention the
00:37:33the dna
00:37:33samples it would just solely be specifically for this investigation i've uh i've heard of cases of
00:37:41misappropriated um samples and you know it can ruin people's lives and unless it's unless it's mandatory
00:37:48i strongly uh i strongly stand by my decision so we surveilled him we watched him drink five or six
00:37:57beers he put the empties in the cab of his truck and then he drove home chad was stopped and
00:38:05arrested
00:38:05for driving with an open container while the charge was dropped those beer bottles were sent to the lab
00:38:11for dna testing chad ultimately was cleared by dna the case kind of did stall because you got a lot
00:38:21of people we've looked into up to this point and we're not getting a lot of traction was there a
00:38:26point when you felt like you were you're desperate for news right we just wanted to figure this out i
00:38:32was more than willing to help no one knew where nancy was and needed needed something to break
00:38:39detectives are about to throw a hail mary they're going to use a relatively new crime fighting tool
00:38:45one this department has never used if it's successful they'll be able to find out who was in nancy's
00:38:52cottage at the very moment she disappeared i'm excited we've got something to go on now
00:39:14i always remember nancy liking the old country music we'd always be playing music either at nancy's
00:39:21house or my family's house and it was a big part of our lives
00:39:30every summer they would set up a concert series and nancy volunteered her property for this it just
00:39:37was a music party and everyone would dance and she loved that this was one of her favorite songs
00:39:48that she liked when i sang and it's called syrup and honey by duffy
00:39:57don't you be wasting all your money don't you be wasting all your money on syrup and honey
00:40:11it'd be good
00:40:20we just kind of came to the conclusion that we might never know what happened to her
00:40:30it was really tough and i it was tough for me but her daughter and child like i and her
00:40:38grandkids like
00:40:39i thought it was hard
00:40:45we are definitely very frustrated
00:40:50the public was unhappy they felt like we weren't doing anything they felt like we weren't working
00:40:56the case we were working on it every single day the case kind of did stall because came the point
00:41:02where we sort of ran out of investigative leads other avenues had to be explored and one of the
00:41:08detectives had recently heard about this novel type of evidence called geofencing
00:41:16so you've hit a wall in the investigation you decide you're going to try something new
00:41:20called geofencing and this is something that really hasn't been done in california before
00:41:25at that time yes we were one of the first agencies in the state of california
00:41:31that did this what is called a google geofence
00:41:38you can put a fence a virtual fence around an area a house a property and google will track which
00:41:48google accounts emails or cell phones come within that fence in a given period of time
00:41:54these are actually gps coordinates that you send to google yes you're essentially able to isolate
00:42:02not necessarily who's on the property but what devices may be on the property and that's giving
00:42:07you an avenue to now investigate it doesn't matter what kind of phone you have iphone android google
00:42:16is tracking you that is correct as long as location services are on on your cellular device google is
00:42:26tracking that phone and you in order to obtain google geofence information search warrants needed to be
00:42:34written and served upon google for a very specific time period now remember because of that interrupted
00:42:45911 call at 12 17 a.m well that gives detectives a timeline to work with as to when she
00:42:52went missing
00:42:53then google sends the results and what do you see what you're seeing here is what we got back so
00:43:00this is
00:43:00your first fence some people feel that there are privacy concerns paradise ranch is in a rural area
00:43:09and there are not going to be a lot of unknown people who are going to be located in this
00:43:14geofence
00:43:14so little by little we're zooming in here these are the phones associated with the wedding guests
00:43:19that is correct the larger circle here within this circle is all wedding guests and it looks like there's
00:43:27four yeah 20 plus wedding guests correct the reason their phones aren't showing is their phones are probably
00:43:33kind of in silent mode sleeping no apps are being used so that's why you only see four and just
00:43:40to be
00:43:40clear this number this is not a phone number correct correct google assigns each cell phone its own device
00:43:50device number the device number is right here and that is specific to whoever owns that phone it's like a
00:43:57fingerprint
00:43:59by now all the wedding guests have been cleared so those numbers are not really the major focus of detectives
00:44:09what is the major focus is what they see when they examine nancy's cottage
00:44:15as we get here that is actually nancy's studio and we see a cell phone what we call pinging
00:44:27basically right in the wall of nancy's studio it pings here at 1 33 in the morning and at 0
00:44:351 52 hours
00:44:36and that's the time when you believe nancy disappear that is 100 when we believe nancy uh disappeared
00:44:45i can tell you from my perspective i'm excited we've got something we've got something to go on now
00:44:50could it have been nancy's phone we don't know but what we do know is it's at strange odd hours
00:44:58and it's inside her studio
00:45:03so this is a potentially huge moment in the investigation either that phone belongs to nancy
00:45:09and it's another dead end or it belongs to someone else you get a name and that person becomes your
00:45:15most likely killer 100 percent either that device leads us to a suspect or we are back to
00:45:23absolutely nothing square one yes
00:45:40for months it's been a daunting mystery
00:45:46who could have taken nancy woodrum from her beautiful paso robles property in california
00:45:51and in the middle of a wedding where more than 20 guests were staying but thanks to geofencing
00:45:56this cell phone tracking technology investigators finally have their first big clue so this is a key
00:46:04moment in the investigation you have this huge piece of evidence a cell phone inside nancy's cottage
00:46:10you have to figure out who it belongs to what's next we have to write another set of warrant for
00:46:16the
00:46:16subscriber information so it starts the the ball rolling but there's still a fair amount of waiting
00:46:24you know wait for the data sometimes it could take a few weeks
00:46:29it's in november
00:46:33i'm in the courthouse and my phone rings
00:46:38it's my partner and they said you're not gonna believe this we got a name of who owned that device
00:46:46and it is carlo fuentes a name you recognize the painter yes carlo fuentes was painting
00:46:55at nancy's residence numerous times prior to her going missing
00:47:03wait a minute the painter well this is a shock to investigators because remember they had already
00:47:09interviewed carlo fuentes flores earlier this guy was cooperative and mild manner and there was no
00:47:17reason to suspect him then but now there's a reason we know it's his phone we know he's there
00:47:22we know he had that opportunity because he's familiar with the property he was familiar with nancy's
00:47:27habits all those things added up there's not a reasonable explanation why anybody would be out
00:47:36doing painting at that time of night it's looking like he's at least somebody needs to be talked to
00:47:40again so once we get carlo identified we need to know as much as we can about him what did
00:47:48you find
00:47:49we spoke to people that he painted for and friends seemed like a normal just a normal guy who had
00:47:56come
00:47:56here from mexico he was one of those guys so you'd want on your team worked on and off for
00:48:06me for 20 years
00:48:06he just had a good way of communicating which is you know kind of rare in the trades seemed very
00:48:13neat
00:48:14you know tidy painter and professional he was great with clients very polite and uh courteous
00:48:22just loved being a dad he was you know loved his daughter like just raved about his daughter
00:48:29he was a father a husband you know and by all accounts was someone who was just
00:48:33leading a normal life the geofence it was not enough to arrest him at the time
00:48:40in large part because it's simply a phone it doesn't prove that carlo fuentes flores was in
00:48:46possession of his phone at that time the phone could have been in the possession of somebody else
00:48:52you looked into his criminal record anything there there was absolutely nothing in his criminal
00:48:57record either in mexico or the united states we found no indication that he had a criminal history
00:49:02anywhere it was um really kind of a surprise that way he wasn't in a romantic relationship with her
00:49:08there was not a dispute over funds there was simply no connection or explanation for why
00:49:17this normal person would try to hurt nancy now this is quite baffling to detectives because
00:49:24their initial findings just don't fit the pattern of a suspect in a brutal crime
00:49:29it isn't adding up why carlos phone was at nancy's cottage that is until they do a deep dive into
00:49:39his
00:49:40google search history and find something surprising you found something unexpected yes he was doing google
00:49:48searches for cougar in sexy lingerie videos that's odd that is odd yes as you can see cougar lingerie porn
00:49:57videos
00:49:58uh sexy cougars this has a theme to it that is tied to our case nancy woodrum was older than
00:50:07carlo fuentes by
00:50:08about 15 20 years and this is cougar porn he clearly has a thing for older women based on his
00:50:16google search
00:50:16history absolutely as we went further into his google search history we found where he was searching for
00:50:26for escorts in different cities that he was in and did he connect with any of these women we believe
00:50:32he did
00:50:32based on some things we found on his cell phone we found numerous videos of him having sex videos that
00:50:42he
00:50:43shot himself with various women yes i would say there was at least 10 to 15 videos so this father
00:50:50this
00:50:51his husband had secrets a lot of deep secrets that most people don't have
00:51:00there was the daytime very nice courteous painter excellent painter great at his job and then there was
00:51:10the night kind of weird fetish drinking too much fuentes flores
00:51:19i noticed after a period of time that he was drinking more and kind of like hooking up with
00:51:25different women there was times where he asked actually to borrow money from me to go to vegas and
00:51:31girls of the night kind of thing he had told me about a call girl he had picked up in
00:51:38las vegas and then
00:51:40there was an older gal that he was seeing so i just told him hey man you're gonna mess it
00:51:45up you know
00:51:46you've got a wife you've got a daughter and so i tried to warn him you know multiple times we
00:51:52needed
00:51:52more evidence to make this an airtight case so we wanted to get carlos dna without letting him know
00:51:59that we were on to him the detectives began surveillance on carlo fuentes floors shortly thereafter
00:52:08in order to get an actual dna sample from him we used our special operations unit because
00:52:16what they do all day long is surveillances of people and drug dealers and gang members
00:52:23well we know carlo is not a drug dealer and not a gang member but he's now on those officer
00:52:29sites
00:52:31he has no clue what's going to happen to him next
00:52:46so now investigators have that geofencing evidence showing carlo fuentes flores's phone
00:52:52at the crime scene and they've also got his search history of porn and escorts but thereafter more
00:53:00conclusive proof that he did something to nancy woodrum a dna match to that bloody pillow
00:53:08so we followed him and he went to a local restaurant
00:53:15had lunch with his wife and left a coke bottle that he drank out of on the table
00:53:24and when it's in a public place then we can take it without a warrant
00:53:29they retrieved this coke bottle they took it to the dna lab they had the dna pulled on it and
00:53:38it matched
00:53:39the dna that we had on the pillow it's a match and it's a critical moment in this investigation
00:53:48detectives are now closing in on carlo fuentes flores
00:53:55so once we received the confirmation that it was carlo's dna in the bloody handprint
00:54:02we needed to talk to carlo when you need to hear his side of the story
00:54:07yeah thank you for uh being on being on time
00:54:12this is the room where you interrogated carlo fuentes yes it is um this is the room my partner
00:54:18dave was here with me i was off off to this side you're asking him a variety of questions and
00:54:24in
00:54:25this clip here you're asking about his job painting at the property what exactly were you guys painting
00:54:31like the deck the trim fascia boards no it was the deck the on the big house yeah on the
00:54:36big house
00:54:37so you then start showing him pictures of the property so that's what you consider the big main
00:54:42house yes and that's where you did a lot of work and the decks back here yes and you used
00:54:46the bathroom
00:54:47in there and how we use there's a bathroom in the main house and uh down below and then um
00:54:52we use a
00:54:53bathroom in this area right here what were you trying to do there what we're doing is we're putting
00:55:00him on the property we wanted to know that he knew where nancy's studio was they're looking for things
00:55:07that that person's going to tell them that is not true and presumably that person has no idea what we
00:55:15know did you know where nancy stayed to be honest i didn't even know that she was staying in that
00:55:20in
00:55:21that area he was painting for nancy and she was nice to him and gave him tamales and they read
00:55:28scripture together and then he doesn't know what happened with her what have you heard about you know
00:55:34what happened to her we just the only stuff i heard like it was from my boss i mean from
00:55:38my boss like
00:55:39that she just disappeared and that's it and then um we never like uh heard anything else
00:55:46so at this point in the interrogation he's saying he doesn't know anything about what happened to nancy
00:55:51but then you start applying a little more pressure yes that was a plan of ours please don't take this
00:55:57the wrong way but are you in any way involved with nancy missing oh no no any reason why anyone
00:56:04would say
00:56:05that well because i i i there's no reason yeah there's no reason now they ratchet up the pressure
00:56:14they let carlo know they have dna evidence and they don't buy his story we've done a very thorough
00:56:22investigation we spent thousands thousands of hours on this case because we waited for all of the
00:56:31evidence we were able to say no we know you came back we know a lot of stuff we're giving
00:56:40you a chance
00:56:41now all right to change your story and be honest with us okay if if you um have something else
00:56:49that
00:56:50you'd like to tell us at that moment in my opinion he knew we knew it was no longer what
00:56:58do they know
00:56:59it was oh no they know and you could see his body change oh my god i want to be
00:57:12honest with you guys
00:57:14i know that um i made a mistake i made a mistake i could literally see my heart beating in
00:57:23my shirt
00:57:24there's just a million things going through your head but they aren't expecting what he says next
00:57:33fuentes flores admits he killed nancy but he says it was an accident when he went to the house to
00:57:40retrieve some equipment i went back and get uh one of the ladders i supposed to be getting for the
00:57:47next job
00:57:47he said when he went and loaded the ladder up and he was backing up he didn't know she had
00:57:53walked up
00:57:54behind him and he ran her over so you said you're saying you hit her with your car your truck
00:57:59okay and
00:58:00then i took her back in in the place and uh and that's when she collapsed it was an accident
00:58:07i hit her
00:58:08her i took her inside to help her but then you start getting down a road where he probably realized
00:58:14he could only lie so much at that point
00:58:20please tell us what happened all right okay so um i got sex with her i got sex with her
00:58:32this was the first time in the interview when my jaw really hit the floor how did you have sex
00:58:38with
00:58:38i mean tell me how that transpired i i was drunk i was drunk did she invite you over there
00:58:44or did you
00:58:45just show up and no i just show up there and then just to go and get the ladder he
00:58:50said no she didn't
00:58:51know i was coming over and if we know it was not consensual and it was a rape and she's
00:58:56dead
00:58:57then we have a special circumstance murder case but what they don't know is where is nancy can we
00:59:06try and see if we can find where you took her you actually bring in an ipad and you're hoping
00:59:14he can
00:59:14point out on a map where you can find nancy yes and instead this stunning moment when he offers to
00:59:22take you to her body he did do you guys don't mind that i would like to take you i
00:59:28would like to take
00:59:29you we would like you to do that to you all right
00:59:52when carlo fuentes flores told us that he would take us to nancy woodrum's body we placed him in a
01:00:00car and he directed us due east from the templeton substation so the detectives went in one car and i
01:00:09went in a car right behind them as we drove from paso robles the journey from the police stations was
01:00:16about an hour it goes from more arable land in paso robles to kind of a more desert topography
01:00:23out to the chorizo plain which is just on the border with kern county
01:00:27i'm thinking wow that's going to be a tough find when you have something even buried something in that
01:00:33area animals dig it up so you don't expect a lot carlo fuentes flores's demeanor on the ride was very
01:00:44subdued quiet i know that you guys just doing your job and i wish that it could be forward like
01:00:50a long
01:00:51time ago because this time it has been killing me right you know the longer we were driving with carlo
01:01:01so the more frustrating it was becoming we didn't feel like he was playing games with us but this
01:01:09is difficult territory to remember anything and so there was a time where we felt like maybe he
01:01:15wouldn't remember where he put her how far off of the road was she oh it wasn't that far probably
01:01:23like
01:01:23a hundred feet we can check like this area right here you think it might be in here
01:01:31we can check on this area
01:01:35i think everyone behind us who was following us were like okay what's the deal can he find her
01:01:43the anxiety is tremendous it was something like this and i even remember like there was a car coming
01:01:51and i had to bend down and then there's gonna be a pile or rocks around her
01:01:59can we try a different spot yeah if you don't i mean if you don't think it's this one then
01:02:06right
01:02:07i hadn't brought a jacket and i remember being so cold and i remember thinking how is anybody going
01:02:14to ever find anything in that grass i remember looking at them just walking in circles thinking
01:02:21is nancy going to be here he had stopped at four or five different locations
01:02:28here pull over right here we were unable to locate the spot that carlo said he placed nancy
01:02:35i started feeling like he may not be able to remember seems like a long ways to bring her
01:02:42yeah you think we came this far and then we went to the next location
01:02:48location and it looked the same as the first location which when doubt creeped into my mind
01:02:55again thinking how is anybody going to tell this location from the last location
01:03:13so we stopped about right here
01:03:19and i looked off over to my right over this way
01:03:23and i saw some rocks rocks i don't know six or eight inches
01:03:29that were kind of stacked in a circle that looked completely out of place
01:03:34so i turned to carlo who was to my left i said are those the rocks you're describing
01:03:42he looked over and said words to the effect oh my god yes
01:03:50he fell to his knees started crying
01:04:06i saw what i believed to be a partial leg bone about 18 inches or so in length and some
01:04:16other
01:04:16smaller bones what looked like some vertebrae bones i could see a human skull
01:04:22and i saw a human skull which was right up into this area
01:04:29about right here just laying on the ground
01:04:37quite a few remains fairly close together but missing a lot
01:04:44and because of the animal activity in the area her remains could be scattered
01:04:51for a mile and it made me feel sad for her family and knowing that anytime a loved one is
01:05:00missing just the emotional trauma but also knowing that she was left in such a remote area by herself
01:05:10in the middle of the night it always has bothered me that he didn't even have the courtesy to bury
01:05:20her
01:05:20i looked back over at him and my partner over there i was angry this is treacherous wilderness to
01:05:29just leave a body out in the open once he found nancy's body his demeanor changed
01:05:37can you give me a big favor it depends on what it is carlo
01:05:43i wish that you could
01:05:47talk to my little one and tell her that
01:06:08and i think he knew he wasn't going to go home again he was emotional he appeared to be
01:06:19contrite and sad
01:06:31and once we had that body my mind immediately went towards
01:06:35okay we have to confront him again what do we need him to say and what charges do i need
01:06:41to try
01:06:41and prove and then when we got back to the interview room back an hour later
01:06:45then he told us what really happened i'm not even uh live let's be honest with you guys
01:07:05i could see a human skull after we located nancy woodrum's remains
01:07:20we took carlo back to the sheriff's north station in templeton where we were hoping to get a complete
01:07:29story about how he killed nancy woodrum investigators already know a lot about where carlo was before nancy
01:07:38was killed and that's because of all the tracking they had been doing of his movements this animation shows
01:07:45where carlo was going throughout the day and evening yes he's now traveling up to
01:07:51paso robles and there's a church in a commercial building wait carlo goes to church on the night nancy
01:07:58disappeared yes church was not in session because it's almost midnight but yes he pulls into the parking lot
01:08:07and he stays there for 20 30 minutes he was sitting there in a church parking lot chilling evidence as
01:08:15he's probably pondering whether he's going to go to nancy's or not and now he's way out here on highway
01:08:2246
01:08:24headed towards nancy's house so his phone is pinging along the way and that's what's sort of drawing
01:08:32out this map and showing all of his movements that night that's correct you'll see the little dots there
01:08:39he's getting closer to nancy's residence so 14 minutes after midnight was the last location data that google
01:08:47got the reason that is so important at midnight 14 is a 911 call was attempted at midnight 17.
01:09:00when we got back to the sheriff's north station we went into the same interrogation room and began
01:09:07questioning carlo again so you went into this lighting through the sliding glass door yes that's when
01:09:14they went inside he finally admitted what we had suspected he came in to nancy's house around 12 15 in
01:09:21the
01:09:21morning morning where was she where was she was she in bed oh yeah she was on bed was she
01:09:27awake yeah did she
01:09:30saw you come in no and then he starts telling a different version about what happened the real story yes
01:09:48he admitted that he went there with the intention of wanting or going to have sex with her
01:09:55and carlo tells you that he believed nancy had been flirting with him she offered him some tamales
01:10:01and he took it as flirting which seemed very very odd it was just something like she was being nice
01:10:10with me and probably that i i took it wrong way he hit her to wake her up which confirmed
01:10:16the blood spatter
01:10:17on the dresser and the walls and he raped her so you intended to kill her so that you didn't
01:10:23get
01:10:23caught for the rape right he goes on to admit that he suffocated nancy with a pillow yes he did
01:10:32after
01:10:32you finished having sex with her how long did it take you to put the pillow over her face
01:10:3945 minutes she didn't suffer it was so so quick he admitted to raping her to smothering her to death
01:10:50but for some reason he wouldn't admit that he hung up the 911 call and you're sure that when you
01:10:59came
01:10:59in she didn't try and dial 9-1-1 and you took the phone away from her you know what
01:11:04i don't remember
01:11:05but i don't think she did yeah i don't think she tried are you really sure i mean i was
01:11:12drunk and uh
01:11:13to be honest i don't remember i don't remember the car how long were you in her house for i
01:11:20was at 40
01:11:21minutes yeah and what did you do during those 40 minutes after you had such a blur i went to
01:11:28uh
01:11:30to put it back on on the truck on the tailgate and uh and i just dropped away
01:11:38the bedding that was found on the side of la ponza road carlo confirmed with us that he had
01:11:48wrapped nancy woodrum's body up in some of that bedding that that was what blew out of his pickup
01:11:55as he was driving out to the carrizo plains it appeared that he was sad that this had happened
01:12:13and that his confession was cathartic in a way and was bringing him some degree of peace would
01:12:20you be willing to write like an apology letter to nancy's children and grandkids and at the end
01:12:27of the interview he actually wrote an apology letter to nancy's family
01:12:32and an apology to his own family within that same letter
01:12:39and once he wrote the apology letter the detectives placed him under arrest
01:12:47what was that like it was a huge relief this clip brings back you know a lot of memories of
01:12:54at that moment justice is going to be served for nancy woodrum i could still see the emotion
01:13:00in your eyes this was just a really sad case
01:13:07this case was just a little more personal for me detective cole presents to you a photograph
01:13:16and a name carlo fuentes flores okay
01:13:23i was like who like who who who who's this we had no idea who it was how could it
01:13:30possibly be the
01:13:30painter right it kind of just opened up more questions like aaron said why just why
01:13:38they found her body what is going through your mind i think there was relief i just wanted to
01:13:45find her we needed to have some closure there's a lot of people who never get answers and i was
01:13:50just
01:13:51thankful that we had answers
01:13:55i mean it's the worst case scenario but knowing that we found her and she's not suffering anymore
01:14:04that was a comfort but it's still something it's really it's a hard pill to swallow
01:14:11it's one of those quiet moments where you you start to cry and just what a she just got so
01:14:18cheated
01:14:19finally got a chance to relax and do what she wants and retire and then this happens too i just
01:14:25thought
01:14:26how how very very unfair
01:14:32now all that remains is a trial prosecutors decide not to go for the death penalty but they're confident
01:14:38they've got a winning case now the defense has something in store and if the judge buys it everything
01:14:45could totally unravel
01:14:55hello this is a prepaid call from carlo an inmate at the san luis obisdo hotel hello hello crystal
01:15:05carlo yes i was responsible for monitoring any jail phone calls that took place involving carlo fuentes
01:15:14flores flores the ones that were of particular interest would have been the phone calls with his
01:15:18wife crystal did you do this carlo yes honey i'm so sorry i don't know why that day i that
01:15:28wasn't even
01:15:29me i was like drunk yeah i i know carlo but you did you did like the worst thing in
01:15:37the whole world
01:15:39i know you did a couple of bad things mixed together which is just crazy crazy
01:15:49despite the compelling evidence from the confession and fuentes flores's police interview
01:15:54and admissions to his wife and recorded jail calls he pleads not guilty and his defense attorney has a
01:16:02strategy that could upend the case the defense team presented a very spirited defense centered on
01:16:10a motion to suppress his recorded interview carlo spoke english with his wife he spoke fantastic english
01:16:18but he was a native spanish speaker and so the defense challenged that the miranda warnings should have
01:16:25been given in spanish or he should have had an interpreter present we wanted him to understand
01:16:32and make sure that he understood what he was doing and so we had set it up do you understand
01:16:40what i'm
01:16:40saying if there's at any point you don't please ask if you have any questions the way i say stuff
01:16:46the way you ask you stuff please tell me it's all right i know something i do uh it's probably
01:16:51not
01:16:51you but as long as you can understand me if you don't just let me know okay all right ultimately
01:16:56the
01:16:56judge denied the defense's motion to suppress and found that the detectives preserved his rights and
01:17:02that they properly mirandized him and interviewed him in english we confessed and then we were able to
01:17:11find her and then thought okay we're done like this is this is the end but no um now there's
01:17:19going
01:17:19to be a huge trial so this case is set for trial in january 2022 and we show up for
01:17:27day one and i
01:17:28see his attorney go and speak with him and his attorney comes back and he says well he wants to
01:17:34just
01:17:34plead to life without parole he doesn't want to put his family through the publicity of a trial
01:17:39normally in a plea deal the defendant waves his right to an appeal but fuentes flores wants to
01:17:45preserve his right so the judge proposes something called a slow plea the prosecutor will still be able
01:17:54to present the evidence but in the end the judge is going to find fuentes flores guilty on all charges
01:18:02so the judge reviewed all of the evidence i submitted and i submitted his recorded interviews
01:18:07his jail calls i wanted to make sure everything was in there just in case and the judge found him
01:18:12guilty of first-degree murder and the special circumstance that the murder was committed during
01:18:17a rape the man who killed the paso robles woman and led investigators to her body will spend life in
01:18:24prison he was found guilty of killing woodrum during a rape and burglary which means he isn't eligible for
01:18:30parole he was given an appropriate sentence in prison so i think in that way that justice was served
01:18:39although the family will truly never have closure as a result of what took place
01:18:47what about the family what about what they're their family yeah they're
01:18:57i know they're never going to get to see her again
01:19:03this is so stupid so stupid so senseless
01:19:12aaron you read the victim impact statement in court what did you and your family want to say to carlo
01:19:22just let him know how he changed our lives you know not the fact that he took her life
01:19:30for nothing just to know let him know that it sickened us and what was the point you know because
01:19:36now he's going to live behind bars for the rest of his life for one foolish night
01:19:48people i feel remember nancy as a strong woman with the biggest heart
01:19:56she survived a lot of heartaches and it made her stronger but it made her heart beautiful
01:20:04the memorial was probably the most beautiful thing
01:20:10it was out at a vineyard on the way out to nancy's property
01:20:16it's a beautiful place
01:20:19there was hundreds of people there and it was just a testament to the person that she was
01:20:29it's a beautiful place
01:20:30these photographs were all displayed at your mother's memorial right yes they really show who
01:20:37she was she loved outdoors she loved the horses she loved being in the barn going camping with the
01:20:44grandkids she was an amazing person she loved god she wanted that to be first in her life and she
01:20:51wanted people to know that and her hope that she had to see her kids again
01:21:01this is the horse that my mom used to ride her name is montana she loved montana
01:21:09my daughter and i now go out on horses together
01:21:14and i usually ride montana and my daughter rides fire so we've passed that down
01:21:19what i once did with my mom now i do with my daughter and that's a good feeling
01:21:23she was a huge part of our life she's my best friend we did everything together
01:21:29every time i ride i think of my mom
01:21:39carrying on that beautiful tradition david detective clint cole says he still feels a connection to nancy's
01:21:45case and keeps in touch with her daughter amanda reaching out to her on may 5th of every year the
01:21:51anniversary of nancy's death we should also point out tonight deborah that carlo fuentes flores appealed
01:21:56his conviction it was denied by the california court of appeals in july of 2023 that's our program for
01:22:02tonight thanks for watching i'm david muir and i'm deborah roberts from all of us here at 2020 and abc
01:22:07news
01:22:08good night
01:22:27good night
01:22:37You
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